She laughed gayly.  “Oh, yes—­and your own answer to it, Joshua—­my love”—­the “my love” in a much lower, softer tone, with suggestion of sudden tears trembling to fall.

“But I meant it,” he said, though in tones little like any he was used to hearing from his own lips.  But he would not dare look himself in the face again if he did not make at least a wriggle before surrendering.

“We mean many things in as many moods,” said she.  “I knew it was only a mood.  I knew you’d come.  I’ve such a sense of implicit reliance on you.  You are to me like the burr that shields the nut from all harm.  How secure and cozy and happy the nut must feel in its burr.  As I’ve walked through the woods in the autumn I’ve often thought of that, and how, if I ever married—­”

A wild impulse to seize her and crush her, as one crushes the ripe berry for its perfume and taste, flared in his eyes.  She drew away to check it.  “Not now,” she murmured, and her quick breath and flush were not art, but nature.  “Not just now—­Joshua.”

“You make me—­insane,” he muttered between his teeth.  “God!—­I do love you!”

They were arrived; were descending.  And she led him, abject and in chains, into the presence of Mrs. Whitson and the most fashionable of the fashionable set.  “So you’ve brought him along?” cried Mrs. Whitson.  “Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Craig.  It’s very evident you have a shrewd eye for the prizes of life, and a strong, long reach to grasp them.”

Craig, red and awkward, laughed hysterically, flung out a few meaningless phrases.  Margaret murmured:  “Perhaps you’d rather go?” She wished him to go, now that she had exhibited him.

“Yes—­for Heaven’s sake!” he exclaimed.  He was clutching for his braggart pretense of ease in “high society” like a drowning man scooping armsful of elusive water.

She steered her captive in her quiet, easeful manner toward the door, sent him forth with a farewell glance and an affectionate interrogative, “This afternoon, at half-past four?” that could not be disobeyed.

The mutiny was quelled.  The mutineer was in irons.  She had told him she felt quite sure about him; and it was true, in a sense rather different from what the words had conveyed to him.  But it was of the kind of security that takes care to keep the eye wakeful and the powder dry.  She felt she did not have him yet where she could trust him out of her sight and could herself decide whether the engagement was to be kept or broken.

“Why, my dear,” said Mrs. Whitson, “he positively feeds out of your hand!  And such a wild man he seemed!”

Margaret, in the highest of high spirits, laughed with pleasure.

“A good many,” pursued Mrs. Whitson, “think you are throwing yourself away for love.  But as I size men up—­and my husband says I’m a wonder at it—­I think he’ll be biggest figure of all at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue or the other.  Perhaps, first one end, then at the other.”