Edith had secured the necessary records for the victrola from the hotel office, and she and Cosden were alone in the ball-room ready for the first lesson in modern dancing. Cosden had never before noticed how enormous the room was, or how many of its windows opened onto the piazza, or how curious the average hotel guest is when a novice is about to be initiated into the mysteries of terpsichorean art.
"Pay no attention to them," Edith reassured him. "Those who know how to dance have had to go through it, and those who haven't learned are perishing for an opportunity. Listen!" she cried, as the music began. "Can you possibly make your feet behave when you hear that heavenly one-step? Look!"
Lifting her skirts gracefully above her ankles, Edith made herself a veritable part of the music, pirouetting up and down and around, while he watched her in mingled admiration and trepidation.
"There!" she cried, stopping before him; "it's perfectly simple, you see. Now, you try it."
"By myself?" he inquired.
"Of course," she laughed. "How else can you learn?"
"All right," was the dubious assent; "but don't you think we might pull those curtains down?"
"Nonsense! You might as well start in,—you couldn't look more foolish than you do now."
"All right," he again assented, and took his place on the floor.
"Now, left foot forward—one, two, three, four. No; left foot, I said. That's it. Now rise a little on your toes. Don't be so heavy, and for Heaven's sake look as cheerful as you can!"
"This is awful!" Cosden ejaculated, mopping his forehead. "Don't you think it's too warm a day to begin?"
"It isn't warm; it's really cool, and you haven't begun to begin yet. Now start in again. Left foot,—left I say, one, two—oh! that miserable victrola has stopped!"
"Let me wind it up," Cosden insisted quickly, glad of the opportunity to struggle with something tangible.
"Now we'll try again," Edith said amiably. "This time get started before the music runs down. Watch me just a moment. There,—now you know what to do. Left, dear man, left,—not right, and rise on your toes, one, two, three, four. Why don't you pay attention to the music?"
"I think I could learn better without the music. It throws me off."
"Move with it; then it will help you."
"I can't; it mixes me up."
"Don't you feel any impulse to move your feet when you hear that music?"
"Yes; I feel an inordinate desire to run out of the room."
"But, seriously, doesn't the rhythm of that one-step make you instinctively want to dance?"
"Not the slightest. I never wanted to dance in my life until now, and only now because you tell me that it's part of the game."
"Did you ever play any musical instrument?"
"Oh, yes; when I was a boy I played the bones in a minstrel show."
"Well, there's a ray of hope.—Wind up the victrola again, and we'll start all over. You do wind it beautifully!"
"This is too big a job you've undertaken," he told her as they again stood facing each other. "Let's call it off."
"No, indeed," Edith protested. "It is only fair to say that you are not what would be called a natural dancer, but that will bring all the more glory to your instructor when once you've learned. Why, look at the tricks they teach animals! I'm not a bit discouraged, are you?"
"Are we down-hearted?" he echoed in a spirit of bravado.
"Not a bit of it; now we'll dance together, and I'll try to pull you around. There, put your arm around my waist,—that's right. Hold me closer,—don't be afraid. Imagine I'm your sister if it will keep you from being embarrassed. Left foot forward—ta, ta, ta, ta—that's better. No, let me lead. There, we can go forwards and backwards anyway, but you mustn't step on my feet. That's the first thing to learn,—dance on your own feet."
"I beg your pardon—"
"That's all right; I don't mind it at all. Butwhen we stop dancing, you know, you must take your arm away from my waist. How quickly you overcame that early embarrassment!"
"I don't intend to give you another chance to suggest that I'm afraid," Cosden retorted. "I may not know much about girls or dancing, but if you think I haven't nerve enough to put my arm around your waist,—well, it's up to me to demonstrate."
"You bold, bad man!" Edith pointed her finger at him in mock-reproach. "I sha'n't dare go on with the lesson until I've forgotten your threatening attitude! Now let's see if a little turn on the piazza won't give us courage to continue."
Cosden assented with alacrity. "Splendid notion!" he exclaimed; "that will give me a chance to cool off."
"You are warm," she admitted, looking him over critically and noting that his collar was completely wrecked. "You must read the Polite Book of Dancing Etiquette—"
"Oh, Lord!" Cosden groaned.
"You will find there many useful suggestions which will add to your popularity with your partners. For instance, it tells you that when overheated by the exercise you should stand erect and throw your chin out; then the perspiration will run down the back of your neck and be less noticeable.—Come now, see what a light Bermuda breeze will do to cheer you up."
Edith was well pleased with the results of the first lesson. She had felt some misgivings, for Cosden was the most masterful man she had ever met. If this masterfulness could not be broken down,then her plans could not be carried out; but she recalled the fact that Henry Thatcher, so pliable in his wife's hands, was spoken of as dictatorial and self-confident in his business relations. If this was true of Thatcher, it might be equally true of Cosden, and the experiment was well worth trying. In the hour just past Edith had proved her sagacity to herself. Cosden explained his present docility by saying that he always obeyed his doctor's orders; Edith had discovered in that brief time two facts unknown even to himself: that his confidence came only from a knowledge of his own strength, that in treading new and unknown paths he was not only willing to be led but accepted guidance gratefully.
After this important discovery, she intuitively came to a better understanding of the man. "Men know more than they understand, and women understand more than they know," some one has tritely said. Edith Stevens was a woman, and understanding was enough; she did not crave to know. When Cosden stated so flatly, "I always get what I go after," she had thought him a tactless braggart, who deserved to be shown his place; now, with this new light thrown upon his character, she understood his remark quite differently. The man knew but one way to accomplish his purpose, and that was to go directly at it, head-on, overpowering opposition by the force of his momentum. In his beginnings, Edith surmised, he had not always felt so confident, and these bold assertions were made partly to give himself additional courage and partly to conceal from the world the existence of any doubt as to his ultimate success. What had been firsta policy became a habit, and if Edith were correct in her analysis Cosden was at the present moment repeating his early experiences.
Time in Bermuda cannot be figured by calendar days. Whether this is due to the evenness and perfection of the temperature, which so satisfies the physical demands as to eliminate all desire for change, or to the natural beauty which exorcises those sordid demands life elsewhere compels, it would be difficult to determine; but the fact remains that except for the sailing of the little steamers a week is like a long, delicious day, with the nights a passing incident,—a curtain drawn for a moment to deprive the vision of its wondrous panorama, lest the spirit become satiated and thus less appreciative.
More than a fortnight had passed since Billy Huntington's spectacular departure, yet no one suggested that vacation days were drawing to an end. It was Thatcher who found least to occupy him, yet even he had fallen beneath the spell and was content to drift. By this time Marian was fully convinced that a match between Hamlen and Merry was foreordained, and that her mission was to drag him forth from his exile; but she was not satisfied with her progress in either one of her self-imposed labors. Hamlen was a changed man since the new companionship came into his life, but whenever he was brought up against the question of leaving his retreat the old terror seized him, and he slipped back behind his defenses.
"I wish I might," said he to her one day, "believeme, I wish I might; but you don't know what you ask. The bitterness of my attitude toward the world has become an abnormal condition which you could not be expected to understand. Your visit here has tempered it—I know now that there are exceptions; but don't urge me against my better judgment. Let me remember this visit in all its happiness; perhaps its memory will enable me later to do as you suggest."
Huntington was no more successful in his efforts. His classmate listened to him patiently and showed a full appreciation of the friendly suggestions; but no promise could be exacted, and Hamlen seemed stronger than the combined forces against him. Yet, in spite of disappointments, Huntington was optimistic.
"We may not be able to take him with us," he admitted to Marian, "but after we are gone he will find this place unendurable. Time will be our ally."
Cosden's sudden intimacy with Edith Stevens mystified Huntington, but he welcomed it as a temporary respite. So long as Cosden was making no exertion to advance his interests with Merry, no more active effort could be expected from his friend. He asked no questions and Cosden vouchsafed no information, which on both sides marked a change in the relations of the two men.
Edith was equally mysterious with Marian, smiling sagely when her friend tried to draw her out; but she admitted or denied nothing. She faithfully performed her self-assumed duties, and Cosden lived up to his agreement to take the medicine his doctor prescribed. By this time he was able to pull throughon the one-step and the canter waltz, but his great success was the fox-trot. This, he discovered without assistance, is danced in as many ways as there are individual dancers, so he developed an original "series" which gave him supreme satisfaction, since as he explained, no one could prove whether he or his partner was at fault when a mistake was made. Edith had long since given up all hope of having him follow the music, but he had actually learned the steps, and his persistency in pursuing with grim relentlessness what she knew to be an irksome duty could but win her respect.
In fact, she looked upon the result of her experiment with no little pride. Each afternoon the two might be seen on the ball-room floor, working away as if their lives depended upon it, with the Victrola repeating over and over the same tunes which, except for her own persistency, would have driven Edith mad. Always after the dancing lesson they promenaded the hotel piazza "to cool off," and their joint devotion to their undertaking was so assiduous that it became almost a feature of the hotel life. Edith's triumph came when Merry was called in to "assist" at one of the later lessons. Try as they would, Cosden and his new partner were at odds in each effort they made to dance together, while with Edith he succeeded passably well. In Cosden's mind there could be but one explanation.
"I always thought she knew how to dance," he expressed it after Merry left them alone. "How little you can judge of anything until you know how to do it yourself!" And Edith, wise person that she was, did not explain to him that thiswas the first time he had danced without her guiding hand!
Cosden had become dependent upon his chief adviser in other ways than dancing. He found her so sympathetic in listening to his problems and so helpfully intelligent in discussing them that he gradually confided to her more of his intimate affairs than he had ever shared with any one else. Ostensibly, she was adviser only in his affair with Merry, but it was a short step to extend her line of operations without having him realize that she was exceeding her contract. She explained matters which seemed subtle to him with such clearness, her counsels were so wise and her criticisms so fearless that Cosden's admiration was profound.
"You are a bit severe, you know," he said to her one day; "but I like it. The only reason I go to a specialist is because I know he understands his subject better than I do, and so I swallow what he tells me, hook, line and sinker. And you are a great success as an expert in your line, Miss Stevens,—you're all right."
Whereupon Edith courtesied gracefully and answered demurely, "Thank you, sir; I am glad I give satisfaction."
Thatcher and Cosden had carried the trolley proposition as far as lay within their power, and awaited a response from the Bermuda government before they could proceed. This threw Cosden back again upon his original purpose, to which he clung with a bulldog tenacity. Edith knew by this time that when his mind once settled upon a course diversion was an impossibility, so she encouragedrather than opposed him. She left Cosden's confidence in himself undisturbed while she encouraged his dependence, and complacently permitted affairs to take their course. Just when the master stroke would be delivered she could not tell, but she was prepared to have it descend suddenly at any moment.
The fortnight had given Huntington a new lease of life. His efforts to humanize Hamlen forced him out of his habitual course along the line of least resistance, and without analyzing his new sensations he found them to be agreeable. In addition to this Merry and he were boon companions now, and he discovered that the vivacity of a young girl was no less effective in making him forget his years than the noisier enthusiasm of his youthful nephew. Merry accepted her responsibilities with great seriousness, and discussed Hamlen's persistent obstinacy with Huntington from every possible angle. In fact, Huntington made a point of inventing new angles in order to prolong the discussions, and to supply the excuse for walks and drives which threw them much together.
As a result of their growing intimacy Huntington came to favor Billy's ambitions far above those of Cosden. He had not changed in his conviction that neither one of them was at all suited to the girl, but if it could be possible to hold matters in abeyance until the boy might be developed up to her, there would at least be much satisfaction to him personally if Merry could be kept in the family. Of course he must be loyal to his friend, but as Cosden seemed to be finding much pleasure in MissStevens' companionship his conscience did not suffer any twinges which were too painful to be endured.
But complacency is ever a forerunner of seismic upheavals. The days had repeated themselves often enough now for Huntington to regard their routine as practically fixed, and he was anticipating the usual quiet, after-breakfast smoke on the piazza, during which period he would discuss with Merry some new attack upon Hamlen's obstinacy, or some new trip during which the attack could be devised. This had seemed such a certainty to Huntington that Cosden's words were in the nature of a shock.
"Miss Thatcher and I are going sailing this morning," he announced.
"Eh—what? Oh, sailing—are you?" Huntington stumbled a bit before recovering himself. "It's a fine morning for that," he continued with decision.
"You've been doing better lately, Monty," Cosden complimented him. "At first I didn't think you were going to help me out at all, but for some time now you've been putting yourself right into it, just as I wanted you to. What have you to say about the girl now? She's all right, isn't she?"
"You don't mean that you're still serious in that direction—"
"Of course I am. Why should you think I had changed my mind?" Cosden interrupted. "I don't often do that, do I?"
"But you have hardly seen her."
"I've been biding my time, Monty, that's all, while Miss Stevens coached me up a bit. It's really a great game,—there's more to it than I thought."
"You are absolutely unsuited to each other."
"Why, Monty, I believe you're jealous!"
"Well, suppose I am?"
Cosden showed his amusement. "I would take that as a challenge from any one but an old cynic like you," he laughed.
Huntington failed to enter into Cosden's lightheartedness. "This is a serious matter, Connie," he insisted. "That little girl is too fine to have her name bandied like this. I give you warning right here that I step down and out on this proposition. I can't imagine a worse crime than to harness a high-strung, thoughtful, sentimental child like that to a human adding-machine like you, and I won't be a party to it."
The younger man realized at last that his friend was serious. He looked at him soberly for a moment, then he placed his hand on his shoulder.
"Is this all our friendship amounts to?" he asked.
"It is the greatest act of friendship I have ever been called upon to show you," Huntington returned. "You would be as wretched with her as she with you. I felt sure that you had come to the same conclusion, and I admired your good sense."
"Is there by any chance some deeper reason?" Cosden demanded pointedly.
"No, Connie," Huntington replied quickly; "don't be ridiculous! I am just as unsuited to her as you are. Why, I'm old enough to be her father! But somewhere there is a man who is meant for her and who is worthy of her, and I only hope that he will appear before any one persuades her into making a mistake.
"Don't you think her capable of taking care of that herself?"
"Frankly, I do. I don't think you have the remotest chance of interesting her."
"What has happened to lower me so in your estimation?" Cosden persisted, puzzled rather than resentful. "Our friendship dates back a good many years, Monty, and this is the first time you ever made me feel you disapproved of me. Does it mean—"
"It means that I'm proving my friendship now," Huntington interrupted, "by telling you an unpleasant truth. During this long friendship, which I never prized more highly than I do this moment, I have watched you work out your success, often against heavy odds. All this I have admired, Connie, but to win as you have done has been at a cost I had not realized until I saw you under these new conditions: it has kept you from developing those finer instincts which a man needs to guide him at a time like this."
"You mean romance, I suppose, and sentiment."
"I mean a sensing of the proportions and a respect for appropriateness even if it interferes with your preconceived plans. Your interest in this girl exists admittedly because of what an alliance with her will do for you: it will bring you closer to the group of operators of which her father is the head, she will preside with credit over your household, through her you may perhaps secure social advantages which now you feel are beyond your reach."
"Isn't all that legitimate?"
"Entirely legitimate, measured by laws of barter and sale,—but to my mind eminently improper when applied to Miss Thatcher."
As Huntington grew more and more intense Cosden's attitude gradually became normal again, and an indulgent expression replaced the serious aspect which his face had assumed as their conversation progressed.
"Well, Monty," he said, slapping him on the back, "you've got that off your mind, and it's a good thing to have happen. What you want is to take your endorsement off my social note; that's all right,—consider it done. Your sentimental notions are great in story-books but less valuable in every-day life. You stick to your ideals, and I will to mine. I've made up my mind to get married, and you know what happens when once my mind is made up."
"You are absolutely hopeless!" Huntington cried despondently.
"Hopeful, you mean," laughed Cosden, "in spite of your gloomy forebodings. What you say ought to shake my confidence in myself, no doubt, but somehow I think I'd rather hear it direct from Miss Thatcher herself. Hello!" he exclaimed as he looked at his watch, "it's time to start. Cheer up, Monty! Really, things aren't half as bad as they look from where you sit!"
However abrupt Cosden's action may have appeared to Miss Stevens or to Huntington, in his own mind he believed himself to have selected the psychological moment for which he had patiently waited. It was true that he had seen comparatively little of Merry Thatcher, but the time had been well spent in preparation for the grand event. Now, particularly since Huntington had spoken as he did, Cosden was eager to put his new-found knowledge to the test, and to disprove his friend's contention.
It was a business axiom with Cosden that an order must be half sold before the salesman approached the prospective buyer. "People don't buy anything these days," he hammered into his sales-manager; "they have to be sold." And Cosden was a man who practised what he preached. The frankly-admitted lack of familiarity on his part with the particular market in which he proposed to trade was offset, he believed, by the expert coaching he had received from Miss Stevens; and this should have prepared him for any emergency. After all, were not the principles the same the world over? Somewhere, back in the hazy, academic past when Latinhad been compulsory, he remembered that a certain gentleman whose name he could not then recall had plungedin medias res. He remembered distinctly how much this act had won his admiration; now he proposed to emulate his illustrious predecessor.
Even granting that Cosden's self-analysis was correct to the extent that he possessed no romance in his make-up, the present surroundings were such as to suggest the "psychological moment" even to the most obtuse. The sloop, after running before the wind, was skilfully guided in and out among the little islands and past the beautiful shores of Boaz and Somerset by a hand on the tiller to which sailing was evidently second-nature. The girl rested against the gunwale, her eye alert, her face lighted by a smile of quiet contentment, her white, lithe figure brightly contrasted against the varying background of blue water and the green of the islands as they were left behind.
"Where did you learn to handle a boat?" Cosden asked her, interrupting the silence which she seemed content to accept.
"Oh, there's nothing to it here," she answered. "I wonder if they have a breeze like this all the time in Bermuda? It seems to be ready-made for the visitors. But I think it would become monotonous, don't you? I like something to work against."
"You have evidently sailed a boat before."
"I'm on the water a good deal every summer. Father gave me a knockabout two years ago, and I've had lots of fun in her. It isn't always as simple on Narragansett Bay as it appears to be here."
"You seem to be pretty good at anything you undertake."
"Oh, no!" Merry laughed deprecatingly. "I play at everything, and perhaps that is why I am not particularly good at anything. Phil says I have more courage than judgment."
"That sounds like jealousy! I'll wager you can beat him in most games, unless he is better than the youngsters I know."
"I can, in some," she admitted, "but Phil is a great oarsman. He's on the crew at Harvard, you know," she added with a pride which amused Cosden; "he will probably row against Yale again this year. But Phil doesn't go at other sports as hard as I do. I have to go at them hard. I simply must be doing something. Mother calls it restlessness and Father says it's because I haven't grown up yet. Perhaps they are both right; but whatever it is I just can't help it."
"I hope you will never grow up, if to lose your enthusiasm is the penalty."
"Then you don't think it's unwomanly?" she asked, grateful for his approval.
"On the contrary," Cosden asserted. "It is enthusiasm which wins in everything to-day. Confidence in one's self, belief in one's subject, enthusiasm in its presentation; that is my daily creed."
"But you are a man," Merry protested. "You have made your success, so you have a right to have confidence in yourself—"
"My success is only partially complete," Cosden interrupted, quick to seize the easy opening. "When I left college I undertook to make money: I didmake it. Then I undertook to compel that money to earn me a place in the business world: I made that dream come true. Now I have reached the third effort. My money is of value only so far as it secures for me what I want, and a part of what I want I can't get alone: that is a home, with the right woman in it. A man can make his clubs and all that sort of thing by himself, but it takes a woman to secure for him the social life which he ought to have. I'm looking for that woman now, and I intend to get her."
A smile crossed Merry's face as Cosden concluded his matter-of-fact statement. "You are demonstrating your daily creed," she said.
"Of course I am. If I didn't you would accuse me of inconsistency."
"Have you found the woman you—intend to get?"
"I'm not sure. What kind of woman do you think she ought to be?"
Merry's face sobered, and she became thoughtfully serious. "First of all, a woman who loved you," she said at length; "that goes without saying."
It was Cosden who smiled this time. "I see you still have some old-fashioned ideas left; I had looked upon you as absolutely up-to-date."
"Is love old-fashioned?"
"Love is a result rather than a cause. It comes from the combination of one or more causes: propinquity, similarity of tastes, natural attributes, I might go on indefinitely. Two natures are attracted to each other before marriage, but love really comes as a result of the closer companionshipwhich follows. Could anything be more common-sense or scientific than that?"
"Is that what men believe?" she asked.
"Not all; which explains the appalling list of matrimonial bankrupts."
They were out beyond Ireland Island now, past the great dry-dock and the barracks. The girl brought the boat about and started on the homeward tack.
"That is a very interesting idea," she said soberly as she shifted to starboard. "It never occurred to me that love had become a commodity. That is very interesting."
"But you haven't told me what kind of woman you think my wife should be," Cosden insisted.
"She should be a poor girl, of good birth and personal attractions," she answered promptly.
"Why poor?"
"Because otherwise she would be giving everything and you nothing. You must supply something which she lacks or it wouldn't be a fair trade, would it? If a woman loves a man, there is no need to measure what she gives against what she receives, but your 'common-sense' plan suggests it, and from a 'scientific' standpoint I should think it absolutely essential."
"But your statement is not correct, Miss Merry," Cosden protested earnestly. "You would do me an injustice if you stopped at that point: am I not offering her my name and my protection?"
"Of course all this is an imaginary situation," Merry laughed mischievously, "or I shouldn't dare to speak so freely; but in justice to my sex I can'tstop now: suppose her name is as good as yours, and that she is entirely competent to protect herself?"
"Great Scott! Don't tell me you are a suffragist!"
"But you would want this woman you—intend to get to be a suffragist, wouldn't you?"
"Not under any circumstances!"
"Still, your marriage is to be on an up-to-date common-sense, scientific basis: can it be unless you and your wife stand on equal terms?"
"I never saw such a girl to ask questions," Cosden protested almost petulantly. "You must have been going to woman's suffrage meetings all winter."
Merry laughed outright. Her triumph was too obvious not to be enjoyed; but she quickly checked herself.
"I have been very rude," she said contritely; "but what you said so completely destroys the vision which every girl has in her heart that I couldn't resist the temptation to tease you. No, Mr. Cosden; I'm not a suffragist, and I never attended a public meeting in my life. Mother thinks I'm too young to enter into such things; but I've read a good deal, and I can't see why, in this scientific age, men and women shouldn't stand side by side at the ballot-box as well as elsewhere. For myself, I'm not quite ready for it, but I admit that it is nothing but sentiment—a holding on to a bit of old-fashioned precedent if you like—which holds me back. It seems to mar that vision I just spoke of, Mr. Cosden, even as your ideas completely destroy it."
She was in earnest now, and the girlish, mischievous attitude had completely vanished. Hergrasp upon the tiller tightened, her eyes looked far ahead and Cosden knew that in this mood she would have welcomed a young typhoon—anything to struggle with, rather than the smooth lapping of the water against the sides of the boat as the light wind bore them tranquilly on toward their landing. Even to him, unaccustomed as he was to the finer sensibilities which expressed themselves in every feature of the girl's face, the surging thoughts which forced so tense a silence commanded silence in his own response. It was the closest he had ever come into a woman's inner shrine, and instinctively he respected it.
It was her own movement—a brushing back of a strand of hair which the breeze had loosened and blown across her face—which finally broke the tension, but her eyes did not drop. Still looking far ahead of her she spoke again, but the words seemed addressed more to herself than to her companion.
"I can't bear to give that vision up," she said quietly, "and yet I never expect to see it realized."
"Tell me what it is," Cosden urged as she paused. "Visions aren't exactly in my line, but perhaps you can make me see this one."
"It's silly of me; you wouldn't be interested, of course."
"But I am," he insisted. "Please go on."
"Well," the girl said consciously, "since you have confided your creed to me, I'll tell you what my vision is,—but you mustn't laugh at it for it means a great deal to me."
"I promise—cross my heart," Cosden replied.
"In this vision each one of us atoms, man or woman, has a distinct individuality, and each atom is intended to express its own individuality alone and in its own way unless two atoms become joined together by laws of natural attraction. In that case these two continue on their way together, each strengthened by the combination, and thus enabled to express their joint individuality as neither could do alone. But love must be the crucible, Mr Cosden. Common-sense won't merge them, science won't do it. The two atoms can't be made into one without the crucible."
They were almost at the "Princess" landing now, and Merry gave her full attention to her duties as skipper. As the boatman took possession, Cosden assisted her onto the landing and they walked slowly up the stone steps. At the top she turned to him suddenly, the brightest of smiles replacing her former seriousness. Cosden marveled at the rapidity with which her mood changed.
"That's my vision, Mr. Cosden," she said simply; "don't think it too foolish. I must have some guide just as you have your daily creed. I haven't confidence in myself, but I do believe in my subject, and you tell me that I have enthusiasm. Please let that atone."
"But that vision of yours—" Cosden demanded doubtfully. "You asked me if all men regard marriage as I do; let me ask you if all women have that vision, as you call it."
"I suppose they have. If not, why should they give up their independence?"
"I thought all women wanted to marry—"
"That is whereyouare not up-to-date, Mr. Cosden," she laughed. "Perhaps the woman you—intend to get has no vision; if so, it will be that much easier. But she must be poor, Mr. Cosden,—you really mustn't take advantage of her!"
Huntington passed an uncomfortable half hour after watching Merry and Cosden start off on their sailing-trip, and he was glad to have Edith Stevens break in upon his unprofitable self-communion. Cosden had put into words a fact which until then Huntington had stubbornly refused to acknowledge: he had actually reached a point where he heartily disapproved of his friend. Connie had said it, and the realization that what he said was true shook the long-established friendship to the core.
As he analyzed the case Huntington found it difficult to explain why this complete change in conditions should suddenly have taken place. Cosden was no different from what he had been during all these years of their intimacy. In fact, he knew no one among his friends who was so absolutely consistent in conducting his life in accord with principles established before their friendship began. Others had commented on Cosden's commercial instincts, and Huntington always defended him, yet now these same traits caused him to criticise his friend even more severely than those whose attitude he had previously thought unwarranted.
The change, then, Huntington concluded was in himself rather than in Cosden; and from this point he tried to discover what that change really was. What had their relations been during these years? They had never come together in any business way, and Huntington now for the first time wondered why it would not have been natural for Cosden to turn over to his office some of his frequent cases in litigation. It had not previously occurred to him that he might have expected it, but now he wondered. This in itself was evidence that his friend did not consider him seriously in the practice of his profession. The real fact was that they had played together, and that their intimacy had stopped at that point. Huntington now recalled that in gratifying those characteristics which found enjoyment in music, art or literature he instinctively sought the companionship of other friends, and the same analysis revealed to him that Cosden had done likewise in turning to other and more kindred spirits in living that part of his life with which his friend had little sympathy. It had all happened so naturally that Huntington had never realized until now that in spite of their intimacy there was a side to each man's life into which the other never entered.
This was the explanation as Huntington thought it out, and the fact that it could be explained at all gave promise of readjustment. The present situation did not require any change in the relations of the two friends. It had been precipitated by the accidental pulling aside of a curtain which revealed a picture Huntington must always have known was there, but at which he had always steadfastly refusedto look. The mistake came when Cosden insisted that he peer behind the curtain, and became intensified when he permitted himself to be drawn into that side of his friend's life in which he should have known he had no part. The friendship need be in no way affected: simply restore the old relations, use greater discretion in keeping them within the bounds which Nature had prescribed for them, and all would be as before.
Huntington abhorred an enigma because when once focused in his mind a mental impossibility was created to rid himself of it. He found it lurking behind hisTranscriptin the evening, it tried to crystallize itself in the smoke of his last pipe before retiring, it flirted with him coyly over his coffee-cup the next morning. Until the figment became a reality and was dismissed it was a haunting menace to his peace of mind. Now that he had discovered an explanation of his disapproval of Connie and had found the antidote, that particular enigma was disposed of, and he should have been free to resume his normal state; but to his further discomfiture this was just what he found he could not do. He had cut off one of the Hydra's heads, but others remained which spat at him viciously.
Why was it that Cosden's attitude caused him such peculiar annoyance at this particular time? Had he been entirely straightforward with his friend, had he been quite frank in answering Hamlen's question regarding Merry's resemblance to her mother? Huntington's disgust with himself at that first slip became intensified by its repetition. He recalled De Quincey's arraignment of themurderer on the ground that murder so dulls the sensibilities that it is an easy step from this to falsehood. Huntington, with his Puritan ancestry, would have allowed himself to be torn by wild horses before he would deliberately tell an untruth, yet here, on two separate occasions, he had undeniably juggled with the facts.
When Cosden suggested that there might be some deeper reason for his objections he promptly and equivocably denied the implication that he had any interest in Merry beyond that of an older friend; yet he now knew that the denial was absolutely false. What he told Cosden was what ought to be the case rather than what the case really was. This was his secret, and he had protected it in the easiest way, which as usual was a cowardly subterfuge. The fact that he had made a misstatement or that he had a secret to conceal had come to him only during this period of self-communion since the little sloop sailed away, leaving him alone with his reflections. What he said to Cosden, that he was equally unsuited to Merry and that he was old enough to be her father, expressed the cold, hard facts; but he needed no second-sight to tell himself that during these days of companionship, such as he had never before known, the girl's sweet personality had penetrated the sham armor of the cynic, and that he was face to face with an emotion far deeper than any he had experienced from time to time in his library, in front of that table with its curious exhibits, with the stage-like accessories of the albatross-stem pipe and the flickering light from the burning logs. How tinsel-like it all seemed tohim now, compared with this flesh-and-blood experience in the open air, with its glorious setting of the sea and the beautiful island foliage!
He had reached this point in his mental activities when he saw Miss Stevens approaching, and he greeted her cordially. Face to face with this latest revelation, he disliked his own company. His responsibilities, which had seemed terrifying to him so short a time before, now appeared insignificant compared with the new responsibility with which he had saddled himself. He thought little at this moment of the burdens imposed upon him by Mrs. Thatcher, by Cosden, or by Billy: he must now protect the girl against himself, and that would be the hardest task of all.
Edith Stevens, as well as Huntington, found herself without her usual occupation this morning. Cosden told her, the evening before, of his plan to take Merry sailing, so she reverted to her natural habit of late rising, from which she had temporarily reformed herself, knowing that Cosden always breakfasted early and was usually looking for companionship. Seeing Huntington absorbed in self-contemplation she gravitated in his direction.
"We've lost our little playmates, haven't we?" she said cheerfully, as he rose and pulled up another piazza chair for her. "Why isn't this a good time for our Society to go into executive session?"
"Capital!" Huntington assented, replying only to the second part of her question. "Is the secret-service department ready to make its report?"
"I've found the girl," she announced bluntly; "but I imagine you know already who she is."
"The girl Connie is going to marry?" Huntington simulated a proper attitude of interrogation.
"The girl he thinks he wants to marry," she corrected.
"Oh! he only thinks so. That's it, is it?"
Edith raised her eyes from the toe of her buckskin shoe, which she had been poking vigorously with her sunshade, and smiled brightly.
"Yes," she said; "that's it."
"You speak with conviction."
"Well," Edith explained, "I know Mr. Cosden better now than when the Society last met. He wants to get married, and he thinks he has picked out the right girl, but—"
"But—what?"
"But—he hasn't; that's all." And again Edith smiled brightly into Huntington's face.
"Connie isn't in the habit of making mistakes; he usually gets what he goes after."
"So he told me," she admitted, with an expression on her face which Huntington thought significant; "but there's always a first time to everything; and this is where Mr. Cosden meets his Waterloo."
"I understood that you had been coaching him—"
"So I have."
"But I thought we agreed—"
"We did; and I've lived up to our agreement. You watch his face when he comes in! I'm oozing out the balance of the morning here simply to give myself that satisfaction."
"You must have some inside information which has not been incorporated in your report."
"Not exactly; but I know Mr. Cosden and Iknow Merry. When he begins to trade for a wife she won't understand the language, and if he tries to teach it to her—well, he may learn something himself."
"You think he will propose to her this morning?"
"If she lets him get as far as that. He's been working up to this point ever since he arrived, and the only way to cure him was to let him have his own way."
It was a novel experience to Huntington to see any one other than Cosden himself undertake to manage his personal affairs. The certainty with which Miss Stevens spoke evidenced a closer acquaintanceship with Connie than Huntington had realized existed.
"What will happen when this episode is over? Do you care to prophesy?" he asked.
"He will come back to his counsel to have his wounds bandaged, and then the education of Mr. Cosden will continue from the point where it was temporarily interrupted."
"You are assuming a great responsibility," Huntington suggested.
"I'm still retained," she answered demurely. "That's what you lawyers call it, isn't it?"
Edith rose and sat for a moment on the edge of the piazza rail, her eyes looking down the harbor. She was impatient for the returning boat, and made no attempt to conceal it. At last her vigilance was rewarded, and she returned to her chair.
"S-ssh! they're coming!" she said mysteriously, placing her finger on her lips. "We mustn't seem to be waiting for them. Talk to me!"
Huntington tried to obey her instructions during the intervening moments, but it was obvious that Miss Stevens heard little of what he said. She was intently watching the steps yet endeavoring to appear entirely unconcerned. Merry was the first to see them, and she came forward with her usual animation and enthusiasm.
"We've had a wonderful sail!" she said. "The morning was simply perfect, and it is such fun to play hide-and-seek among these little islands."
"She knows how to handle a boat all right," Cosden said from behind, but his tone did not reflect the girl's vivacity.
"Why, it's like sailing a toy boat in a bath-tub," Merry disclaimed. "You come down to the shore some time when there's a good breeze and I'll show you some real sailing. Mr. Cosden is such good company!" she added, turning to the others. "He has given me some really new ideas, and that is more than one usually gains from a sailing-party. I'm going to think them over so that I can argue with him more intelligently next time we have a discussion.—I must run up now and get ready for lunch."
Cosden remained behind.
"Come sit down with us, Connie," Huntington urged.
"I prefer to stand," was the unexpected answer, yet in spite of his remark he sat down on the piazza rail which Miss Stevens had so recently vacated. He too looked down the harbor, but his companions realized that it was not the panorama which interested him. They also sensed the kindliness of silence. At last he turned toward them.
"I don't know why I shouldn't speak before both of you," he said. "You, Monty, are my oldest friend, and Miss Stevens has been good enough to let me take her into my confidence. I want you both to look me over and tell me what's the matter with me."
"You look perfectly good to me, Connie," Huntington replied lightly, scenting unpleasantness, and helplessly trying to divert it.
"You know what I mean," Cosden replied brusquely, determined to force the issue, "and I want you to take me seriously. What you said this morning gave me a jolt, of course, but it didn't sink in deep enough to affect my confidence in myself. Now it's gone all the way through and come out the other side, and at the present moment I feel as big as a two-spot in a pinochle deck."
"Did she refuse you?" Edith asked, with almost too much eagerness in her voice.
"Refuse me?" he echoed. "She didn't even give me the satisfaction of recognizing that I had the slightest intention to propose."
"Then what did happen?" Huntington demanded. "You seemed to be on the best of terms when you came up here, and Merry complimented you on being good company."
"She was rubbing it in, that's all. We didn't have any trouble; that isn't the point. I planned this out, as you both know, with the definite idea of asking her to marry me, and before I knew what had happened she had twisted the situation around where I was on the defensive and had made myself look so ridiculous that I wouldn't have had thenerve to propose to a colored cook. There is something in all this which I don't understand, and I must understand it. I'm average intelligent, I've had some experience in life, and if a slip of a girl like that can make me lose my confidence then there's something radically wrong. You struck it right this morning, Monty, and I tell you it hurts!"
The man's humiliation was so complete that both his companions were eager to relieve him. Huntington's loyalty to his friend caused instant forgetfulness of his recent resentment.
"Don't mind what I said, Connie," he urged contritely. "I had no right to speak as I did."
"You had every right," Cosden insisted. "All these years you have seen the lack of this something in me, and you've overlooked it because you were my friend. This morning you had sand enough to tell me the unpleasant truth when you knew I ought to hear it. What I want to find out now is what these 'finer instincts' are, and how I am to get them."
The momentary silence which followed was evidence of the difficulty his auditors found in answering his appeal. He was in such deadly earnest that it was impossible to avoid direct reply. When this mood was on him, Huntington knew that he would deal with nothing but facts.
"Let me leave you and Mr. Huntington to discuss this," Edith said, rising.
"Please," Cosden detained her. "We are past the point of sensitiveness. I want your advice as well as Monty's. I'm up against something I don't understand," he repeated, "and I'm looking to you two to show me up to myself."
"What is the use, Connie?" Huntington expostulated. "You have gone alone all these years living your own life; why disturb yourself now over something to which you have always been blissfully indifferent?"
"Can't you see that the situation has changed, Monty? It was all right until I found out that I was different from other people. This is what the boys at the Club meant when they jollied us about our friendship. I always thought I was as good as anybody, but if an experience like this can make me lose my confidence in myself then the matter is really serious. It is this confidence which has made it possible for me to accomplish what I have, and if I once lose it then my strength is gone. It's all I have, Monty,—I can see that now. I must protect it, and you must help me. You must tell me what the trouble really is; I don't care how brutally frank you are so long as you tell me."
"Then come over here and sit down," the older man said gently. "I will try to make it clearer to you. The finer instincts I referred to can't be bought, for they are not for sale; they come from every-day contact with the humanities, and with those whose lives are spent in this atmosphere. Your business has been your religion, Connie, and you are branded with its ear-marks as plainly as the goods your factories produce. Now, for the first time, you find yourself in an atmosphere which considers business only as a means to bring the refinements of life within closer reach, and it stifles you because of your unfamiliarity with it."
Cosden listened patiently to the lengthy discussionwhich followed with the same attention which he gave to Thatcher when the trolley proposition was outlined, but his expression when Huntington finally paused and looked up showed bewilderment rather than comprehension.
"I hear your words, Monty," he said frankly, "and your meaning is as dense as Merry's talk about her 'vision.' But there's one thing you haven't said, probably because you want to spare my feelings, which no doubt explains the whole thing. This knowledge of the 'finer instincts' comes naturally to you, Monty, because you were born in that atmosphere you speak of; I wasn't. Some men acquire them as a result of their own efforts, some devote their efforts to other things, as I have done. 'You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Isn't that what you really mean to say, Monty?"
"You are too severe on yourself, Mr. Cosden," Edith said sympathetically, affected by the spectacle of this strong, self-sufficient man suffering under the lash without realizing in the least the power which wielded it. In his complacent mood she had longed for the ability to wound his self-assurance, but the climax had been reached without her assistance, and the woman in her failed to find the satisfaction she had anticipated.
"Well," Cosden said finally, rising and holding out a hand to each, "I can't say that you've given me much enlightenment, but you've made some things fairly clear. It will be a long time before I can look my business in the face without blushing; but I count on those who are really my friends to stand by me while I pumice down the marks of the branding-iron.In the meantime, don't you think for a moment that I'm indifferent to this thing we're talking about. Now that I know it exists, in spite of your doubts, I intend to get it. If business interferes, I'll cut out business. I refuse to let anything stand between me and what I want."
Cosden pursued the subject now uppermost in his mind with the same relentless energy which he applied to other and more agreeable undertakings. He had no desire to make himself a "ladies' man," such as Edith Stevens described her brother and as he knew him to be; but this idea that he was unfitted to enter into any circle he might choose, provided he could force the entrance, was as novel as it was disagreeable. When Huntington first intimated that he lacked certain qualities Cosden had not taken him seriously. Monty was a Brahmin, albeit one of the best of fellows, and this class had never been an object of his envy nor considered by him an example to be emulated. Cosden had discovered that those who constituted it were eager enough to know him and to be intimate with him when once they came to realize, in a business way, that this relationship might serve their own best interests. Born outside the sacred circle, he expected nothing else, and the fact of his friendship with Huntington, and his close acquaintanceship with others of the same stamp, seemed to him a triumph of merit over birth. If a man could trace his ancestry back to the right people he became amember of this group automatically, and in spite of lack of personal achievement. How much more credit, Cosden argued, to the man who forced recognition through sheer accomplishment alone.
For this reason he felt that Monty's criticism, if it was to be taken as such, was the expression of a class rather than an individual. It was not to be expected that his friend, reared in so unpractical an atmosphere, should sympathize with or even understand this common-sense approach to the subject of marriage. It was natural, indeed, that he should be shocked by it; yet it had been a surprise to have the easy-going Monty rouse himself to the extent of making definite objections to the method of procedure. But Cosden had observed that Huntington's conscience every now and then, like his liver, became overburdened, and on these rare occasions he was liable to make remarks which would sting if taken seriously.
Now, however, it had been brought home to him that perhaps, after all, his friend's comments might contain a grain of truth. The fact was forced home not so much by what Merry Thatcher said to him as the wide divergence of viewpoint which became apparent as a result of their discussion. Cosden instinctively felt himself in the presence of something higher and finer than himself, and this feeling put him at a disadvantage. When he had ridden to Elba Beach with Merry and Billy they were companions and all met on the same footing; now, with Merry alone, he realized that the girl looked upon him as a man with ideas rather than ideals, and with a creed of life which she neither understood norcared to understand. Yet he was not the first man to apply business principles to this all-important partnership, and others had not made themselves ridiculous. "Your business has been your religion and you are branded with its ear-marks," Monty told him. It was the branding which caused the trouble, Cosden concluded. The "finer instincts" could not be bought, perhaps, but surely they might be acquired. He had been too crude in the manner of expression. It came down to a question of finesse in this as in any other transaction of life, and when reduced to this medium he thought he understood.
To arrive at this point required time. After a brief and silent luncheon with Huntington Cosden set out by himself for a long walk, returning in season for dinner in what appeared outwardly his normal mental condition. In the evening he visited with the little group which had formed the habit of taking their coffee together on the piazza, however far their paths might diverge during the day. Even Edith Stevens was deceived, but Huntington knew his friend's temperament well enough to realize that he was working everything out in his mind preparatory to the next step, by which he would endeavor to regain the lost ground.
By the following morning Cosden had arrived at several definite conclusions, and his courage returned. He breakfasted at his usual early hour, and Edith Stevens, for some reason best known to herself, came down-stairs at about the same time. After breakfast, as had become almost a habit, they sat together on the piazza, he with his cigar, she withan infinite nothing upon which from time to time she plied a not overworked needle.
"Well," he said at length, knocking off the ash from his cigar and regarding it contemplatively for some moments before he continued,—"Monty gave it to me good and straight yesterday, didn't he?"
"You asked him to—"
"I know I did. You remember the man who said he didn't get what he expected, and some one told him he was lucky not to get what he deserved? Well, I got both."
"Mr. Huntington had to say what he thought; you forced him to."
"But I didn't really believe he did think it. I've been bowling along all these years, and I suppose I've become too complacent. When I called myself names yesterday I hadn't the slightest idea that any one would agree with me. It was a case where I wanted to be contradicted."
"Oh!" was all that Edith said, but the exclamation conveyed more to Cosden regarding her real attitude than a whole vocabulary.
"Then you agree with Monty?" he demanded.
Edith had expected this crisis to come, so it did not find her wholly unprepared. In fact she had been awaiting it as the point from which his education was to be continued, as she had explained to Huntington. She pursed her lips a little as she replied.
"Yes—and no," she answered slowly, showing a serious consideration of the subject which impressed Cosden. "I think he was right in saying that business has left its mark upon you, but entirelywrong in his assumption that what you lack can't be acquired."
"Of course it can," Cosden agreed emphatically; "and what is more, it's going to be acquired. I don't intend to have anything stand in my way. The only thing to consider is just how and when."
"Exactly," she encouraged him,—"just how and when. These are the questions. Have you answered them?"
"Not yet. I'm trying first to understand what Monty meant. I thought I had learned the game. While, as I've told you, I started out with the definite intention of making money, I've bent over backwards to conduct my affairs so that they should be absolutely above criticism. I believed that in doing this I proved that I had those 'finer instincts' which mean so much to Monty. I've made other people play the game square with me, but I've always played it square with them. My principle has been to fix things so that the other fellow would do right because he had to, and I would do right because I wanted to. You have to do that because the other fellow doesn't always want to. Take one case for example: I had a contract for a number of years with a house to supply them with goods of a certain standard, made in accord with a fixed formula. Six months ago my superintendent told me that by some mistake at the factory these goods had been ten per cent. below the standard called for, covering a period of nearly five years. My customer had made no complaint—he supposed he was getting what the contract called for, and so did I. The natural thing to do was to make all futuredeliveries up to standard and to let it go at that; but that isn't my way. The man had paid for something he hadn't received, and it was up to me to make good. So I figured out the difference between the two grades, and the volume of business, and sent him an explanation and a check for $6500."
"That must have been a pleasant surprise for him, and you made a customer for life."
"Yes," Cosden replied, with a queer expression on his face: "it was a pleasant surprise for him all right. He wrote me a beautiful letter, telling me what a noble, upright thing it was to do, and that he didn't believe another man in the trade would have done it. He even expressed his deep appreciation. Last month the contract came up to be renewed, and he canceled it because another house cut me a quarter of a cent a pound, and I wouldn't meet it."
"I never heard of such a thing!" Edith cried indignantly. "But you have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing."
"Yes; I have the satisfaction and the other fellow has the contract. But I am only telling you about it to show you why I can't understand Monty. I thought I was showing some of those finer things he says I don't possess. The man who canceled that contract was born with those wonderful 'instincts,' and exhales them with every breath."
"I don't believe you do understand just what Mr. Huntington means," she said quietly.
"Let me tell you something more," Cosden went on. "There is many a corporation right in the city of Boston that spends more money in lobbying at the State House than it does in producing its goods,yet the officers of those same corporations go around without having their best friends tell them they are 'branded with the ear-marks' of their business. They are just as commercial as I am, and some of them aren't nearly as careful to play the game straight. That is where I can't comprehend Monty's attitude. If a man observes the 'finer instincts' in his business, as I believe I do, why isn't the brand it marks him with a hall-mark of respectability in any society in which he wants to mingle?"
Edith had been very busy with her fancy-work, and she did not look up when Cosden appealed to her for an answer.
"Now you're getting nearer to what Mr. Huntington means," she said with decision. "You know your business world,—its customs and its standards, and as you have just explained they are not always consistent. The same is true of the social world, and that, as I understand it, Mr. Huntington knows better than you do. The social world has its customs and standards just the same, and in many cases they are equally inconsistent. You can't explain these inconsistencies in one any more than in the other; they simply exist. What you still have to do is to become familiar with them as you have with those in the business world."
"That is where the wife comes in,—that's what she's for," Cosden insisted. "That's the very reason I want to marry a woman who knows that end of the game. When I select a partner in my business I don't want him to handle my end, but rather some part of it which he can do better than I can. And the same thing ought to apply here."
"Perhaps it ought, Mr. Cosden, but that is just the point,—it doesn't; and the first thing Mr. Huntington would tell you is that the two don't mix. Here are two distinct worlds which touch each other very closely; the one admits the other to a certain extent, the other never admits the one."
"Then the wife won't do it?"
"Not alone. Many a wife has accomplished for her husband what he never could have gained for himself, but only when the man has permitted her to teach him how to leave his business behind him when he leaves his office. Business plays its part in the social world, but it is one of those polite amenities not to recognize the machinery which makes society possible."
Cosden moved uncomfortably in his chair. "I'm not a climber," he said. "I haven't any desire to force myself in where I'm not wanted; but here I am, a member of some of the best clubs in my own city, recognized in the business world, and acquainted with every one who is worth knowing. Until within twenty-four hours I supposed that I was as much a part of the social organization as I chose to be,—no more, no less. Now, the best friend I have in the world tells me point blank that the very thing I supposed was most to my credit is a bar across the path I have elected to take. I'm not ready yet to admit it. Monty says that I've lost something, but he's wrong: apparently the attributes he has in mind I never even possessed."
"Then the more reason to exert yourself until you do possess them."
"But if I lack them, why haven't I felt the lackbefore?" he appealed. "I'm thrown all the time with the very men on whom the social life of Boston rests."
"Where, if I may ask?"
"In business, and at my clubs."
"But not in their homes?" Edith pursued.
"No," Cosden admitted; "there has never been any reason to meet them there."
Edith folded her work deliberately and looked squarely at her companion.
"My friend," she said with decision, "'the time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.' Some one must set you right. You have too much knowledge in other directions to be so childlike in this. If you still look upon me as confidential adviser, I'll appoint myself that one."
"I should be eternally grateful."
"Then don't be offended if I speak plainly. I believe that I understand the situation exactly: you have pursued the even tenor of your way all these years, following a definite plan, and accomplishing your set purpose. In the confidence of having accomplished it, you decide that the moment has arrived to exercise a side of your nature which up to that moment has scarcely interested you, and you try to put your new thought into execution as mechanically as you have carried through every other purpose which you have ever had. Your election to your clubs, no doubt, was the result of careful and business-like plans, laid down when your name was first proposed, and followed up with the same irreproachable persistency which would be applied to any other business undertaking."
"Of course," he acknowledged: "that is the only way to put anything through."
"So your clubs, which you have looked upon to certain extent as social achievements, have been only a part of your every-day business routine, after all?"
"Yes; if you choose to put it that way."
"Then let me tell you that however intimate you become with any man, you are not admitted to his social circle until he has presented you to his wife or sisters, and has invited you to his home. Every woman knows that, and I supposed every man did."
"My ignorance is perhaps the best evidence of how crude I really am," Cosden said soberly.
"Don't say crude," Edith protested considerately; "say rather that your social life has been undeveloped. Until this new desire for a home came to you the necessity of considering that side had not appealed, and when you once decided to make the grand plunge the only way you knew how to go at it was as if you were selecting a partner in your business. Perhaps, as you say, the same rules ought to apply, but I assure you they don't. And that is just where you stand now."
"Then I will learn the rules which do apply," he asserted with determination. "But why, if this is so all-important, have you yourself so little use for society?"