"OUR HOUSE IS AFIRE"
Next morning she was up and in her dressing-room and had almost finished
her toilette before he awakened. For the first time in years--perhaps
the first time since the end of her happy girlhood and the beginning of
her first season in Washington society--she felt like singing. Was there
ever such a dawn? Did ever song of birds sound so like the voice of
eternal youth? Whence had come this air like the fumes from the
winepresses of the gods? And the light! What colors, what tints, upon
mountain and valley and halcyon lake! And the man asleep in the next
room--yes, there WAS a Joshua Craig whom she found extremely trying at
times; but that Joshua Craig had somehow resigned the tenancy of the
strong, straight form there, had resigned it to a man who was the living
expression of all that bewitched her in these wilds.
She laughed softly at her own ecstasy of exaggeration. "The other Josh
will come back," she reminded herself, "and I must not forget to be
practical. THIS is episodic." These happy, superhuman episodes would
come, would pass, would recur at intervals; but the routine of her life
must be lived. And if these episodes were to recur the practical must
not be neglected. "It's by neglecting the practical that so many wives
come to grief," reflected she. And the first mandate of the practical
was that he must be rescued from that vulgar political game, which meant
poverty and low associations and tormenting uncertainties. He must be
got where his talents would have their due, their reward. But subtly
guiding him into the way that would be best for him was a far different
matter from what she had been planning up to last night's moonrise--was
as abysmally separated from its selfish hypocrisy as love from hate. She
would persist in her purpose, but how changed the motive!
She heard him stirring in her--no, THEIR room. Her face lighted up, her
eyes sparkled. She ran to the mirror for a final primp before he should
see her. She was more than pleased with the image she saw reflected
there. "I never looked better in my life--never so well. I'm glad I kept
back this particular dress. He's sure to like it, and it certainly is
becoming to me--the best-fitting skirt I ever had--what good lines it
has about the hips." She startled at a knock upon the door. She rushed
away from the mirror. He had small physical vanity himself--she had
never known any one with so little. He had shown that he thought she had
no vanity of that kind, either, and he would doubtless misunderstand her
solicitude about her personal appearance. Anyhow, of all mornings this
would be the worst for him to catch her at the glass.
"Yes?" she called.
"Margaret," came in his voice. And, oh, the difference in it!--the note
of tenderness--no, it was not imagination, it was really there! Her eyes
filled and her bosom heaved.
"Are you joining me at breakfast?"
"Come in," cried she.
When the door did not open she went and opened it. There stood HE! If he
had greeted her with a triumphant, proprietorial expression she would
have been--well, it would have given her a lowered opinion of his
sensibility. But his look was just right--dazzled, shy, happy. Nor did
he make one of his impetuous rushes. He almost timidly took her hand,
kissed it; and it was she who sought his shoulder--gladly, eagerly, with
a sudden, real shyness. "Margaret," he said. "Mine--aren't you?"
Here was the Joshua she was to know thenceforth, she felt. This Joshua
would enable her to understand, or, rather, to disregard, so far as she
personally was concerned, the Josh, tempestuous, abrupt, often absurd,
whom the world knew. But--As soon as they went where the guides were,
the familiar Josh returned--boyish, boisterous, rather foolish in trying
to be frivolous and light. Still--what did it matter? As soon as they
should be alone again--
When they set out after breakfast her Joshua still did not return, as
she had confidently expected. The obstreperous one remained, the one
that was the shrewdly-developed cover for his everlasting scheming mind.
"What an unending ass I've been making of myself," he burst out, "with
my silly notions." He drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
"And this infernal thing of Grant's has been encouraging me in idiocy."
She read the Arkwright gentleman's gazette and complete guide to dress
and conduct in the society of a refined gentlewoman. Her impulse was to
laugh, an impulse hard indeed to restrain when she came to the last line
of the document and read in Grant's neat, careful-man's handwriting with
heavy underscorings: "Above all, never forget that you are a mighty
stiff dose for anybody, and could easily become an overdose for a
refined, sensitive lady." But prudent foresight made her keep her
countenance. "This is all very sensible," said she.
"Sensible enough," assented he. "I've learned a lot from it.... Did you
read that last sentence?"
She turned her face away. "Yes," she said.
"That, taken with everything else, all but got me down," said he
somberly. "God, what I've been through! It came near preventing us from
discovering that you're not a grand lady but a human being." His mood
veered, and it was he that was gay and she glum; for he suddenly seized
her and subjected her to one of those tumultuous ordeals so disastrous
to toilette and to dignity and to her sense of personal rights. Not that
she altogether disliked; she never had altogether disliked, had found a
certain thrill in his rude riotousness. Still, she preferred the other
Joshua Craig, HER Joshua, who wished to receive as well as to give. And
she wished that Joshua, her Joshua, would return. She herself had
thought that, so far as she was concerned, those periods of tender and
gentle sentiment would be episodic; but it was another thing for him to
think so--and to show it frankly. "I feel as if I'd had an adventure
with a bear," said she, half-laughing, half-resentful.
"So you did," declared he; "I'm a bear--and every other sort of
animal--except rabbit. There's no rabbit in me. Now, your men--the Grant
Arkwrights--are all rabbit."
"At least," said she, "do refrain from tearing my hair down. A woman who
does her hair well hates to have it mussed."
"I'll try to remember," was his careless answer. "As I was about to say,
our discovery that you are not a lady out of a story-book, but a human
being and a very sweet one--it came just in the nick of time. We're
leaving here to-night."
Now she saw the reason for the persistence of the Craig of noise and
bluster--and craft. "To-night?" she exclaimed. "It's impossible."
"Yes--we go at five o'clock. Tickets are bought--sleeper section
engaged--everything arranged."
"But Uncle Dan doesn't expect us for four days yet."
"I've sent him a telegram."
"But I can't pack."
"Selina can."
"Impossible in such a little time."
"Then I'll do it," said Craig jovially. "I can pack a trunk twice as
quick as any man you ever saw. I pack with my feet as well as with my
hands."
"It's impossible," repeated she angrily. "I detest being hurried."
"Hurried? Why, you've got nine hours to get used to the idea. Nine
hours' warning for anything isn't haste."
"Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" demanded she, coming to a full
stop and expecting thus to compel him to face her. But he marched on.
"It has been my lifelong habit," declared he over his shoulder, "to
arrange everything before disclosing my plans. You'll find, as we get
on, that it will save you a lot of fretting and debating."
Reluctantly and with the humiliating sense of helpless second fiddle she
followed him along the rough path. "I loathe surprises," she said.
"Then adjust your mind to not being surprised at anything from me."
He laughed noisily at his own humor. She was almost hating him again. He
seemed to have eyes in the back of his head; for as she shot a fiery
glance at him he whirled round, shook his forefinger maddeningly at her:
"Now listen to me, my dear," said he, in his very worst manner, most
aggressive, most dictatorial; "if you had wanted an ordinary sort of man
you should have married one and not me."
"Don't you think common courtesy required you at least to consult me
about such a matter?"
"I do not. If I had I should have done so. I found it was necessary that
we go. I went ahead and arranged it. If you saw the house on fire would
you wait till you had consulted me before putting it out?"
"But this is entirely different."
"Not at all. Entirely the same, on the contrary. The talk we had day
before yesterday convinced me that our house is afire. I'm going to put
it out." He shut his teeth together with a snap, compressed his lips,
gave her one of those quick, positive nods of his Viking head. Then he
caught her by the arm. "Now," said he jocosely, "let's go back to camp.
You want to do your packing. I've got to go over to the station and
telegraph some more."
She wrenched her arm away pettishly and, with sullen face, accompanied
him to the camp. It was all she could do to hide her anger when, in full
sight of the guides, he swept her up into his arms and kissed her
several times. Possibly she would have been really angered, deeply
angered, had she realized that these cyclones were due, as a rule, not
so much to appreciation of her as to the necessity of a strong
counter-irritant to a sudden attack of awe of her as a fine lady and
doubt of his own ability to cope with her. "Good-by, Rita," cried he,
releasing her as suddenly as he had seized her and rushing toward the
landing. "If I don't get back till the last minute be sure you're ready.
Anything that isn't ready will be left behind--anything or anybody!"
The idea of revolt, of refusing to go, appealed to her first anger
strongly. But, on consideration, she saw that merely asserting her
rights would not be enough--that she must train him to respect them. If
she refused to go he would simply leave her; yes, he was just the man,
the wild man, to do precisely that disgraceful thing. And she would be
horribly afraid to spend the night alone in those woods with only the
guides and Selina, not to speak of facing the morrow--for he might
refuse to take her back! Where would she turn in that case? What would
her grandmother say? Who would support her in making such a scandal and
giving up a husband for reasons that could not be made impressive in
words though they were the best of all reasons in terms of feeling? No,
if she gave him up she would be absolutely alone, condemned on every
hand, in the worst possible position. Then, too, the break was
unattractive for another reason. Though she despised herself for her
weakness, she did not wish to give up the man who had given her that
brief glimpse of happiness she had dreamed as one dreams an
impossibility. Did not wish? Could not--would not--give him up. "I
belong to him!" she thought with a thrill of ecstasy and of despair.
"But he'd better be careful!" she grumbled. "If I should begin to
dislike him there'd be no going back." And then it recurred to her that
this would be as great a calamity of loss for her as for him--and she
went at her packing in a better humor. "I'll explain to him that I yield
this once, but--" There she stopped herself with a laugh. Of what use to
explain to him?--him who never listened to explanations, who did not
care a fig why people did as he wished, but was content that they did.
As for warning him about "next time"--how ridiculous! She could hear his
penetrating, rousing voice saying: "We'll deal with 'next time' when it
comes."