The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig: A Novel

  CHAPTER XXIII

  WHAT THE MOON SAW AND DID

  Physical condition is no doubt the dominant factor in human thought andaction. State of soul is, as Doctor Schulze has observed, simply theegotistic human vanity for state of body. If the health of the humanrace were better, if sickness, the latent and the revealed together,were not all but universal, human relations would be wonderfullysoftened, sweetened and simplified. Indigestion, with its variousramifications, is alone responsible for most of the crimes, catastrophesand cruelties, public and private discord; for it tinges human thoughtand vision with pessimistic black or bloody red or envious green ordegenerate yellow instead of the normal, serene and invigorating white.All the world's great public disturbers have been diseased. As forprivate life, its bad of all degrees could, as to its deep-lying,originating causes, be better diagnosed by physician than bypsychologist.

  Margaret, being in perfect physical condition, was deeply depressed foronly a short time after the immediate cause of her mood ceased to beactive. An hour after Joshua had revealed himself in thunder andlightning, and had gone, she was almost serene again, her hopefulness ofhealthy youth and her sense of humor in the ascendent. Their stay in thewoods was drawing to an end. Soon they would be off for Lenox, for herUncle Dan's, where there would be many people about and small, perhapsno, opportunity for direct and quick action and result. She reviewed herconduct and felt that she had no reason to reproach herself for nothaving made an earlier beginning in what she now saw should have beenher tactics with her "wild man." How could she, inexpert, foresee whatwas mockingly obvious to hindsight? Only by experiment and failure isthe art of success learned. Her original plan had been the bestpossible, taking into account her lack of knowledge of male nature andthe very misleading indications of his real character she had got fromhim. In her position would not almost any one have decided that theright way to move him was by holding him at respectful distance and byindirect talk, with the inevitable drift of events doing the principalwork--gradually awakening him to the responsibilities and privilegeswhich his entry into a higher social station implied?

  But no time must now be lost; the new way, which experience hadrevealed, must be taken forthwith and traveled by forced marches. Beforethey left the woods she must have led him through all the gradations ofdomestic climate between their present frosty if kindly winter, andsummer, or, at least, a very balmy spring. From what she knew of histemperament she guessed that once she began to thaw he would forthwithwhirl her into July. She must be prepared to accept that,however--repellent though the thought was--she assured herself it wasmost repellent. She prided herself on her skill at catching and checkingherself in self-deception; but it somehow did not occur to her tocontrast her rather listless previous planning with the energy andinterest she at once put into this project for supreme martyrdom, as sheregarded it.

  When he came back that evening she was ready. But not he; he stalked in,sulking and blustering, tired, ignoring her, doing all the talkinghimself, and departing for bed as soon as dinner was over. She felt asif he had repulsed her, though, in fact, her overtures were whollyinternal and could not, by any chance, have impressed him. Bitteragainst him and dreading the open humiliation she would have to endurebefore she could make one so self-absorbed see what she was about, sheput out her light early, with intent to rise when he did and be atbreakfast before he could finish. She lay awake until nearly dawn, thenfell into a deep sleep. When she woke it was noon; she felt so greatlyrefreshed that her high good humor would not suffer her to be deeplyresentful against him for this second failure. "No matter," reflectedshe. "He might have suspected me if I'd done anything so revolutionaryas appear at breakfast. I'll make my beginning at lunch."

  She was now striving, with some success, to think of him as a tyrantwhom she, luckless martyr, must cajole. "I'm going the way of all themarried women," thought she. "They soon find there's no honorable way toget their rights from their masters, find they simply have to degradethemselves." Yes, he was forcing her to degrade herself, to simulateaffection when the reverse was in her heart. Well, she would make himpay dearly for it--some day. Meanwhile she must gain her point. "If Idon't, I'd better not have married. To be Mrs. is something, but notmuch if I'm the creature of his whims."

  She put off lunch nearly an hour; but he did not come, did not reappearuntil dinner was waiting. "I've been over to town," he explained, "doinga lot of telegraphing that was necessary." He was in vast spirits,delighted with himself, volubly boastful, so full of animal health andlife and of joy in the prospect of food and sleep that mental worrieswere as foreign to him as to the wild geese flying overhead.

  He snuffed the air in which the odor of cooking was mingled deliciouslywith the odor of the pines. "If they don't hurry up dinner," said he,"I'll rush in and eat off the stove. We used to at home sometimes. It'sgreat fun."

  She smiled tolerantly. "I've missed you," said she, and she was tellingherself that this statement of a literal truth was the quintessence ofhypocritical cajolery. "You might have taken me along."

  He gave her a puzzled look. "Oh," said he finally, "you've been thinkingover what I said."

  This was disconcerting; but she contrived to smile with winningfrankness. "Yes," replied she. "I've been very wrong, I see." She feltproud of the adroitness of this--an exact truth, yet wholly misleading.

  His expression told her that he was congratulating himself on his wisdomand success in having given her a sharp talking to; that he was thinkingit had brought her to her senses, had restored her respect for him, hadopened the way for her love for him to begin to show itself--that lovewhich he so firmly believed in, egotist that he was! Could anything bemore infuriating? Yet--after all, what difference did it make, so longas he yielded? And once she had him enthralled, then--ah, yes--THEN!Meanwhile she must remember that the first principle of successfuldeception is self-deception, and must try to convince herself that shewas what she was pretending to be.

  Dinner was served, and he fell to like a harvest hand. As he had thehabit, when he was very hungry, of stuffing his mouth far too full forspeech, she was free to carry out her little program of encouraging talkand action. As she advanced from hesitating compliment to flattery, toadmiring glances, to lingering look, she marveled at her facility. "Isuppose ages and ages of dreadful necessity have made it second natureto every woman, even the best of us," reflected she. If he weren't ahandsome, superior man she might be finding it more difficult; also, nodoubt the surroundings, so romantic, so fitting as background for hisruggedness, were helping her to dexterity and even enthusiasm.

  It was amusing, how she deceived herself--for the harmlessself-deceptions of us chronic mummers are always amusing. The fact was,this melting and inviting mood had far more of nature and sincerity init than there had been in her icy aloofness. Icy aloofness, except inthe heroines of aristocratic novels, is a state of mind compatible onlywith extreme stupidity or with some one of those organic diseases thatsour the disposition. Never had she been in such health as in that camp,never so buoyant, never had merely being alive been so deliciouslyintoxicating; the scratch he had made on her throat had healed intwenty-four hours, had all but disappeared in seventy-two. Never had sheknown to such a degree what a delight a body can be, the sense of itseagerness to bring to the mind all the glorious pleasures of the senses.Whatever disinclination she had toward him was altogether a prompting ofclass education; now that she had let down the bars and released feelingshe was in heart glad he was there with her, glad he was "such a MAN ofa man."

  The guides made a huge fire down by the shore, and left them alone. Theysat by it until nearly ten o'clock, he talking incessantly; herovertures had roused in him the desire to please, and, instead of theusual monologue of egotism and rant, he poured out poetry, eloquence,sense and humorous shrewdness. Had he been far less the unusual, thegreat man, she would still have listened with a sense of delight, for inher mood that night his penetrating voice, which, in other moods, shefound as insupportable
as a needle-pointed goad, harmonized with thegreat, starry sky and the mysterious, eerie shadows of forest andmountain and lake close round their huge, bright fire. As they rose togo in, up came the moon. A broad, benevolent, encouraging face, the faceof a matchmaker. Craig put his arm round Margaret. She trembled andthrilled.

  "Do you know what that moon's saying?" asked he. In his voice was thatexquisite tone that enabled him to make even commonplaces lift greataudiences to their feet to cheer him wildly.

  She lifted soft, shining eyes to his. "What?" she inquired under herbreath. She had forgotten her schemes, her resentments, her make-believeof every kind. "What--Joshua?" she repeated.

  "It's saying: 'Hurry up, you silly children, down there! Don't you knowthat life is a minute and youth a second?'" And now both his arms wereround her and one of her hands lay upon his shoulder.

  "Life a minute--youth a second," she murmured.

  "Do you think I'd scratch you horribly if I kissed you--Rita?"

  She lowered her eyes but not her face. "You might try--Josh."