"You don't mind my b.u.t.ting in on you both once in a while?"

"On the contrary; but I know how little you have in common with Hamlen.

I'm afraid he may bore you."

"You forget my reincarnation," Cosden said dryly. "Who knows but that I was a professor of cla.s.sical antiquities in my previous existence? If he bores me I'll cut out; but I've an idea that he can teach me a thing or two, and just now I'm keen on becoming educated."

There was a marked restraint in Hamlen's manner when Huntington met him at the station and motored him to the Beacon Street house. His embarra.s.sment and the all too obvious efforts he made to impress upon his friend the occasion of his leaving Bermuda would have convinced Huntington, if he had not already known, that the real reason was that which he had already antic.i.p.ated in his prediction to Mrs. Thatcher. Yet no one but Hamlen knew the agony of loneliness he had experienced when, after watching the steamer disappear, he returned to his empty villa. No one but Hamlen knew of the struggle he had pa.s.sed through in his efforts to readjust his life, or of the terror which came to him with the final realization that he could no longer find solace in the work which he had previously forced to absorb his waking hours.

It was this terror Huntington saw in his cla.s.smate's eyes which told him all that any one would ever know of the real tragedy. Hamlen looked years older,--his face was more sallow, his hair more grey. Huntington looked at him in pity, and felt apprehensive lest the task he had allotted to himself had been too long postponed. Then the thought came back to him, "He considers himself a failure and me a success!"

The welcome was such as to rea.s.sure Hamlen as much as anything could.

Huntington made him feel as much at home as was possible for one whose mental poise was so sadly disordered. No special effort was made at conversation; everything was treated as a matter of course. Little by little Hamlen found himself, and as he spoke more freely Huntington entered into his spirit, but followed rather than led.

"It is a relief to get into this quieter atmosphere after New York,"

Hamlen remarked after they had sat in silence for some moments at the table after dinner. "I felt as if I had been suddenly put down in a whirling maelstrom, and there wasn't a minute when I did not expect to be annihilated the next!"

Huntington laughed quietly. "A New-Yorker would consider that the most subtle compliment you could pay his city. It is not enough to have the stranger merely impressed; he must be appalled!"

Hamlen raised his hands in a silent gesture.

"Have you arranged your business matters to your satisfaction?"

Huntington asked, rather by way of conversation than from curiosity.

"Yes," Hamlen answered, but with a mental reservation which his friend noticed,--"yes; and yet even that wasn't as I expected."

He paused a moment, gazing into the fire which Huntington had ordered lighted to take off the chill which the late Spring still left in the air.

"I am puzzled about it," Hamlen continued. "You see, most of my investments have been in England, and it seemed to me that it would be wise to take advantage of an opportunity I had to realize on them, and to reinvest here in the States while everything is so much below its real value. Knowing Mr. Thatcher as I did I naturally went straight to him about it. He was most kind in advising me to hold off a while longer, as securities are likely to fall still further; but when I asked him to accept my money on deposit he declined, and offered instead to give me a letter of introduction to a bank."

"Why, Thatcher's house does a large banking business."

"That is what puzzles me; why should he decline my account?"

"I don't believe he meant just that," Huntington explained; "he probably wanted you to understand that he was not looking for business from his friends."

"No, he flatly refused to accept it; for I tried to insist upon it. I know few people here now, and I didn't feel like entrusting so considerable a sum to any inst.i.tution, however well recommended, without personal acquaintance with some of its officers."

"I don't understand it."

"Nor I. Of course, I had no alternative, so I deposited it in the bank Thatcher suggested."

"Did you see much of the family while you were in New York?" Huntington queried.

Hamlen looked up quickly, with a return of the apprehensive expression his face had worn earlier.

"I saw them several times," he said. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added: "Later, you must let me impose still further upon your friendship. I have no one else to counsel me."

Hamlen's voice was apologetic.

"I sha'n't consider that you accept my friendship at its par value unless you call upon me in any way I can be of service to you."

"Then perhaps you won't mind if I speak now," Hamlen responded eagerly.

"It really has been preying upon me until I am unfitted for anything else. It would be a relief to share it."

After saying this Hamlen found it more difficult to continue. "You probably don't know," he said at length, "that Mrs. Thatcher and I knew each other intimately years ago."

"Yes," Huntington acknowledged frankly; "Mrs. Thatcher told me, while we were in Bermuda."

Hamlen was relieved. "It was a very close intimacy," he continued. "I feel that perhaps I ought to be guided by her judgment now, yet I find it difficult to accept for many reasons. In short, she thinks that I should marry."

During the last few moments Huntington had antic.i.p.ated this announcement, but he refrained from making comment. Hamlen looked over at him for a word of encouragement, but as none came he went on.

"I know myself to be entirely unfitted, and it is the last thing in the world I should have thought of; but lately I have mistrusted my own judgment, which leaves me absolutely without a guide of any kind. So when any one I respect as I do Mrs. Thatcher makes such a statement, and even suggests the possibility of my marrying her own daughter, I don't know what to do. I can't believe that the girl would consider me as a husband, yet Marian is confident that if it could be arranged it would be for the happiness of all concerned."

"Are you fond of Merry?" Huntington demanded.

"As Marian's daughter, yes. I admire her tremendously, for in some ways she reminds me of her mother. But what in the world have I to offer her?"

"What has any man to offer the woman he marries," Huntington replied with feeling, "in comparison to what she brings into his life? He stakes nothing but his liberty; she stakes her future as well as her present."

"I know; but what do you advise me to do?"

"Has it occurred to you that Mrs. Thatcher is a.s.suming a great responsibility in pledging her daughter's consent?"

"Yes; I am afraid her influence over the girl is as strong as it is over me. She is a very magnetic woman."

"Do you mean that you question your own strength?"

"That is exactly what I mean," he answered, dropping his eyes.

"My promise of a.s.sistance was an empty one, after all," Huntington said with more bitterness than had ever before crept into his voice. "The alchemy of a woman's heart is past the comprehension of a bachelor like myself. But why settle your problem so hastily? You are here with me now, and what I intend to show you of life will fit you better than anything else to answer that question for yourself. Don't let it overwhelm you. See how far you can enter into what goes on about you, and then draw your conclusions regarding the probabilities of the future."

"Are marriages ever successful when one's heart is made up of burnt ashes?"

"Don't ask me that, my friend!" Huntington begged. "You and I have reached an age where we are ent.i.tled to use logic and judgment, and to live the years which remain to us as those two attributes may dictate.

For the next few weeks I want you to imagine that you are back in college again, with no responsibilities heavier than that of enjoying yourself better than before because your sense of proportion has been developed by experience. When these weeks are past, we may again consider whether our hearts are made up of burnt ashes or of rich Harvard crimson blood. Until then, my friend, let us steadfastly refuse to be stampeded, and claim the benefit of every doubt."

XXVII

Philip Thatcher responded to the suggestion made by Huntington and his mother with such conspicuous success that within a fortnight Hamlen accepted his leadership from one experience to another with wonderment and devotion. The fact that the boy was his namesake formed the first bond, and with confidence once established intimacy developed rapidly.

Boys to Hamlen had been unknown quant.i.ties, creatures to be endured if necessary but avoided if possible, and Philip did much to raise the standard of his genus in the older man's mind. Billy's explosive outbursts startled him for a time, but he learned to understand even these, and accepted them at their true value.