“There is some truth in what he says,” Arkwright admitted, with a reluctance of which his pride, and his heart as well, were ashamed.  “He’s become a burr, a thorn, in the Administration, and they’re really afraid of him in a way—­though, of course, they have to laugh at him as every one else does.”

“Of course,” said Margaret absently.

Arkwright watched her nervously.  “You seem to be getting round to the state of mind,” said he, “where you’ll be in danger of marrying our friend Craig.”

Margaret, her eyes carefully away from him, laughed softly—­a disturbingly noncommittal laugh.

“Of course, I’m only joking,” continued Arkwright.  “I know you couldn’t marry him.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t think he’s sincere.”

Her silence made him feel that she thought this as weak as he did.

“Because you don’t love him.”

“No, I certainly don’t love him,” said Margaret.

“Because you don’t even like him.”

“What a strange way of advocating your friend you have.”

Arkwright flushed scarlet.  “I thought you’d quite dismissed him as a possibility,” he stammered.

“With a woman every man’s a possibility so long as no man’s a certainty.”

“Margaret, you couldn’t marry a man you didn’t like?”

She seemed to reflect.  “Not if I were in love with another at the time,” she said finally.  “That’s as far as my womanly delicacy—­ what’s left of it after my years in society—­can influence me.  And it’s stronger, I believe, than the delicacy of most women of our sort.”

They were sitting now on the bench round the circle where the fountain was tossing high its jets in play with the sunshine.  She was looking very much the woman of the fashionable world, and the soft grays, shading into blues, that dominated her costume gave her an exceeding and entrancing seeming of fragility.  Arkwright thought her eyes wonderful; the sweet, powerful yet delicate odor of the lilac sachet powder with which her every garment was saturated set upon his senses like a love-philter.

“Yes, you are finer and nobler than most women,” he said giddily.  “And that’s why it distresses me to hear you talk even in jest, as if you could marry Josh.”

“And a few weeks ago you were suggesting him as just the husband for me.”

Arkwright was silent.  How could he go on?  How tell her why he had changed without committing himself to her by a proposal?  She was fascinating—­would be an ideal wife.  With what style and taste she’d entertain—­how she’d shine at the head of his table!  What a satisfaction it would be to feel that his money was being so competently spent.  But—­well, he did not wish to marry, not just yet; perhaps, somewhere in the world, he would find, in the next few years, a woman even better suited to him than Margaret.  Marrying was a serious business.  True, now that divorce had pushed its