"Yes," said Josh, in his abrupt, decisive way. He threw the cigarette into the empty fireplace and stood up. "I think I'll take your advice and marry Miss Severance." "Really!" mocked Grant; but he was red with anger, was muttering under his breath, "Insolent puppy!" "Yes, I think she'll do." Craig spoke as if his verdict were probably overpartial to her. "It's queer about families and the kind of children they have. Every once in a while you'll find a dumb ass of a man whose brain will get to boiling with liquor or some other ferment, and it'll incubate an idea, a real idea. It's that way about paternity--or, rather, maternity. Now who'd think that inane, silly mother of Margaret's could have brought such a person as she is into the world?" "Mrs. Severence is a very sweet and amiable LADY," said Grant coldly. "Pooh!" scoffed Craig. "She's a nothing--a puff of wind--a nit. Such as she, by the great gross, wouldn't count one." "I doubt if it would be--wise--politically, I mean--for you to marry a woman of--of the fashionable set." Grant spoke judicially, with constraint in his voice. "You're quite right there," answered Craig promptly. "Still, it's a temptation.... I've been reconsidering the idea since I discovered that she loves me." Grant leaped to his feet. "Loves you!" he shouted. Josh smiled calmly. "Loves me," said he. "Why not, pray?" "I--I--I--don't know," answered Grant weakly. "Oh, yes, you do. You think I'm not good enough for her--as if this were not America, but Europe." And he went on loftily: "You ought to consider what such thoughts mean, as revelations of your own character, Grant." "You misunderstood me entirely," protested Grant, red and guilty. "Didn't I originally suggest her to you?" "But you didn't really mean it," retorted Craig with a laugh which Grant thought the quintessence of impertinence. "You never dreamed she'd fall in love with me." "Josh," said Grant, "I wish you wouldn't say that sort of thing. It's not considered proper in this part of the country for a gentleman to speak out that way about women." "What's there to be ashamed of in being in love? Besides, aren't you my best friend, the one I confide everything to?" "You confide everything to everybody." Craig looked amused. "There are only two that can keep a secret," said he, "nobody and everybody. I trust either the one or the other, and neither has ever betrayed me." "To go back to the original subject: I'd prefer you didn't talk to me in that way about that particular young lady." "Why?... Because you're in love with her, yourself?" Grant silently stared at the floor. "Poor old chap," said Craig sympathetically. Arkwright winced, started to protest, decided it was just as well to let Craig think what he pleased at that juncture.