Chapter XVII

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 refused to 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 his _Transcript_ in 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 the murderer 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 to him 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 I know 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 the nerve 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 discussion which 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."

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