Craig laughed loudly. A shrewd onlooker might have suspected from his expression that he had deliberately created a diversion of confusion, and was congratulating himself upon its success. "Get out?" cried he. "Not I. I go where I please and stay as long as I please." Arkwright was seated upon the grass, readjusting his collar and tie. "What a rotten coward you are!" he said to Craig, "to take me off guard like that." "It WAS a low trick," admitted Josh, looking down at him genially. "But I'm so crazy I don't know what I'm doing." "Oh, yes, you do; you wanted to show off," answered Grant. But Craig had turned to Margaret again. "Read that," he commanded, and thrust a newspaper clipping into her hand. It was from one of the newspapers of his home town--a paper of his own party, but unfriendly to him. It read: "Josh Craig's many friends here will be glad to hear that he is catching on down East. With his Government job as a stepping-stone he has sprung into what he used to call plutocratic society in Washington, and is about to marry a young lady who is in the very front of the push. He will retire from politics, from head-hunting among the plutocrats, and will soon be a plutocrat and a palace-dweller himself. Success to you, Joshua. The 'pee-pul' have lost a friend--in the usual way. As for us, we've got the right to say, 'I told you so,' but we'll be good and refrain." "The President handed me that last night," said Craig, when he saw that her glance was on the last line. "And he told me he had decided to ask Stillwater to stay on." Margaret gave the clipping to Grant. "Give it to him," she said and started toward the house. Craig sprang before her. "Margaret," he cried, "can you blame me?" "No," said she, and there was no pose in her manner now; it was sincerely human. "I pity you." She waved him out of her path and, with head bent, he obeyed her. The two men gazed after her. Arkwright was first to speak: "Well, you've got what you wanted." Craig slowly lifted his circled, bloodshot eyes to Arkwright. "Yes," said he hoarsely, "I've got what I wanted." "Not exactly in the way a gentleman would like to get it," pursued Grant. "But YOU don't mind a trifle of that sort." "No," said Craig, "I don't mind a trifle of that sort. 'Bounder Josh'--that's what they call me, isn't it?" "When they're frank they do." Craig drew a long breath, shook himself like a man gathering himself together after a stunning blow. He reflected a moment. "Come along, Grant. I'm going back in your machine." "The driver'll take you," replied Arkwright stiffly. "I prefer to walk." "Then we'll walk back together." "We will not!" said Arkwright violently. "And after this morning the less you say to me the better pleased I'll be, and the less you'll impose upon the obligation I'm under to you for having saved my life once."