The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig Part 27

Before the end of the hour she was pacing her favorite walk in the garden, impatiently watching the point where he would appear. At sight of her face he almost broke into a run. "What is it, Margaret?" he cried.

"What have you been saying to Josh Craig?" she demanded.

"Nothing, I swear. I've been keeping out of his way. He came to see me this morning--called me a dozen times on the telephone, too. But I refused him."

She reflected. "I want you to go and bring him here," she said presently. "No matter what he says, bring him."

"When?"

"Right away."

"If I have to use force." And Grant hastened away.

Hardly had he gone when Williams appeared, carrying a huge basket of orchids. "They just came, ma'am. I thought you'd like to see them."

"From Mr. Arkwright?"

"No, ma'am; Mr. Craig."

"Craig?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Margaret.

"Yes, Miss Rita."

"Craig," repeated Margaret, but in a very different tone--a tone of immense satisfaction and relief. She waved her hand with a smile of amused disdain. "Take them into the house, but not to my room. Put them in Miss Lucia's sitting-room."

Williams had just gone when into the walk rushed Grant and Craig. Their faces were so flurried, so full of tragic anxiety that Margaret, stopping short, laughed out loud. "You two look as if you had come to view the corpse."

"I pa.s.sed Craig on his way here," explained Grant, "and took him into my machine."

"I was not on my way here," replied Josh loftily. "I was merely taking a walk. He asked me to get in and brought me here in spite of my protests."

"You were on the road that leads here," insisted Arkwright with much heat.

"I repeat I was simply taking a walk," insisted Craig. He had not once looked at Margaret.

"No matter," said Margaret in her calm, distant way. "You may take him away, Grant. And"--here she suddenly looked at Craig, a cold, haughty glance that seemed to tear open an abysmal gulf between them--"I do not wish to see you again. I am done with you. I have been on the verge of telling you so many times of late."

"Is THAT what you sent Grant after me to tell me?"

"No," answered she. "I sent him on an impulse to save the engagement.

But while he was gone it suddenly came over me that you were right--entirely right. I accept your decision. You're afraid to marry me because of your political future. I'm afraid to marry you because of my stomach. You--nauseate me. I've been under some kind of hideous spell.

I'm free of it now. I see you as you are. I am ashamed of myself."

"I thought so! I knew it would come!" exclaimed Arkwright triumphantly.

Craig, who had been standing like a stock, suddenly sprang into action.

He seized Arkwright by the throat and bore him to the ground. "I've got to kill something," he yelled. "Why not you?"

This unexpected and vulgar happening completely upset Margaret's pride and demolished her dignified pose. She gazed in horror at the two men struggling, brute-like, upon the gra.s.s. Her refined education had made no provision for such an emergency. She rushed forward, seized Craig by the shoulders. "Get up!" she cried contemptuously, and she dragged him to his feet. She shook him fiercely. "Now get out of here; and don't you dare come back!"

Craig laughed loudly. A shrewd onlooker might have suspected from his expression that he had deliberately created a diversion of confusion, and was congratulating himself upon its success. "Get out?" cried he.

"Not I. I go where I please and stay as long as I please."

Arkwright was seated upon the gra.s.s, readjusting his collar and tie.

"What a rotten coward you are!" he said to Craig, "to take me off guard like that."

"It WAS a low trick," admitted Josh, looking down at him genially. "But I'm so crazy I don't know what I'm doing."

"Oh, yes, you do; you wanted to show off," answered Grant.

But Craig had turned to Margaret again. "Read that," he commanded, and thrust a newspaper clipping into her hand. It was from one of the newspapers of his home town--a paper of his own party, but unfriendly to him. It read:

"Josh Craig's many friends here will be glad to hear that he is catching on down East. With his Government job as a stepping-stone he has sprung into what he used to call plutocratic society in Was.h.i.+ngton, and is about to marry a young lady who is in the very front of the push. He will retire from politics, from head-hunting among the plutocrats, and will soon be a plutocrat and a palace-dweller himself. Success to you, Joshua. The 'pee-pul' have lost a friend--in the usual way. As for us, we've got the right to say, 'I told you so,' but we'll be good and refrain."

"The President handed me that last night," said Craig, when he saw that her glance was on the last line. "And he told me he had decided to ask Stillwater to stay on."

Margaret gave the clipping to Grant. "Give it to him," she said and started toward the house.

Craig sprang before her. "Margaret," he cried, "can you blame me?"

"No," said she, and there was no pose in her manner now; it was sincerely human. "I pity you." She waved him out of her path and, with head bent, he obeyed her.

The two men gazed after her. Arkwright was first to speak: "Well, you've got what you wanted."

Craig slowly lifted his circled, bloodshot eyes to Arkwright. "Yes,"

said he hoa.r.s.ely, "I've got what I wanted."

"Not exactly in the way a gentleman would like to get it," pursued Grant. "But YOU don't mind a trifle of that sort."

"No," said Craig, "I don't mind a trifle of that sort. 'Bounder Josh'--that's what they call me, isn't it?"

"When they're frank they do."

Craig drew a long breath, shook himself like a man gathering himself together after a stunning blow. He reflected a moment. "Come along, Grant. I'm going back in your machine."

"The driver'll take you," replied Arkwright stiffly. "I prefer to walk."

"Then we'll walk back together."

"We will not!" said Arkwright violently. "And after this morning the less you say to me the better pleased I'll be, and the less you'll impose upon the obligation I'm under to you for having saved my life once."

"You treacherous hound," said Craig pleasantly. "Where did you get the nerve to put on airs with me? What would you have done to her in the same circ.u.mstances? Why, you'd have sneaked and lied out of it. And you dare to scorn me because I've been frank and direct! Come! I'll give you another chance. Will you take me back to town in your machine?"

A pause, Craig's fierce gaze upon Grant, Grant's upon the ground. Then Grant mumbled surlily: "Come on."

When they were pa.s.sing the front windows of the house Craig a.s.sumed that Margaret was hiding somewhere there, peering out at them. But he was wrong. She was in her room, was face down upon her bed, sobbing as if her first illusion had fallen, had dashed to pieces, crus.h.i.+ng her heart under it.