“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.”

“I can conceive of no greater dignity than to take care of a real man and his children,” replied Craig.  “However, the dignity of the service depends upon the dignity of the person to whom it is rendered—­and upon the dignity of the person who renders it.”

Arkwright examined Craig’s face for signs that this was the biting sarcasm it would have seemed, coming from another.  But Craig was apparently merely making one of his familiar bumptious speeches.  The idea of a man of his humble origin proclaiming himself superior to an Arkwright of the Massachusetts Arkwrights!

“No, I’d not marry your Miss Severence,” Craig continued.  “I want a wife, not a social ornament.  I want a woman, not a toilette.  I want a home, not a fashionable hotel.  I want love and sympathy and children.  I want substance, not shadow; sanity, not silliness.”

“And your socks darned and your shirts mended.”

“That, of course.”  Josh accepted these amendments with serene seriousness.  “And Miss Severence isn’t fit for the job.  She has some brains—­the woman kind of brains.  She has a great deal of rudimentary character.  If I had the time, and it were worth while, I could develop her into a real woman.  But I haven’t, and it wouldn’t be worth while when there are so many real women, ready made, out where I come from.  This girl would be exactly the wife for you, though.  Just as she is, she’d help you mince about from parlor to parlor, and smirk and jabber and waste time.  She’s been educating for the job ever since she was born.”  He laid his hand in gracious, kindly fashion on his friend’s shoulder.  “Think it over.  And if you want my help it’s yours.  I can show her what a fine fellow you are, what a good husband you’d make.  For you are a fine person, old man; when you were born fashionable and rich it spoiled a—­”