GETTING ACQUAINTED
Her opportunity definitely to begin her campaign to lift him up out of
politics finally came. She had been doing something in that direction
almost every day. She must be careful not to alarm his vanity of being
absolute master of his own destiny. The idea of leaving politics and
practising law in New York, must seem to originate and to grow in his
own brain; she would seem to be merely assenting. Also, it was a
delicate matter because the basic reason for the change was money; and
it was her cue as a lady, refined and sensitive and wholly free from
sordidness, so to act that he would think her loftily indifferent to
money. She had learned from dealing with her grandmother that the way to
get the most money was by seeming ignorant of money values, a cover
behind which she could shame Madam Bowker into giving a great deal more
than she would have given on direct and specific demand. For instance,
she could get more from the old lady than could her mother, who
explained just what she wanted the money for and acted as if the giving
were a great favor. No, she must never get with him on a footing where
he could discuss money matters frankly with her; she must simply make
him realize how attractive luxury was, how necessary it was to her, how
confidently she looked to him to provide it, how blindly, in her
ignorance of money and all sordid matters, she trusted to him to
maintain her as a wife such as she must be maintained. She knew she did
not understand him thoroughly--"we've been so differently brought up."
But she felt that the kind of life that pleased her and dazzled him must
be the kind he really wished to lead--and would see he wished to lead,
once he extricated himself, with her adroit assistance, from the kind of
life to which his vociferous pretenses had committed him.
Whether her subtleties in furtherance of creating a sane state of mind
in him had penetrated to him, she could not tell. In the earliest step
of their acquaintance she had studied him as a matrimonial possibility,
after the habit of young women with each unattached man they add to
their list of acquaintances. And she had then discovered that whenever
he was seriously revolving any matter he never spoke of it; he would be
voluble about everything and anything else under the sun, would seem to
be unbosoming himself of his bottommost secret of thought and action,
but would not let escape so much as the smallest hint of what was really
engaging his whole mind. It was this discovery that had set her to
disregarding his seeming of colossal, of fatuous egotism, and had
started her toward an estimate of him wholly different from the current
estimate. Now, was he thinking of their future, or was it some other
matter that occupied his real mind while he talked on and on, usually of
himself? She could not tell; she hoped it was, but she dared not try to
find out.
They were at their mail, which one of the guides had just brought. He
interrupted his reading to burst out: "How they do tempt a man! Now,
there's"--and he struck the open letter in his hand with a flourishing,
egotistic gesture--"an offer from the General Steel Company. They want
me as their chief counsel at fifty thousand a year and the privilege of
doing other work that doesn't conflict."
Fifty thousand a year! Margaret discreetly veiled her glistening eyes.
"It's the fourth offer of the same sort," he went on, "since we've been
up here--since it was given out that I'd be Attorney-General as soon as
old Stillwater retires. The people pay me seventy-five hundred a year.
They take all my time. They make it impossible for me to do anything
outside. They watch and suspect and grumble. And I could be making my
two hundred thousand a year or more."
He was rattling on complacently, patting himself on the back, and, in
his effort to pose as a marvel of patriotic self-sacrifice, carefully
avoiding any suggestion that mere money seemed to him a very poor thing
beside the honor of high office, the direction of great affairs, the
flattering columns of newspaper praise and censure, the general
agitation of eighty millions over him. "Sometimes I'm almost tempted to
drop politics," he went on, "and go in for the spoils. What do you
think?"
She was taken completely off guard. She hadn't the faintest notion that
this was his way of getting at her real mind. But she was too feminine
to walk straight into the trap. "I don't know," said she, with
well-simulated indifference, as if her mind were more than half on her
own letter. "I haven't given the matter any thought." Carelessly: "Where
would we live if you accepted this offer?"
"New York, of course. You prefer Washington, don't you?"
"No, I believe I'd like New York better. I've a great many friends
there. While there isn't such a variety of people, the really nice New
Yorkers are the most attractive people in America. And one can live so
well in New York."
"I'd sink into a forgotten obscurity," pursued the crafty Joshua. "I'd
be nothing but a corporation lawyer, a well-paid fetch-and-carry for the
rich thieves that huddle together there."
"Oh, you'd be famous wherever you are, I'm sure," replied she with
judicious enthusiasm. "Besides, you'd have fame with the real people."
His head reared significantly. But, to draw her on, he said: "That's
true. That's true," as if reflecting favorably.
"Yes, I think I'd like New York," continued she, all unsuspicious. "I
don't care much for politics. I hate to think of a man of your abilities
at the mercy of the mob. In New York you could make a really great
career."
"Get rich--be right in the social swim--and you too," suggested he.
"It certainly is very satisfactory to feel one is of the best people.
And I'm sure you'd not care to have me mix up with all sorts, as
politicians' wives have to do."
He laughed at her--the loud, coarse Josh Craig outburst. "You're stark
mad on the subject of class distinctions, aren't you?" said he. "You'll
learn some day to look on that sort of thing as you would on an attempt
to shovel highways and set up sign-posts in the open sea. Your kind of
people are like the children that build forts out of sand at the
seashore. Along comes a wave and washes it all away.... You'd be willing
for me to abandon my career and become a rich nonentity in New York?"
His tone was distinctly offensive. "I don't look at it in that way,"
said she coldly. "Really, I care nothing about it." And she resumed the
reading of her letter.
"Do you expect me to believe," demanded he, excited and angry--"do you
expect me to believe you've not given the subject of our future a
thought?"
She continued reading. Such a question in such a tone called for the
rebuke of an ignoring silence. Also, deep down in her nature, down where
the rock foundations of courage should have been but were not, there had
begun an ominous trembling.
"You know what my salary is?"
"You just mentioned it."
"You know it's to be only five hundred dollars a year more after
January?"
"I knew the Cabinet people got eight thousand." She was gazing dreamily
out toward the purple horizon, seemed as far as its mountains from
worldliness.
"Hadn't you thought out how we were to live on that sum? You are aware
I've practically nothing but my salary."
"I suppose I ought to think of those things--ought to have thought of
them," replied she with a vague, faint smile. "But really--well, we've
been brought up rather carelessly--I suppose some people would call it
badly--and--"
"You take me for a fool, don't you?" he interrupted roughly.
She elevated her eyebrows.
"I wish I had a quarter for every row between your people and your
grandmother on the subject of money. I wish I had a dollar for every row
you and she have had about it."
He again vented his boisterous laugh; her nerves had not been so rasped
since her wedding day. "Come, Margaret," he went on, "I know you've been
brought up differently from me. I know I seem vulgar to you in many
ways. But because I show you I appreciate those differences, don't
imagine I'm an utter ass. And I certainly should be if I didn't know
that your people are human beings."
She looked guilty as well as angry now. She felt she had gone just the
one short step too far in her aristocratic assumptions.
He went on in the tone of one who confidently expects that there will be
no more nonsense: "When you married me you had some sort of idea how
we'd live."
"I assumed you had thought out those things or you'd not have married
me," cried she hotly. In spite of her warnings to herself she couldn't
keep cool. His manner, his words were so inflammatory that she could not
hold herself from jumping into the mud to do battle with him. She
abandoned her one advantage--high ground; she descended to his level.
"You knew the sort of woman I was," she pursued. "You undertook the
responsibility. I assume you are man enough to fulfill it."
He felt quite at home with her now. "And you?" rasped he. "What
responsibility did YOU undertake?"
She caught her breath, flamed scarlet.
"Now let us hear what wife means in the dictionary of a lady. Come,
let's hear it!"
She was silent.
"I'm not criticising," he went on; "I'm simply inquiring. What do you
think it means to be a wife?"
Still she could think of no answer.
"It must mean something," urged he. "Tell me. I've got to learn some
time, haven't I?"
"I think," said she, with a tranquil haughtiness which she hoped would
carry off the weakness of the only reply she could get together on such
short notice, "among our sort of people the wife is expected to attend
to the social part of the life."
He waited for more--waited with an expression that suggested thirst. But
no more came. "Is that all?" he inquired, and waited again--in vain.
"Yes?... Well, tell me, where in thunder does the husband come in? He
puts up the cash for the wife to spend in dressing and amusing
herself--is that all?"
"It is generally assumed," said she, since she had to say something or
let the case go against her by default, "that the social side of life
can be very useful in furthering a man."
He vented a scornful sound that was like a hoot. "In furthering a
lick-spittle--yes. But not a MAN!"
"Our ideas on some subjects are hopelessly apart."
She suddenly realized that this whole conversation had been deliberately
planned by him; that he had, indeed, been debating within himself their
future life, and that he had decided that the time was ripe for a frank
talk with her. It angered her that she had not realized this sooner,
that she had been drawn from her position, had been forced to discuss
with him on his own terms and at his own time and in his own manner. She
felt all the fiery indignation of the schemer who has been outwitted.
"Your tone," said she, all ice, "makes it impossible for a well-bred
person to discuss with you. Let us talk of something else, or of nothing
at all."
"No. Let's thresh it out now that we've begun. And do try to keep your
temper. There's no reason for anger. We've got to go back to
civilization. We've got to live after we get there. We want to live
comfortably, as satisfactorily for both as our income permits. Now, what
shall we do? How shall we invest our eight thousand a year--and whatever
your grandmother allows you? I don't need much. I'll turn the salary
over to you. You're entirely welcome to all there is above my board and
clothes."
This sounded generous and, so, irritated Margaret the more. "You know
very well we can't live like decent people on twelve or fifteen thousand
a year in Washington."
"You knew that before you married me. What did you have in mind?"
Silence.
"Why do you find it difficult to be frank with me?"
His courteous, appealing tone and manner made it impossible to indulge
in the lie direct or the lie evasive. She continued silent, raging
inwardly against him for being so ungenerous, so ungentlemanly as to put
her in such a pitiful posture, one vastly different from that she had
prearranged for herself when "the proper time" came.
"You had something in mind," he persisted. "What is it?"
"Grandmother wishes us to live with her," she said with intent to flank.
"Would you like that?" he inquired; and her very heart seemed to stand
still in horror at his tone. It was a tone that suggested that the idea
was attractive!
She debated. He must be "bluffing"--he surely must. She rallied her
courage and pushed on: "It's probably the best we can do in the
circumstances. We'd have almost nothing left after we'd paid our rent if
we set up for ourselves. Even if I were content to pinch and look a
frump and never go out, you'd not tolerate it."
"Nothing could be more galling," said he, after reflecting, "than what
people would say if we lived off your grandmother. No, going there is
unthinkable. I like her, and we'd get on well together--"
Margaret laughed. "Like two cats drowning in a bag."
"Not at all," protested he sincerely. "Your grandmother and I understand
each other--better than you and I--at least, better than you understand
me. However, I'll not permit our being dependents of hers."
Margaret had a queer look. Was not her taking enough money from the old
lady to pay all her personal expenses--was not that dependence?
"We'll return to that later," continued he, and she had an uncomfortable
sense that he was answering her thought. "To go back to your idea in
marrying me. You expected me to leave politics."
"Why do you think that?" exclaimed she.
"You told me."
"_I_!"
"You, yourself. Have you not said you could not live on what I get as a
public man, and that if I were a gentleman I'd not expect you to?"
Margaret stared foolishly at this unescapable inference from her own
statements and admissions during his cross-examination. She began to
feel helpless in his hands--and began to respect him whom she could not
fool.
"I know," he went on, "you're too intelligent not to have appreciated
that either we must live on my salary or I must leave public life."
He laughed--a quiet, amused laugh, different from any she had ever heard
from him. Evidently, Joshua Craig in intimacy was still another person
from the several Joshua Craigs she already knew. "And," said he, in
explanation of his laughter, "I thought you married me because I had
political prospects. I fancied you had real ambition.... I might have
known! According to the people of your set, to be in that set is to have
achieved the summit of earthly ambition--to dress, to roll about in
carriages, to go from one fussy house to another, from one showy
entertainment to another, to eat stupid dinners, and caper or match
picture cards afterward, to grin and chatter, to do nothing useful or
even interesting--" He laughed again, one of his old-time, boisterous
outbursts. But it seemed to her to fit in, to be the laughter of
mountain and forest and infinity of space at her and her silly friends.
"And you picture ME taking permanent part in that show, or toiling to
find you the money to do it with. ME!... Merely because I've been, for a
moment, somewhat bedazzled by its cheap glitter."
Margaret felt that he had torn off the mask and had revealed his true
self. But greater than her interest in this new personality was her
anger at having been deceived--self-deceived. "You asked me how I'd like
to live," cried she, color high and eyes filled with tears of rage. "I
answered your question, and you grow insulting."
"I'm doing the best I know how," said he.
After a moment she got herself under control. "Then," asked she, "what
have you to propose?"
"I can't tell you just now," replied he, and his manner was most
disquieting. "To-morrow--or next day."
"Don't you think I'm right about it being humiliating for us to go back
to Washington and live poorly?"
"Undoubtedly. I've felt that from the beginning."
"Then you agree with me?"
"Not altogether," said he. And there was a quiet sternness in his smile,
in his gentle tone, that increased her alarms. "I've been hoping,
rather," continued he, "that you'd take an interest in my career."
"I do," cried she.
"Not in MY career," replied he, those powerful, hewn features of his sad
and bitter. "In your own--in a career in which I'd become as
contemptible as the rest of the men you know--a poor thing like Grant
Arkwright. Worse, for I'd do very badly what he has learned to do well."
"To be a well-bred, well-mannered gentleman is no small achievement,"
said she with a sweetness that was designed to turn to gall after it
reached him.
He surveyed her tranquilly. She remembered that look; it was the same he
had had the morning he met her at the Waldorf elevator and took her away
and married her. She knew that the crisis had come and that he was
ready. And she? Never had she felt less capable, less resolute.
"I've been doing a good deal of thinking--thinking about us--these last
few days--since I inflicted that scratch on you," said he. "Among other
things, I've concluded you know as little about what constitutes a real
gentleman as I do; also, that you have no idea what it is in you that
makes you a lady--so far as you are one."
She glanced at him in fright, and that expression of hers betrayed the
fundamental weakness in her--the weakness that underlies all character
based upon the achievements of others, not upon one's own. Margaret was
three generations away from self-reliance. Craig's speech sounded like a
deliberate insult, deliberate attempt to precipitate a quarrel, an
estrangement. There had been nothing in her training to prepare her for
such a rude, courage-testing event as that.
"Do you remember--it was the day we married--the talk we had about my
relatives?"
She colored, was painfully embarrassed, strove in vain to conceal it.
"About your relatives?" she said inquiringly.
He made an impatient gesture. "I know you remember. Well, if I had been
a gentleman, or had known what gentleman meant, I'd never have said--or,
rather, looked what I did then. If you had known what a gentleman is, if
you had been a lady, you'd have been unable to go on with a man who had
shown himself such a blackguard."
"You are unjust to us both," she eagerly interrupted. "Joshua--you--"
"Don't try to excuse me--or yourself," said he peremptorily. "Now, you
thought what I showed that day--my being ashamed of honester,
straighter--more American--people than you or I will ever be--you
thought that was the real me. Thank God, it wasn't. But"--he pointed a
fascinating forefinger at her--"it was the me I'd be if you had your
way."
She could not meet his eyes.
"I see you understand," said he earnestly. "That's a good sign."
"Yes, I do understand," said she. Her voice was low and her head was
still hanging. "I'm glad you've said this. I--I respect you for it."
"Don't fret about me," said he curtly. "Fret about your own melancholy
case. What do your impulses of decent feeling amount to, anyway? An inch
below the surface you're all for the other sort of thing--the cheap and
nasty. If you could choose this minute you'd take the poorest of those
drawing-room marionettes before the finest real man, if he didn't know
how to wear his clothes or had trouble with his grammar."
She felt that there was more than a grain of truth in this; at any rate,
denial would be useless, as his tone was the tone of settled conviction.
"We've made a false start," proceeded he. He rose, lighted a cigarette.
"We're going to start all over again. I'll tell you what I'm going to do
about it in a day or two."
And he strolled away to the landing. She saw him presently enter a
canoe; under his powerful, easy stroke it shot away, to disappear behind
the headland. She felt horribly lonely and oppressed--as if she would
never see him again. "He's quite capable of leaving me here to find my
way back to Washington alone--quite capable!" And her lip curled.
But the scorn was all upon the surface. Beneath there was fear and
respect--the fear and respect which those demoralized by unearned luxury
and by the purposeless life always feel when faced by strength and
self-reliance in the crises where externals avail no more than its paint
and its bunting a warship in battle. She knew she had been treating him
as no self-respecting man who knew the world would permit any woman to
treat him. She knew her self-respect should have kept her from treating
him thus, even if he, in his ignorance of her world and awe of it, would
permit. But more than from shame at vain self-abasement her chagrin came
from the sense of having played her game so confidently, so carelessly,
so stupidly that he had seen it. She winced as she recalled how shrewdly
and swiftly he had got to the very bottom of her, especially of her
selfishness in planning to use him with no thought for his good. Yet so
many women thus used their husbands; why not she? "I suppose I began too
soon.... No, not too soon, but too frigidly." The word seemed to her to
illuminate the whole situation. "That's it!" she cried. "How stupid of
me!"