The old lady, recovered from her first shock, gazed at him admiringly.  He had completely turned her flank, and by a movement as swift as it was unexpected.  If she opposed the engagement he could hail her as an ally, could compel her to contribute to her own granddaughter’s public humiliation.  On the other hand, if she accepted the engagement he would have her and Margaret and all the proud Severence family in the position of humbly seeking alliance with him.  Admirable!  No wonder Branch was jealous and the President alarmed.  “Your game,” said she pleasantly, “is extremely unkempt, but effective.  I congratulate you.  I owe you an apology for having misjudged you.”

He gave her a shrewd look.  “I know little Latin and less Greek,” said he, “but, ‘timeo Danaos dona ferentes.’  And I’ve got no game.  I’m telling you the straight truth, and I want you to help save me from Margaret and from myself.  I love the girl.  I honestly don’t want to make her wretched.  I need a sock-darner, a wash-counter, a pram-pusher, for a wife, as Grant would say, not a dainty piece of lace embroidery.  It would soon be covered with spots and full of holes from the rough wear I’d give it.”

Madam Bowker laughed heartily.  “You are—­delicious,” said she.  “You state the exact situation.  Only I don’t think Rita is quite so fragile as you fancy.  Like all persons of common origin, Mr. Craig, you exaggerate human differences.  They are not differences of kind, but of degree.”

Craig quivered and reddened at “common origin,” as Madam Bowker expected and hoped.  She had not felt that she was taking a risk in thus hardily ignoring her own origin; Lard had become to her, as to all Washington, an unreality like a shadowy reminiscence of a possible former sojourn on earth.  “I see,” pursued she, “that I hurt your vanity by my frankness—­”

“Not at all!  Not at all!” blustered Joshua, still angrier—­as Madam Bowker had calculated.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” pursued she tranquilly.  “I was simply stating a fact without aspersion.  It is the more to your credit that you have been able to raise yourself up among us—­and so very young!  You are not more than forty, are you?”

“Thirty-four,” said Craig surlily.  He began to feel like a cur that is getting a beating from a hand beyond the reach of its fangs.  “I’ve had a hard life—­”

“So I should judge,” thrust the old lady with gentle sympathy.  It is not necessary to jab violently with a red-hot iron in order to make a deep burn.

“But I am the better for it,” continued Craig, eyes flashing and orator lips in action.  “And you and your kind—­your granddaughter Margaret—­would be the better for having faced—­for having to face—­the realities of life instead of being pampered in luxury and uselessness.”

“Then why be resentful?” inquired she.  “Why not merely pity us?  Why this heat and seeming jealousy?”

“Because I love your granddaughter,” replied Craig, the adroit at debate.  “It pains, it angers me to see a girl who might have been a useful wife, a good mother, trained and set to such base uses.”