CHAPTER XII
PUTTING DOWN A MUTINY
Margaret made it an all but inflexible rule not to go out, but to restand repair one evening in each week; that was the evening, under therule, but she would have broken the rule had any opportunity offered. Ofcourse, for the first time since the season began, no one sent ortelephoned to ask her to fill in at the last moment. She half-expectedCraig, though she knew he was to be busy; he neither came nor called up.She dined moodily with the family, sat surlily in a corner of theveranda until ten o'clock, hid herself in bed. She feared she would havea sleepless night. But she had eaten no dinner; and, as indigestion isabout the only thing that will keep a healthy human being awake, sheslept dreamlessly, soundly, not waking until Selina slowly and softlyopened the inner blinds of her bedroom at eight the next morning.
There are people who are wholly indifferent about their surroundings,and lead the life dictated by civilized custom only because they areslaves of custom, Margaret was not one of these. She not only adoptedall the comforts and luxuries that were current, she also spent muchtune in thinking out new luxuries, new refinements upon those shealready had. She was through, and through the luxurious idler; she madeof idling a career--pursued it with intelligent purpose where otherssimply drifted, yawning when pastimes were not provided for them. Shewas as industrious and ingenious at her career as a Craig at furtheringhimself and his ideas in a public career.
Like the others of her class she left the care of her mind to chance. Asshe had a naturally good mind and a bird-like instinct for flittingeverywhere, picking out the food from the chaff, she made an excellentshowing even in the company of serious people. But that was accident.Her person was her real care. To her luxurious, sensuous nature everykind of pleasurable physical sensation made keen appeal, and she strovein every way to make it keener. She took the greatest care of herhealth, because health meant beauty and every nerve and organ incondition to enjoy to its uttermost capacity.
Because of this care it was often full three hours and half between theentrance of Selina and her own exit, dressed and ready for the day. Andthose three hours and a half were the happiest of her day usually,because they were full of those physical sensations in which she mostdelighted. Her first move, after Selina had awakened her, was to spendhalf an hour in "getting the yawns out." She had learned thisinteresting, pleasant and amusing trick from a baby in a house where shehad once spent a week. She would extend herself at full length in thebed, and then slowly stretch each separate muscle of arm and leg, offoot and hand, of neck and shoulders and waist. This stretching processwas accompanied by a series of prolonged, profound, luxurious yawns.
The yawning exercise completed, she rose and took before a long mirror aseries of other exercises, some to strengthen her waist, others to keepher back straight and supple, others to make firm the contour of herface and throat. A half-hour of this, then came her bath. This was nohurried plunge, drying and away, but a long and elaborate function atwhich Selina assisted. There had to be water of three temperatures; adozen different kinds of brushes, soaps, towels and other apparatusparticipated. When it was finished Margaret's skin glowed and shone, wassoft and smooth and exhaled a delicious odor of lilacs. During theexercises Selina had been getting ready the clothes for theday--everything fresh throughout, and everything delicately redolent ofthe same essence of lilacs with which Selina had rubbed her from hair totips of fingers and feet. The clothes were put on slowly, for Margaretdelighted in the feeling of soft silks and laces being drawn over herskin. She let Selina do every possible bit of work, and gave herself upwholly to the joy of being cared for.
"There isn't any real reason why I shouldn't be doing this for you,instead of your doing it for me--is there, Selina?" mused she aloud.
"Goodness gracious, Miss Rita!" exclaimed Selina, horrified. "I wouldn'thave it done for anything. I was brought up to be retiring aboutdressing. It was my mother's dying boast that no man, nor no woman, hadever seen her, a grown woman, except fully dressed."
"Really?" said Margaret absently. She stood up, surveyed herself in thetriple mirror--back, front, sides. "So many women never look atthemselves in the back," observed she, "or know how their skirts hangabout the feet. I believe in dressing for all points of view."
"You certainly are just perfect," said the adoring Selina, not the leastpart of her admiring satisfaction due to the fact that the toilette waslargely the creation of her own hands. "And you smell like a reallady--not noisy, like some that comes here. I hate to touch their wrapsor to lay 'em down in the house. But you--It's one of them smells thatyou ain't sure whether you smelt it or dreamed it."
"Pretty good, Selina!" said Margaret. She could not but be pleased withsuch a compliment, one that could have been suggested only by the truth."The hair went up well this morning, didn't it?"
"Lovely--especially in the back. It looks as if it had been marcelled,without that common, barbery stiffness-like."
"Yes, the back is good. And I like this blouse. I must wear it oftener."
"You can't afford to favor it too much, Miss Rita. You know you've gotover thirty, all of them beauties."
"Some day, when I get time, we must look through my clothes. I want togive you a lot of them.... What DOES become of the time? Here it is,nearly eleven. See if breakfast has come up. I'll finish dressingafterward if it has."
It had. It was upon a small table in the rose and gold boudoir. And thesun, shining softly in at the creeper-shaded window, rejoiced in thesurpassing brightness and cleanness of the dishes of silver and thinnestporcelain and cut glass. Margaret thought eating in bed a "filthy,foreign fad," and never indulged in it. She seated herself lazily, drankher coffee, and ate her roll and her egg slowly, deliberately, readingher letters and glancing at the paper. A charming picture she made--thesoft, white Valenciennes of her matinee falling away from her throat andsetting off the clean, smooth healthiness of her skin, the blackness ofher vital hair; from the white lace of her petticoat's plaited flouncespeered one of her slim feet, a satin slipper upon the end of it. At thetop of the heap of letters lay one she would have recognized, shethought, had she never seen the handwriting before.
"Sure to be upsetting," reflected she; and she laid it aside, glancingnow and then at the bold, nervous, irregular hand and speculating aboutthe contents and about the writer.
She had gone to bed greatly disturbed in mind as to whether she wasdoing well to marry the obstreperous Westerner. "He fascinates me in awild, weird sort of a way when I'm with him," she had said to herselfbefore going to sleep, "and the idea of him is fascinating in certainmoods. And it is a temptation to take hold of him and master and trainhim--like broncho-busting. But is it interesting enough for--formarriage? Wouldn't I get horribly tired? Wouldn't Grant and humdrum bebetter? less wearying?" And when she awakened she found her problem allbut solved. "I'll send him packing and take Grant," she found herselfsaying, "unless some excellent reason for doing otherwise appears.Grandmother was right. Engaging myself to him was a mood." Once more shewas all for luxury and ease and calmness, for the pleasant, soothing,cut-and-dried thing. "A cold bath or a rough rub-down now and then, oncein a long while, is all very well. It makes one appreciate comfort andluxury more. But that sort of thing every day--many times each day--"Margaret felt her nerves rebelling as at the stroking of velvet thewrong way.
She read all her other letters, finished her toilette, had on her hat,and was having Selina put on her boots when she opened Craig's letterand read:
"I must have been out of my mind this afternoon. You are wildlyfascinating, but you are not for me. If I led you to believe that Iwished to marry you, pray forget it. We should make each other unhappyand, worse still, uncomfortable.
"Do I make myself clear? We are not engaged. I hope you will marryArkwright; a fine fellow, in every way suited to you, and, I happen toknow, madly in love with you. Please try to forgive me. If you have anyfeeling for me stronger than friendship you will surely get over it.
"A
nyhow, we couldn't marry. That is settled.
"Let me have an answer to this. I shall be upset until I hear." Nobeginning. No end. Just a bald, brutal casting-off. A hint--more than ahint--of a fear that she would try to hold him in spite of himself. Shesmiled--small, even teeth clenched and eyelids contracted cruelly--asshe read a second time, with this unflattering suggestion obtruding. Thehumiliation of being jilted! And by such a man!--the private shame--thepublic disgrace--She sprang up, crunching her foot hard down upon one ofSelina's hands. "What is it?" said she angrily, at her maid's cry ofpain.
"Nothing, Miss," replied Selina, quickly hiding the wounded hand. "Youmoved so quick I hadn't time to draw away. That was all."
"Then finish that boot!"
Selina had to expose the hand, Margaret looked down at it indifferently,though her heel had torn the skin away from the edge of the palm and hadcut into the flesh.
"Hurry!" she ordered fiercely, as Selina fumbled and bungled.
She twitched and frowned with impatience while Selina finished buttoningthe boot, then descended and called Williams. "Get me Mr. Craig on thetelephone," she said.
"He's been calling you up several times to-day, ma'am,--"
"Ah!" exclaimed Margaret, eyes flashing with sudden delight.
"But we wouldn't disturb you."
"That was right," said Margaret. She was beaming now, was all sunny goodhumor. Even her black hair seemed to glisten in her simile. So! He hadbeen calling up! Poor fool, not to realize that she would draw thecorrect inference from this anxiety.
"Shall I call him?" "No. I'll wait. Probably he'll call again soon. I'llbe in the library."
She had not been roaming restlessly about there many minutes beforeWilliams appeared "He's come, himself, ma'am," said he. "I told him Ididn't know whether you'd be able to see him or not."
"Thank you, Williams," said Margaret sweetly. "Order the carriage tocome round at once. Leave Mr. Craig in the drawing-room. I'll speak tohim on the way out."
She dashed upstairs. "Selina! Selina!" she called. And when Selina came:"Let me see that hand. I hurt you because I got news that went throughme like a knife. You understand, don't you?"
"It was nothing, Miss Rita," protested Selina. "I'd forgot it myselfalready."
But Margaret insisted on assuring herself with her own eyes, got bloodon her white gloves, had to change them. As she descended she wasputting on the fresh pair--a new pair. How vastly more than even thenormal is a man's disadvantage in a "serious" interview with a woman ifshe is putting on new gloves! She is perfectly free to seem occupied ornot, as suits her convenience; and she can, by wrestling with thegloves, interrupt him without speech, distract his attention, fiddle histhoughts, give him a sense of imbecile futility, and all the time offerhim no cause for resentment against her. He himself seems in the wrong;she is merely putting On her gloves.
She was wrong in her guess that Arkwright had been at him. He had simplysuccumbed to his own fears and forebodings, gathered in force as soon ashe was not protected from them by the spell of her presence. The mysteryof the feminine is bred into men from earliest infancy, is intensifiedwhen passion comes and excites the imagination into fantastic activityabout women. No man, not the most experienced, not the most depraved, isever able wholly to divest himself of this awe, except, occasionally, inthe case of some particular woman. Awe makes one ill at ease; the womanwho, by whatever means, is able to cure a man of his awe of her, to makehim feel free to be himself, is often able to hold him, even though hedespises her or is indifferent to her; on the other hand, the woman whoremains an object of awe to a man is certain to lose him. He may beproud to have her as his wife, as the mother of his children, but hewill seek some other woman to give her the place of intimacy in hislife.
At the outset on an acquaintance between a man and a woman his awe forher as the embodiment of the mystery feminine is of great advantage toher; it often gets him for her as a husband. In this particular case ofMargaret Severence and Joshua Craig, while his awe of her was anadvantage, it was also a disadvantage. It attracted him; it perilouslyrepelled him. He liked to release his robust imagination upon thosecharms of hers--those delicate, refined beauties that filled him withlongings, delicious in their intensity, longings as primeval in kind aswell as in force as those that set delirious the savage hordes from theGerman forests when they first poured down over the Alps and beheld thejewels and marbles and round, smooth, soft women of Italy's ancientcivilization. But at the same time he had the unmistakable, theterrifying feeling of dare-devil sacrilege. What were his coarse handsdoing, dabbling in silks and cobweb laces and embroideries? Silkfascinated him; but, while he did not like calico so well, he felt athome with it. Yes, he had seized her, had crushed her madly in theembrace of his plowman arms. But that seemed now a freak of courage, adrunken man's deed, wholly beyond the nerve of sobriety.
Then, on top of all this awe was his reverence for her as an aristocrat,a representative of people who had for generations been far removedabove the coarse realities of the only life he knew. And it was thisadoration of caste that determined him. He might overcome his awe of herperson and dress, of her tangible trappings; but how could he ever hopeto bridge the gulf between himself and her intangible superiorities? Hewas ashamed of himself, enraged against himself for this feeling of wormgazing up at star. It made a mockery of all his arrogant, noisyprotestations of equality and democracy.
"The fault is not in my ideas," thought he; "THEY'RE all right. Thefault's in me--damned snob that I am!"
Clearly, if he was to be what he wished, if he was to become what he hadthought he was, he must get away from this sinister influence, from thistemptation that had made him, at first onset, not merely stumble, butfall flat and begin to grovel. "She is a superior woman--that is no snobnotion of mine," reflected he. "But from the way I falter and get weakin the knees, she ought to be superhuman--which she isn't, by any means.No, there's only one thing to do--keep away from her. Besides, I'd feelmiserable with her about as my wife." My wife! The very words threw himinto a cold sweat.
So the note was written, was feverishly dispatched.
No sooner was it sent than it was repented. "What's the matter with me?"demanded he of himself, as his courage came swaggering back, once thedanger had been banished. "Why, the best is not too good for me. She isthe best, and mighty proud she ought to be of a man who, by sheer forceof character, has lifted himself to where I am and who, is going to bewhat I shall be. Mighty proud! There are only two realities--money andbrains. I've certainly got more brains than she or any of her set; asfor money, she hasn't got that. The superiority is all on my side. I'mthe one that ought to feel condescending."
What had he said in his note? Recalling it as well as he could--for itwas one, the last, of more than a dozen notes he had written in twohours of that evening--recalling phrases he was pretty sure he had putinto the one he had finally sent, in despair of a better, it seemed tohim he had given her a wholly false impression--an impression of hersuperiority and of his fear and awe. That would never do. He must sether right, must show her he was breaking the engagement only because shewas not up to his standard. Besides, he wished to see her again to makesure he had been victimized into an engagement by a purely physical,swiftly-evanescent imagining. Yes, he must see her, must have a look ather, must have a talk with her.
"It's the only decent, courageous thing to do in the circumstances.Sending that note looked like cowardice--would be cowardice if I didn'tfollow it up with a visit. And whatever else I am, surely I'm not acoward!"
Margaret had indulged in no masculine ingenuities of logic. Woman-like,she had gone straight to the practical point: Craig had written insteadof coming--he was, therefore, afraid of her. Having written he had notfled, but had come--he was, therefore, attracted by her still. Obviouslythe game lay in her own hands, for what more could woman ask than that aman be both afraid and attracted? A little management and she not onlywould save herself from the threatened humiliation of beingjilte
d--jilted by an uncouth nobody of a Josh Craig!--but also wouldhave him in durance, to punish his presumption at her own good pleasureas to time and manner. If Joshua Craig, hardy plodder in the arduouspathway from plowboy to President, could have seen what was in the mindso delicately and so aristocratically entempled in that graceful,slender, ultra-feminine body of Margaret Severence's, as she descendedthe stairs, putting fresh gloves upon her beautiful, idle hands, hewould have borrowed wings of the wind and would have fled as from agorgon.
But as she entered the room nothing could have seemed less formidableexcept to the heart. Her spring dress--she was wearing it for the firsttime--was of a pale green, suggesting the draperies of islands ofenchantment. Its lines coincided with the lines of her figure. Her hat,trimmed to match, formed a magic halo for her hair; and it, in turn, wasthe entrancing frame in which her small, quiet, pallid face wasset--that delicate, sensitive face, from which shone, now softly and nowbrilliantly, those hazel eyes a painter could have borrowed for a woodnymph. In the doorway, before greeting him, she paused.
"Williams," she called, and Craig was thrilled by her "high-bred"accent, that seemed to him to make of the English language a mediumdifferent from the one he used and heard out home.
"Yes, ma'am," came the answer in the subtly-deferential tone of thearistocracy of menialdom, conjuring for Craig, with the aid of the womanherself and that aristocratic old room, a complete picture of the lifeof upper-class splendor.
"Did you order the carriage, as I asked?"
"Yes, ma'am; it's at the door."
"Thank you." And Margaret turned upon an overwhelmed and dazzled Craig.He did not dream that she had calculated it all with a view toimpressing him--and, if he had, the effect would hardly have beenlessened. Whether planned or not, were not toilette and accent, andbutler and carriage, all realities? Nor did he suspect shrewdcalculations upon snobbishness when she said: "I was in such haste todress that I hurt my poor maid's hand as she was lacing my boot"--shethrust out one slender, elegantly-clad foot--"no, buttoning it, I mean."Oh, these ladies, these ladies of the new world--and the old--that areso used to maids and carriages and being waited upon that they no morethink of display in connection with them than one would think ofboasting two legs or two eyes!
The advantage from being in the act of putting on gloves began at thevery outset. It helped to save her from deciding a mode of salutation.She did not salute him at all. It made the meeting a continuation,without break, of their previous meeting.
"How do you like my new dress?" she asked, as she drew the long part ofher glove up her round, white arm.
"Beautiful," he stammered.
From the hazel eyes shot a shy-bold glance straight into his; it was asif those slim, taper fingers of hers had twanged the strings of the lyreof his nerves. "You despise all this sort of trumpery, don't you?"
"Sometimes a man says things he don't mean," he found tongue to utter.
"I understand," said she sympathetically, and he knew she meant hisnote. But he was too overwhelmed by his surroundings, by her envelope ofaristocracy, too fascinated by her physical charm, too flattered bybeing on such terms with such a personage, to venture to set her right.Also, she gave him little chance; for in almost the same breath she wenton: "I've been in such moods!--since yesterday afternoon--like thedevils in Milton, isn't it?--that are swept from lands of ice to landsof fire?--or is it in Dante? I never can remember. We must go straightoff, for I'm late. You can come, too--it's only a little meeting aboutsome charity or other. All rich people, of course--except poor me. I'msure I don't know why they asked me. I can give little besides advice.How handsome you are to-day, Joshua!"
It was the first time she had called him by his first name. She repeatedit--"Joshua--Joshua"--as when one hits upon some particularly sweet andpenetrating chord at the piano, and strikes it again, and yet again.
They were in the carriage, being whirled toward the great palace of Mrs.Whitson, the latest and grandest of plutocratic monuments that havearisen upon the ruins of the old, old-fashioned American Washington. Andshe talked incessantly--a limpid, sparkling, joyous strain. And eitherher hand sought his or his hers; at any rate, he found himself holdingher hand. They were almost there before he contrived to say, veryfalteringly: "You got my note?"
She laughed gayly. "Oh, yes--and your own answer to it, Joshua--mylove"--the "my love" in a much lower, softer tone, with suggestion ofsudden tears trembling to fall.
"But I meant it," he said, though in tones little like any he was usedto hearing from his own lips. But he would not dare look himself in theface again if he did not make at least a wriggle before surrendering.
"We mean many things in as many moods," said she. "I knew it was only amood. I knew you'd come. I've such a sense of implicit reliance on you.You are to me like the burr that shields the nut from all harm. Howsecure and cozy and happy the nut must feel in its burr. As I've walkedthrough the woods in the autumn I've often thought of that, and how, ifI ever married--"
A wild impulse to seize her and crush her, as one crushes the ripe berryfor its perfume and taste, flared in his eyes. She drew away to checkit. "Not now," she murmured, and her quick breath and flush were notart, but nature. "Not just now--Joshua."
"You make me--insane," he muttered between his teeth. "God!--I DO loveyou!"
They were arrived; were descending. And she led him, abject and inchains, into the presence of Mrs. Whitson and the most fashionable ofthe fashionable set. "So you've brought him along?" cried Mrs. Whitson."Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Craig. It's very evident you have ashrewd eye for the prizes of life, and a strong, long reach to graspthem."
Craig, red and awkward, laughed hysterically, flung out a fewmeaningless phrases. Margaret murmured: "Perhaps you'd rather go?" Shewished him to go, now that she had exhibited him.
"Yes--for Heaven's sake!" he exclaimed. He was clutching for hisbraggart pretense of ease in "high society" like a drowning man scoopingarmsful of elusive water.
She steered her captive in her quiet, easeful manner toward the door,sent him forth with a farewell glance and an affectionate interrogative,"This afternoon, at half-past four?" that could not be disobeyed.
The mutiny was quelled. The mutineer was in irons. She had told him shefelt quite sure about him; and it was true, in a sense rather differentfrom what the words had conveyed to him. But it was of the kind ofsecurity that takes care to keep the eye wakeful and the powder dry. Shefelt she did not have him yet where she could trust him out of her sightand could herself decide whether the engagement was to be kept orbroken.
"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Whitson, "he positively feeds out of yourhand! And such a wild man he seemed!"
Margaret, in the highest of high spirits, laughed with pleasure.
"A good many," pursued Mrs. Whitson, "think you are throwing yourselfaway for love. But as I size men up--and my husband says I'm a wonder atit--I think he'll be biggest figure of all at one end of PennsylvaniaAvenue or the other. Perhaps, first one end, then at the other."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," cried Margaret, with the keenenthusiasm with which, in time of doubt, we welcome an ally to our ownprivate judgment. "But," she hastened to add, with veiled eye andslightly tremulous lip, "I'm ready to take whatever comes."
"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed Mrs. Whitson, a tender anddreamy sentimentalist except in her own affairs. "Love is best!"
"Love is best," echoed Margaret.