The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig: A NovelPhillips, David Graham
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The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig: A Novel
Phillips, David Graham
Adventure stories; Fiction
Here was the Joshua she was to know thenceforth, she felt. This Joshua
would enable her to understand, or, rather, to disregard, so far as she
personally was concerned, the Josh, tempestuous, abrupt, often absurd,
whom the world knew. But--As soon as they went where the guides were,
the familiar Josh returned--boyish, boisterous, rather foolish in trying
to be frivolous and light. Still--what did it matter? As soon as they
should be alone again--
When they set out after breakfast her Joshua still did not return, as
she had confidently expected. The obstreperous one remained, the one
that was the shrewdly-developed cover for his everlasting scheming mind.
"What an unending ass I've been making of myself," he burst out, "with
my silly notions." He drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
"And this infernal thing of Grant's has been encouraging me in idiocy."
She read the Arkwright gentleman's gazette and complete guide to dress
and conduct in the society of a refined gentlewoman. Her impulse was to
laugh, an impulse hard indeed to restrain when she came to the last line
of the document and read in Grant's neat, careful-man's handwriting with
heavy underscorings: "Above all, never forget that you are a mighty
stiff dose for anybody, and could easily become an overdose for a
refined, sensitive lady." But prudent foresight made her keep her
countenance. "This is all very sensible," said she.
"Sensible enough," assented he. "I've learned a lot from it.... Did you
read that last sentence?"
She turned her face away. "Yes," she said.
"That, taken with everything else, all but got me down," said he
somberly. "God, what I've been through! It came near preventing us from
discovering that you're not a grand lady but a human being." His mood
veered, and it was he that was gay and she glum; for he suddenly seized
her and subjected her to one of those tumultuous ordeals so disastrous
to toilette and to dignity and to her sense of personal rights. Not that
she altogether disliked; she never had altogether disliked, had found a
certain thrill in his rude riotousness. Still, she preferred the other
Joshua Craig, HER Joshua, who wished to receive as well as to give. And
she wished that Joshua, her Joshua, would return. She herself had
thought that, so far as she was concerned, those periods of tender and
gentle sentiment would be episodic; but it was another thing for him to
think so--and to show it frankly. "I feel as if I'd had an adventure
with a bear," said she, half-laughing, half-resentful.
"So you did," declared he; "I'm a bear--and every other sort of
animal--except rabbit. There's no rabbit in me. Now, your men--the Grant
Arkwrights--are all rabbit."
"At least," said she, "do refrain from tearing my hair down. A woman who
does her hair well hates to have it mussed."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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