"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 att.i.tude gradually became normal again, and an indulgent expression replaced the serious aspect which his face had a.s.sumed 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 endors.e.m.e.nt 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. h.e.l.lo!" 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!"

XVI

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 Latin had been compulsory, he remembered that a certain gentleman whose name he could not then recall had plunged _in medias res_. He remembered distinctly how much this act had won his admiration; now he proposed to emulate his ill.u.s.trious predecessor.

Even granting that Cosden's self-a.n.a.lysis 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 sh.o.r.es 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 a.s.serted. "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 did make 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 companionship which 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 s.e.x I can't stop 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!"