Huntington looked at his friend significantly as Thatcher moved away. "I didn't come down here on a business trip," he suggested.

"It won't interfere with you at all," Cosden rea.s.sured him. "Thatcher is a big man, and has a good eye for things. What he has in mind may be well worth looking into."

"So long as you don't let it divert us from our main purpose I won't object," Huntington conceded gravely; "but the spirit of the chase is on me, and I can't mix sport and business. This is the first time I have ever approached a girl from a matrimonial point of view, even vicariously. I'm beginning to enjoy it and I refuse to be thrown off the scent."

There is no moon like a Bermuda moon. The contrast between its soft yet brilliant light--as it fell first upon the harbor, throwing the islands into silhouette, then flooding the piazza--and the electric glare, out of which the two men stepped ten minutes later, made a deep impression upon Huntington. The eyes of his friend, however, were focused upon the little party, chatting merrily about the table, awaiting their arrival.

"I had them postpone our coffee," Thatcher explained as he presented Cosden to the Stevenses and to Hamlen, and Huntington to each. "We shall enjoy it the more for having you with us."

Huntington found himself sitting between the daughter and Hamlen, while Cosden sat next to Mrs. Thatcher across the table. There had been no recognition, and Huntington was glad of it; he preferred to introduce the subject in his own way and at his own time. The girl, however, had already discovered a bond.

"Aren't you Billy Huntington's uncle?" she asked.

"Yes," he admitted; "but where in the world did you meet him?"

"He is a particular friend of my brother Philip's," she explained.

"Philip is a year ahead of him at Harvard, you know, but they are great pals. My brother always has him at the house whenever he's in New York."

"Well, well!" laughed Huntington. "The young rascal never told me anything about it! But wait a minute--Phil Thatcher--why, of course!

Billy has had him in to dine with me several times. So he's your brother!"

"Yes; I was sure I was right," she smiled. "We're friends already, aren't we?"

"We are," Huntington acquiesced gravely; "and I shall do something particularly nice for Billy to show my appreciation of what he has done for me."

Mrs. Thatcher caught the general drift of her daughter's conversation, and she leaned across the table.

"Are you not a Harvard man, Mr. Huntington?" she asked. "If so, you and Mr. Hamlen must have been in college at about the same time."

"Yes," Huntington replied; and turning to Hamlen he gave the year of his graduation.

"That was my Cla.s.s also," was the reply; but there was nothing in Hamlen's manner to invite reminiscence.

"Hamlen--Philip Hamlen," Huntington repeated meditatively. "I don't believe we knew each other, did we? But the name is familiar. I have it!

You are the lost Philip Hamlen our Cla.s.s Secretary has been searching for; I have seen the name in the list of missing men each time a Cla.s.s Report has been issued. You must send him your history, my dear fellow.

We're proud of our Cla.s.s, and we don't want to lose sight of a single member."

There was a bitterness in Hamlen's voice as he replied. "My history would interest no one; it is better that I remain among the 'missing men.'"

Huntington sensed at once what lay behind his cla.s.smate's response. "No college graduate can afford to do that," he expostulated. "Whether one wishes it so or not, he has accepted a heritage which carries with it responsibilities, and these force him to his capacity for the honor of his Cla.s.s and of his Alma Mater."

Mrs. Thatcher was following the conversation not only with interest, but with a certain degree of anxiety.

"Mr. Huntington is right, Philip," she added; "you know that he is right."

Hamlen moved uneasily in his chair. "It is curious how much more interested our cla.s.smates become in us after we separate than while we are together in college," he said significantly.

"Why is it curious?" Huntington persisted. "Why is it not the natural sequence of events?"

"You could not understand." Hamlen spoke with rising emotion. "You had everything in college; I had nothing. You remember my name only because you've seen it listed amongst the 'missing men'; but I knew you the moment I saw you. Back there you were Monty Huntington, manager of the crew, member of all the exclusive societies, in everything, a part of everything. Your cla.s.smates courted your acquaintance, and the four years at Cambridge meant something to you. To me they meant nothing except what I learned in the cla.s.s-rooms. You as an alumnus owe all that you say to the Cla.s.s and to the Alma Mater, for both gave you much; I owe them nothing, for they gave me nothing."

"My dear fellow!" Huntington expostulated hastily, "forgive me for touching on so tender a subject; yet I am glad I did, for it is only fair that you let me set you right. The college world is a small one, and its citizens are young, untried boys. They are sometimes selfish and cruel and unreasonable without meaning it, while they are enjoying what is to most of them their first freedom, and they are trying to conduct themselves like full-grown men. There are heartburns which at the time seem tragedies. Then the undeveloped citizens of this little world, the biggest of them, pa.s.s out into the great world, for which the college life is only a training-school, and become infinitesimal parts of it.

There the ratio becomes readjusted. What seemed essentials--like the clubs, for instance, or athletics--become non-essentials as the men look back upon them; become simply pleasant memories of delightful companionship. The next few years represent the real trying-out period, and each member of the Cla.s.s measures up his fellow-members by what they have done since college. The mere fact of being members of the same Cla.s.s is the bond. I don't care what you did in college, Hamlen; but I sha'n't let you get away from me until you tell me what you've done since, or until you promise that I shall see you when next you come to Boston. The fact that I didn't know you in college makes me the more keen to know you now."

"I thank you a thousand times!" Mrs. Thatcher cried impulsively. "What you have said in five minutes will do more to set Mr. Hamlen right than weeks of argument from me. I found him to-day in a veritable paradise which he has built here, and where he has lived alone practically since he left college. I am trying to persuade him to come back into the world again, and you can help me to accomplish it."

Hamlen was visibly affected by Huntington's cordiality. "This has been a bewildering day," he said. "For over twenty years I have lived alone, nursing a resentment toward college and life in general until it has come to be a religion. This afternoon Mrs. Thatcher finds me unexpectedly and begins to batter down my defenses; now Mr. Huntington, without realizing it, attempts to complete the demolition. Don't wonder that I'm not myself to-night; but I thank my cla.s.smate for what he has said, just as I thank Mrs. Thatcher for her earlier efforts."

"Mr. Huntington," Thatcher remarked, "you have given Stevens and me a new idea of the value of a college degree. I wasn't especially keen about having my boy go to college, but now, by George! I wouldn't have it otherwise."

"Huntington is a living propagandum for Harvard," Cosden said lightly, realizing the desirability of leading the conversation into a less serious channel. "My degree represents simply an additional tool to use in carving out success, to him it means idolatry. If Huntington's house was on fire, I should expect to see him climbing down the firemen's ladder in his pink pajamas with his precious sheepskin under his arm carried as tenderly as a mother would a child."

"Oh, you may make light of it," Huntington replied good-naturedly, "but Hamlen and I are treading on sacred ground. The one weakness of college life is that the opportunities it offers come before we are competent to appreciate or embrace them. That is what brings about the condition which he has misunderstood. It would be much better if we all could have two years of college when we're seventeen and the other two when we're forty."

The conversation drifted into smoother channels, but by the time the party separated the acquaintance had developed to a point far beyond an ordinary first meeting. Underneath it different elements were at work in each one's mind and heart, put in motion by the unexpected intensity of almost the earliest words which had been exchanged. Hamlen was the first to leave. He said good-night casually to the group, but managed to separate Huntington from the others.

"You have done much for one of your cla.s.smates to-night," he said simply. "I thank you for it."

"Nonsense!" Huntington protested. "I'm more than delighted to have this opportunity to know you--and I want to know you better."

"Will you come to my villa some day this week?"

Hamlen seemed to hang expectantly upon the answer.

"Of course," Huntington replied promptly. "If you hadn't asked me, I should have come anyhow. It's an inherent right which I demand."

Hamlen pressed his hand and turned to Mrs. Thatcher, who walked with him to the door.

"I don't know whether to thank you or to curse you, Marian," he said feelingly in a low voice. "Through you I have had more interjected into my life in this single day than in the twenty-odd years which have pa.s.sed by. Is this the dawn of a to-morrow or the epitome of human suffering? Are you my Genius or my Nemesis? Before G.o.d I ask the question seriously. I myself cannot answer it."

"Don't try," she answered, smiling; "let Time do that!"

V

Cosden had been sitting on the hotel piazza half an hour when "Merry"

Thatcher emerged from the dining-room, gazed about the almost total vacancy as if looking for some one, and then advanced, recognizing in the solitary smoker an acquaintance of the night before.

"I'm always the first one," she complained after greeting him. "We're going sailing this morning, but I might have known that no one else would be down for breakfast at anywhere near the appointed time."