Looking at him she saw a figure whose surfaces were, indeed, not extraordinarily impressive.  Craig’s frame was good; that was apparent despite his clothes.  He had powerful shoulders, not narrow, yet neither were they of the broad kind that suggest power to the inexpert and weakness and a tendency to lung trouble to the expert.  His body was a trifle long for his arms and legs, which were thick and strong, like a lion’s or a tiger’s.  He had a fine head, haughtily set; his eyes emphasized the impression of arrogance and force.  He had the leader’s beaklike nose, a handsome form of it, like Alexander’s, not like Attila’s.  The mouth was the orator’s—­wide, full and flexible of lips, fluent.  It was distinctly not an aristocratic mouth.  It suggested common speech and common tastes—­ruddy tastes—­tastes for quantity rather than for quality.  His skin, his flesh were also plainly not aristocratic; they lacked that fineness of grain, that finish of surface which are got only by eating the costly, rare, best and best-prepared food.  His hair, a partially disordered mop over-hanging his brow at the middle, gave him fierceness of aspect.  The old lady had more than a suspicion that the ferocity of that lock of hair and somewhat exaggerated forward thrust of the jaw were pose—­in part, at least, an effort to look the valiant and relentless master of men—­perhaps concealing a certain amount of irresolution.  Certainly those eyes met hers boldly rather than fearlessly.

She extended her hand.  He took it, and with an effort gave it the politician’s squeeze—­the squeeze that makes Hiram Hanks and Bill Butts grin delightedly and say to each other:  “B’gosh, he ain’t lost his axe-handle grip yet, by a durn sight, has he?—­dog-gone him!”

Madam Bowker did not wince, though she felt like it.  Instead she smiled—­a faint, derisive smile that made Craig color uncomfortably.

“You young man,” said she in her cool, high-bred tones, “you wish to marry my granddaughter.”

Craig was never more afraid nor so impressed in his life.  But there was no upflaming of physical passion here to betray him into yielding before her as he had before her granddaughter.  “I do not,” replied he arrogantly.  “Your granddaughter wants to marry me.”

Madam Bowker winced in spite of herself.  A very sturdy-appearing specimen of manhood was this before her; she could understand how her granddaughter might be physically attracted.  But that rude accent, that common mouth, those uncouth clothes, hand-me-downs or near it, that cheap look about the collar, about the wrists, about the ankles—­

“We are absolutely unsuited to each other—­in every way,” continued Craig.  “I tell her so.  But she won’t listen to me.  The only reason I’ve come here is to ask you to take a hand at trying to bring her to her senses.”