When they set out after breakfast her Joshua still did not return, as she had confidently expected.  The obstreperous one remained, the one that was the shrewdly-developed cover for his everlasting scheming mind.  “What an unending ass I’ve been making of myself,” he burst out, “with my silly notions.”  He drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to her.  “And this infernal thing of Grant’s has been encouraging me in idiocy.”

She read the Arkwright gentleman’s gazette and complete guide to dress and conduct in the society of a refined gentlewoman.  Her impulse was to laugh, an impulse hard indeed to restrain when she came to the last line of the document and read in Grant’s neat, careful-man’s handwriting with heavy underscorings:  “Above all, never forget that you are a mighty stiff dose for anybody, and could easily become an overdose for a refined, sensitive lady.”  But prudent foresight made her keep her countenance.  “This is all very sensible,” said she.

“Sensible enough,” assented he.  “I’ve learned a lot from it....Did you read that last sentence?”

She turned her face away.  “Yes,” she said.

“That, taken with everything else, all but got me down,” said he somberly.  “God, what I’ve been through!  It came near preventing us from discovering that you’re not a grand lady but a human being.”  His mood veered, and it was he that was gay and she glum; for he suddenly seized her and subjected her to one of those tumultuous ordeals so disastrous to toilette and to dignity and to her sense of personal rights.  Not that she altogether disliked; she never had altogether disliked, had found a certain thrill in his rude riotousness.  Still, she preferred the other Joshua Craig, her Joshua, who wished to receive as well as to give.  And she wished that Joshua, her Joshua, would return.  She herself had thought that, so far as she was concerned, those periods of tender and gentle sentiment would be episodic; but it was another thing for him to think so—­and to show it frankly.  “I feel as if I’d had an adventure with a bear,” said she, half-laughing, half-resentful.

“So you did,” declared he; “I’m a bear—­and every other sort of animal—­except rabbit.  There’s no rabbit in me.  Now, your men—­the Grant Arkwrights—­are all rabbit.”

“At least,” said she, “do refrain from tearing my hair down.  A woman who does her hair well hates to have it mussed.”

“I’ll try to remember,” was his careless answer.  “As I was about to say, our discovery that you are not a lady out of a story-book, but a human being and a very sweet one—­it came just in the nick of time.  We’re leaving here to-night.”

Now she saw the reason for the persistence of the Craig of noise and bluster—­and craft.  “To-night?” she exclaimed.  “It’s impossible.”

“Yes—­we go at five o’clock.  Tickets are bought—­sleeper section engaged—­everything arranged.”

“But Uncle Dan doesn’t expect us for four days yet.”