"You and Grant Arkwright are going to marry. Now don't pretend—don't protest. It's the proper thing and it must be done. You like him?"
As Craig was looking sharply at her she felt she must answer. She made a vague gesture of assent.
"Of course!" said Craig. "If you and he led a natural life you'd have been married long ago. Now, I'm going to dine with him to-night. I'll lay the case before him. He'll be out here after you to-morrow."
Margaret trembled with anger. Two bright spots burned in her cheeks. "You wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "No, not even you!"
"And why not?" demanded Craig calmly. "Do you suppose I'm going to stand idly by, and let two friends of mine, two people I'm as fond of as I am of you two creatures, make fools of yourselves? No. I shall bring you together."
Margaret rose. "If you say a word to Grant I'll never speak to you again. And I assure you I shouldn't marry HIM if he were the last man on earth."
"If you only knew men better!" exclaimed Craig earnestly. His eyes fascinated her, and his sharp, penetrating voice somehow seemed to reach to her very soul and seize it and hold it enthralled. "My dear child, Grant Arkwright is one man in a million. I've been with him in times that show men's qualities. Don't judge men by what they are ordinarily. They don't reveal their real selves. Wait till a crisis comes—then you see manhood or lack of it. Life is bearable, at the worst, for any of us in the routine. But when the crisis comes we need, not only all our own strength, but all we can rally to our support. I tell you, Miss Severence, Grant is one of the men that can be relied on. I despise his surface—as I do yours. But it's because I see the man—the manhood—beneath that surface, that I love him. And I want him to have a woman worthy of him. That means YOU. You, too, have the soul that makes a human being—a real aristocrat—of the aristocracy, of strong and honest hearts."
Craig's face was splendid, was ethereal in its beauty, yet flashing with manliness. He looked as she had seen him that night two years before, when he had held even her and her worldly friends spellbound, had made them thrill with ideas of nobility and human helpfulness foreign to their everyday selves. She sat silent when he had finished, presently drew a long breath.
"Why aren't you always like that?" she exclaimed half to herself.
"You'll marry Grant?"