The Bachelors: A Novel

"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. Co...

"It is no compliment when such an offer is based so cold-bloodedly upon business advantage. You come down here to get a wife, which you have decided in your counting-room will i...

Even with the inspiration which expectancy on the part of an audience is always supposed to give a speaker, Cosden's fluency became somewhat modified when he actually touched up...

While Huntington's spirits sank lower and lower Cosden's rose to a point which made him oblivious to the cares and worries of the world around him. He had passed through the pro...

"What do I owe the world?" he interrupted. "I ask from it nothing but peace and solitude, and surely even the most insignificant has a right to that without incurring responsibi...

"Your age!" Cosden determined to overpower the surprising obsession. "The idea of talking age at forty-five! Out with it, man! Tell me what has taken hold of you. I've left you...

"I have tried to be fair to our friendship," he repeated, "but you must not misunderstand. I wonder if it would be more kind to tell you the truth, even though it cost me what I...

It was the morning after one of Richard's off nights, when Edith sat leisurely finishing her late breakfast and reading the head-lines in the morning paper, that her brother put...

"It's hell,--nothing less," Thatcher answered, speaking with an excitement unnatural to him. "I left New York at four o'clock this morning. I've come to you, Cosden, as a last r...

Hamlen took his hand in both his own and gazed for a long moment into Huntington's face. "Classmate--friend," was all he said, but those who heard the words knew them to be enough.

"Hamlen arrives to-morrow," Huntington remarked, changing the subject lest his question raise some doubts in Cosden's mind which might linger. "I shall give myself up to him a g...

"Oh, no!" she interrupted him. "That is merely a revival, which I imagine may develop into an experience meeting. I mean Mr. Hamlen. Think of a devotion that forces a man to bur...

As she listened Merry's mind was working fast. What were the relations existing between them? She admired her mother tremendously, and was proud of the attention her beauty exci...

Constant in the purpose to which she had consecrated herself, Merry received her mother on that eventful morning with mind prepared to accept the supreme test. She had been stan...

"The proposition to have a line of cars run here is so obvious that there must have been powerful objections to obstruct it all these years," Cosden answered, quite content to a...

There was a new note of determination in his voice, but the dread was still there. "I do not want to marry Miss Thatcher, Huntington," he said slowly, with emphasis on every wor...

"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 t...

"Jenson, Aldus--ah, here is the 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,' and a splendid copy! That is the only illustrated volume Aldus ever issued," he explained to Merry as he turned the...

There was a complete reversal in the boy's spirits. The way Cosden handled the wheel showed clearly enough that bicycle-riding was second nature to him, and Billy's interest in...

For some reason best known to himself Huntington did not confide to Cosden the fact that Mrs. Thatcher had suggested the possibility of a match between Merry and Hamlen. She had...

This was not the first time that he had thus outraged Nature, and for the selfsame cause. Not a year of the more than twenty had passed without at least one mental pilgrimage to...

"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 endorsement off my social n...

These were not red-letter days for the boy. Ever since his visit to New York at Easter the times had been out of joint, and he blamed Merry's mother for it all. From his viewpoi...

They were discussing Huntington and Cosden when the two men entered the living-room of the Club and strolled toward the little group indulging itself in relaxation after a more...

"You went away and gave me a chance to think," Hamlen replied seriously. "Do you know, Huntington, I'm convinced that there ought to be a law condemning every human being to sol...