Usually Craig's placid conviction that the universe existed for his special benefit and that anything therein was his for the mere formality of claiming it moved Arkwright to tolerant amusement at his lack of the sense of proportion and humor. Occasionally it moved him to reluctant admiration—this when some apparently absurd claim of his proved more or less valid. Just now, in the matter of Margaret Severence, this universal overlordship filled him with rage, the more furious that he realized he could no more shake Josh's conviction than he could make the Washington monument topple over into the Potomac by saying, "Be thou removed." He might explain all the obvious reasons why Margaret would never deign to condescend to him; Josh would dismiss them with a laugh at Arkwright's folly.
He hid his rage as best he could, and said with some semblance of genial sarcasm: "So all you've got to do is to ask her and she's yours?"
Craig gave him a long, sharp, searching look. "Old man," he said earnestly, "do you want her?"
"_I_!" exclaimed Arkwright angrily, but with shifting eyes and with upper lip twitching guiltily. Then, satirically: "Oh, no; I'd not dare aspire to any woman YOU had condescended to smile upon."
"If you do I'll get her for you," pursued Craig, his hand seeking Arkwright's arm to grip it.
Arkwright drew away, laughed outright. "You ARE a joke!" he cried, wholly cured of his temper by the preposterous offer. It would be absurd enough for any one to imagine he would need help in courting any woman he might fancy—he, one of the most eligible of American bachelors. It passed the uttermost bounds of the absurd, this notion that he would need help with a comparatively poor girl, many seasons out and eager to marry. And then, climax of climaxes, that Josh Craig could help him! "Yes, a joke," he repeated.
"Oh, no doubt I do seem so to you," replied Josh unruffled. "People are either awed or amused by what they're incapable of understanding. At this stage of my career I'm not surprised to find they're amused. But wait, my boy. Meanwhile, if you want that lady, all you've got to do is to say the word. I'll get her for you."
"Thanks; no," said Arkwright. "I'm rather shy of matrimony. I don't hanker after the stupid joys of family life, as you do."
"That's because of your ruinous, rotten training," Craig assured him. "It has destroyed your power to appreciate the great fundamentals of life. You think you're superior. If you only knew how shallow you are!"
"I've a competent valet," said Arkwright. "And your idea of a wife seems to be a sort of sublimated valet—and nurse."