The Bachelors Part 25

"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 acquaintances.h.i.+p 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 a.s.suming 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-ss.h.!.+ 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 sh.o.r.e 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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-a.s.surance, but the climax had been reached without her a.s.sistance, and the woman in her failed to find the satisfaction she had antic.i.p.ated.

"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 blus.h.i.+ng; 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."

XVIII