CHAPTER XIX

MADAM BOWKER'S BLESSING


"If you like I'll go up and tell your grandmother," said Craig,
breaking the silence as they neared the hotel. But Margaret's
brain had resumed its normal function, was making up for the time
it had lost. With the shaking off of the daze had come amazement
at finding herself married. In the same circumstances a man would
have been incapacitated for action; Craig, who had been so
reckless, so headlong a few minutes before, was now timid,
irresolute, prey to alarms. But women, beneath the pose which
man's resolute apotheosis of woman as the embodiment of
unreasoning imagination has enforced upon them, are rarely so
imaginative that the practical is wholly obscured. Margaret was
accepting the situation, was planning soberly to turn it to the
best advantage. Obviously, much hung upon this unconventional,
this vulgarly-sensational marriage being diplomatically announced
to the person from whom she expected to get an income of her own.
"No," said she to Joshua, in response to his nervously-made offer.
"You must wait down in the office while I tell her. At the proper
time I'll send for you."

She spoke friendlily enough, with an inviting suggestion of their
common interests. But Craig found it uncomfortable even to look at
her. Now that the crisis was over his weaknesses were returning;