mused drowsily.  “Well—­ whether or not I can have freedom, at least I must have luxury.  I’m afraid Grant can’t give me nearly all I want—­who could? ...  If I had the courage—­Craig could make more than Grant has, if he were put to it.  I’m sure he could.  I’m sure he could do almost anything—­but be attractive to a woman.  No, Craig is too strong a dose—­besides, there’s the risk.  Grant is safest.  Better a small loaf than—­than no Paris dresses.”

Arkwright, entering Mrs. Severence’s drawing-room with Craig at half-past five, found a dozen people there.  Most of them were of that young married set which Margaret preferred, to the anger and disgust of her grandmother and against the entreaties of her own common sense.  “The last place in the world to look for a husband,” Madam Bowker had said again and again, to both her daughter and her granddaughter.  “Their talk is all in ridicule of marriage, and of every sacred thing.  And if there are any bachelors, they have come—­well, certainly not in search of honorable wedlock.”

The room was noisily gay; but Margaret, at the tea-table in a rather somber brown dress with a big brown hat, whose great plumes shadowed her pale, somewhat haggard face, was evidently not in one of her sparkling moods.  The headache powder and the nap had not been successful.  She greeted Arkwright with a slight, absent smile, seemed hardly to note Craig, as Arkwright presented him.

“Sit down here beside Miss Severence,” Grant said.

“Yes, do,” acquiesced Margaret; and Joshua thought her cold and haughty, an aristocrat of the unapproachable type, never natural and never permitting others to be natural.

“And tell her all about yourself,” continued Grant.

“My friend Josh, here,” he explained to Margaret, “is one of those serious, absorbed men who concentrate entirely upon themselves.  It isn’t egotism; it’s genius.”

Craig was ruffled and showed it.  He did not like persiflage; it seemed an assault upon dignity, and in those early days in Washington he was full of dignity and of determination to create a dignified impression.  He reared haughtily and looked about with arrogant, disdainful eyes.

“Will you have tea?” said Miss Severence, as Arkwright moved away.

“No, thanks,” replied Craig.  “Tea’s for the women and the children.”

Miss Severence’s expression made him still more uncomfortable.  “Well,” said she, “if you should feel dry as you tell me about yourself, there’s whiskey over on that other table.  A cigarette?  No?  I’m afraid I can’t ask you to have a cigar—­”

“And take off my coat, and put my feet up, and be at home!” said Craig.  “I see you think I’m a boor.”

“Don’t you want people to think you a boor?” inquired she with ironic seriousness.

He looked at her sharply.  “You’re laughing at me,” he said, calmly.  “Now, wouldn’t it be more ladylike for you to try to put me at my ease?  I’m in your house, you know.”