CHAPTER XX
MR. CRAIG KISSES THE IDOL'S FOOT
Grant Arkwright reached the Waldorf a little less than an hour after hehad seen the bride and groom drive away from Doctor Scones'. He foundCraig pacing up and down before the desk, his agitation so obvious thatthe people about were all intensely and frankly interested. "You look asif you were going to draw a couple of guns in a minute or so and shootup the house," said he, putting himself squarely before Josh and haltinghim.
"For God's sake, Grant," cried Joshua, "see how I'm sweating! Goupstairs--up to their suite, and find out what's the matter."
"Go yourself," retorted Grant.
Craig shook his head. He couldn't confess to Arkwright what was reallyagitating him, why he did not disregard Margaret's injunction.
"What're you afraid of?"
Josh scowled as Grant thus unconsciously scuffed the sore spot. "I'm notafraid!" he cried aggressively. "It's better that you should go. Don'thaggle--go!"
As Grant could think of no reason why he shouldn't, and as he had thekeenest curiosity to see how the "old tartar" was taking it, he went.Margaret's voice came in response to his knock. "Oh, it's you," said shein a tone of relief.
Her face was swollen and her eyes red. She looked anything but lovely.Grant, however, was instantly so moved that he did not notice herhomeliness. Also, he was one of those unobservant people who, havingonce formed an impression of a person, do not revise it except undercompulsion; his last observation of Margaret had resulted in animpression of good looks, exceptional charm. He bent upon her a look inwhich understanding sympathy was heavily alloyed with the longing of thecovetous man in presence of his neighbor's desirable possessions. But hediscreetly decided that he would not put into words--at least, not justyet--his sympathy with her for her dreadful, her tragic mistake. No, itwould be more tactful as well as more discreet to pretend belief thather tears had been caused by her grandmother. He glanced round.
"Where's Madam Bowker?" inquired he. "Did she blow up and bolt?"
"Oh, no," answered Margaret, seating herself with a dreary sigh. "She'sgone to her sitting-room to write with her own hand the announcementthat's to be given out. She says the exact wording is very important."
"So it is," said Grant. "All that's said will take its color from thefirst news."
"No doubt." Margaret's tone was indifferent, absent.
Arkwright hesitated to introduce the painful subject, the husband; yethe had a certain malicious pleasure in doing it, too. "Josh wants tocome up," said he. "He's down at the desk, champing and tramping andpawing holes in the floor." And he looked at her, to note the impressionof this vivid, adroitly-reminiscent picture.
"Not yet," said Margaret curtly and coldly. All of a sudden she buriedher face in her hands and burst into tears.
"Rita--dear Rita!" exclaimed Grant, his own eyes wet, "I know just howyou feel. Am I not suffering, too? I thought I didn't care, but I did--Ido. Rita, it isn't too late yet--"
She straightened; dried her eyes. "Stop that, Grant!" she saidperemptorily. "Stop it!"
His eyes sank. "I can't bear to see you suffer."
"You don't mean a word of what you've just said," she went on. "You areall upset, as I am. You are his friend and mine." Defiantly: "And I lovehim, and you know I do."
It was the tone of one giving another something that must be repeated byrote. "That's it," said he, somewhat sullenly, but with no hint ofprotest. "I'm all unstrung, like you, and like him."
"And you will forget that you saw me crying."
"I'll never think of it again."
"Now go and bring him, please."
He went quickly toward the door.
"Grant!" she cried. As he turned she rose, advanced with a friendlysmile and put out her hand for his. "Thank you," she said. "You haveshown yourself OUR best friend."
"I meant to be," he answered earnestly, as he pressed her hand. "When Ipull myself together I think you'll realize I'm some decenter than I'veseemed of late."
Madam Bowker came just as he returned with Craig. So all attention wasconcentrated upon the meeting of the two impossibilities. The old ladytook her new relative's hand with a gracious, queenly smile--a smilethat had the effect both of making him grateful and of keeping him "inhis place." Said she, "I have been writing out the announcement."
"Thank you," was Joshua's eager, respectful reply.
She gave him the sheet of notepaper she was carrying in her left hand.It was her own private paper, heavy, quiet, rich, engraved witharistocratic simplicity, most elegant; and most elegant was thehandwriting. "This," said she, "is to be given out in addition to theformal notice which Grant will send to the newspapers."
Craig read:
"Mrs. Bowker announces the marriage of her granddaughter, MargaretSeverence, and Joshua Craig, of Wayne, Minnesota, and Washington, by theReverend Doctor Scones, at the Waldorf, this morning. Only a fewrelatives and Mr. Craig's friend, Mr. Grant Arkwright, were present. Themarriage occurred sooner than was expected, out of consideration forMrs. Bowker, as she is very old, and wished it to take place before sheleft for her summer abroad."
Craig lifted to the old lady the admiring glance of a satisfied expertin public opinion. Their eyes met on an equality; for an instant heforgot that she figured in his imagination as anything more than a humanbeing. "Splendid!" cried he, with hearty enthusiasm. "You have coveredthe case exactly. Grant, telephone for an Associated Press reporter andgive him this."
"I'll copy it off for him," said Grant.
Madam Bowker and Craig exchanged amused glances. "You'll give it to himin Madam Bowker's handwriting," ordered Craig. "You told Scones to keephis mouth shut, when you paid him?"
The other three looked conscious, and Margaret reddened slightly at thiscoarse brusqueness of phrase. "Yes," said Grant. "He'll refuse to beinterviewed. I'll go and attend to this."
"We're having a gala lunch, at once--in the apartment," said the oldlady. "So, come back quickly."
When he was gone she said to the two: "And now what are your plans?"
"We have none," said Craig.
"I had thought--" began Margaret. She hesitated, colored, went on:"Grandmother, couldn't you get the Millicans' camp in the Adirondacks? Iheard Mrs. Millican say yesterday they had got it all ready and hadsuddenly decided to go abroad instead."
"Certainly," said the old lady. "I'll telephone about it at once, andI'll ask the Millicans to lunch with us to-day."
She left them alone. Craig, eyeing his bride covertly, had a sense ofher remoteness, her unattainability. He was like a man who, in an hourof rashness and vanity, has boasted that he can attain a certainmountain peak, and finds himself stalled at its very base. He decidedthat he must assert himself; he tried to nerve himself to seize her inhis old precipitate, boisterous fashion. He found that he had neitherthe desire to do so nor the ability. He had never thought her so full ofthe lady's charm. That was just the trouble--the lady's charm, not thehuman being's; not the charm feminine for the male.
"I hope you'll be very patient with me," said she, with a wan smile. "Iam far from well. I've been debating for several days whether or not togive up and send for the doctor."
He did not see her real motive in thus paving the way for the formationof the habit of separate lives; he eagerly believed her, was grateful toher, was glad she was ill. So quaint is the interweaving of thought,there flashed into his mind at that moment: "After all, I needn't haveblown in so much money on trousseau. Maybe I can get 'em to take backthose two suits of twenty-dollar pajamas. Grant went in too deep." This,because the money question was bothering him greatly, the situation thatwould arise when his savings should be gone; for now it seemed to him hewould never have the courage to discuss money with her. If she couldhave looked in upon his thoughts she would have been well content; therewas every indication of easy sailing for her scheme to reconstruct hiscareer.
"When do you think of starting for the Adirondacks?" he asked, with atimidity of preliminary swa
llowing and blushing that made her turn awayher face to hide her smile. How completely hers was the situation! Shefelt the first triumphant thrill of her new estate.
"To-night," she replied. "We can't put it off."
"No, we can't put it off," assented he, hesitation in his voice, gloomupon his brow. "Though," he added, "you don't look at all well." With aneffort: "Margaret, are you glad--or sorry?"
"Glad," she answered in a firm, resolute tone. It became a little hardin its practicality as she added: "You were quite right. We took theonly course."
"You asked me to be a little patient with you," he went on.
She trembled; her glance fluttered down.
"Well--I--I--you'll have to be a little patient with me, too." He wasred with embarrassment. She looked so still and cold and repelling thathe could hardly muster voice to go on: "You can't but know, in a generalsort of way, that I'm uncouth, unaccustomed to the sort of thing you'vehad all your life. I'm going to do my best, Margaret. And if you'll helpme, and be a little forbearing, I think--I hope--you'll soon findI'm--I'm--oh, you understand."
She had given a stealthy sigh of relief when she discovered that he wasnot making the protest she had feared. "Yes, I understand," replied she,her manner a gentle graciousness, which in some moods would have senthis pride flaring against the very heavens in angry scorn. But hethought her most sweet and considerate, and she softened toward him withpity. It was very, pleasant thus to be looked up to, and, being human,she felt anything but a lessened esteem for her qualities ofdelicateness and refinement, of patrician breeding, when she saw himthus on his knees before them. He had invited her to look down on him,and she was accepting an invitation which it is not in human nature todecline.
There was one subject she had always avoided with him--the subject ofhis family. He had not exactly avoided it, indeed, had spokenoccasionally of his brothers and sisters, their wives and husbands,their children. But his reference to these humble persons, so farremoved from the station to which he had ascended, had impressed her asbeing dragged in by the ears, as if he were forcing himself to pretendto himself and to her that he was not ashamed of them, when in realityhe could not but be ashamed. She felt that now was the time to bring upthis subject and dispose of it.
Said she graciously: "I'm sorry your father and mother aren't living.I'd like to have known them."
He grew red. He was seeing a tiny, unkempt cottage in the outskirts ofWayne, poor, even for that modest little town. He was seeing a bent,gaunt old laborer in jeans, smoking a pipe on the doorsill; he wasseeing, in the kitchen-dining-room-sitting-room-parlor, disclosed by theopen door, a stout, aggressive-looking laborer's wife in faded calico,doing the few thick china dishes in dented dishpan on rickety old table."Yes," said he, with not a trace of sincerity in his ashamed,constrained voice, "I wish so, too."
She understood; she felt sorry for him, proud of herself. Was it notfine and noble of her thus to condescend? "But there are your brothersand sisters," she went graciously on. "I must meet them some time.""Yes, some time," said he, laboriously pumping a thin, watery pretenseof enthusiasm into his voice.
She had done her duty by his dreadful, impossible family. She passedglibly to other subjects. He was glad she had had the ladylike tact notto look at him during the episode; he wouldn't have liked any humanbeing to see the look he knew his face was wearing.
In the press of agitating events, both forgot the incident--for thetime.