"No, thanks," said Josh, in his most bustlingly-bounderish manner. "Tell the old lady I'm up to my neck in work."
Mr. Whitesides was taken aback, but he was far too polished a gentleman to show it. "Perhaps later?" he suggested.
"I've promised Margaret to go out there later. If I get through here in time I'll look in on Mrs. Bowker on the way. But tell her not to wait at home for me."
Mr. Whitesides bowed, and was glad when the outer air was blowing off him the odor of this vulgar incident. "For," said he to himself, "there are some manners so bad that they have a distinct bad smell. He is 'the limit!' The little Severence must be infernally hard-pressed to think of taking him on. Poor child! She's devilish interesting. A really handsome bit, and smart, too—excellent ideas about dress. Yet somehow she's been marooned, overlooked, while far worse have been married well. Strange, that sort of thing. Somewhat my own case. I ought to have been able to get some girl with a bunch, yet I somehow always just failed to connect—until I got beyond the marrying age. Devilish lucky for me, too. I'm no end better off." And Mr. Whitesides, sitting correctly upon Madam Bowlder's gray silk cushions, reflected complacently upon his ample salary, his carefully built-up and most lucrative commissions, his prospects for a "smashing-good legacy when her majesty deigns to pass away."
At four Madam Bowker, angry yet compelled to a certain respect, heard with satisfaction that Craig had come. "Leave me, Whitesides," said she. "I wish to be quite alone with him throughout."
Thus Craig, entering the great, dim drawing-room, with its panel paintings and its lofty, beautifully-frescoed ceiling, found himself alone with her. She was throned upon a large, antique gold chair, ebony scepter in one hand, the other hand white and young-looking and in fine relief against the black silk of her skirt; she bent upon him a keen, gracious look. Her hazel eyes were bright as a bird's; they had the advantage over a bird's that they saw—saw everything in addition to seeming to see.
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."