Part 12

"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. 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 friendship. 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-assurance, but the climax had been reached without her assistance, and the woman in her failed to find the satisfaction she had anticipated.

"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 blushing; 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

* * * * *

Cosden pursued the subject now uppermost in his mind with the same relentless energy which he applied to other and more agreeable undertakings. He had no desire to make himself a "ladies' man," such as Edith Stevens described her brother and as he knew him to be; but this idea that he was unfitted to enter into any circle he might choose, provided he could force the entrance, was as novel as it was disagreeable. When Huntington first intimated that he lacked certain qualities Cosden had not taken him seriously. Monty was a Brahmin, albeit one of the best of fellows, and this class had never been an object of his envy nor considered by him an example to be emulated. Cosden had discovered that those who constituted it were eager enough to know him and to be intimate with him when once they came to realize, in a business way, that this relationship might serve their own best interests. Born outside the sacred circle, he expected nothing else, and the fact of his friendship with Huntington, and his close acquaintanceship with others of the same stamp, seemed to him a triumph of merit over birth. If a man could trace his ancestry back to the right people he became a member of this group automatically, and in spite of lack of personal achievement. How much more credit, Cosden argued, to the man who forced recognition through sheer accomplishment alone.

For this reason he felt that Monty's criticism, if it was to be taken as such, was the expression of a class rather than an individual. It was not to be expected that his friend, reared in so unpractical an atmosphere, should sympathize with or even understand this common-sense approach to the subject of marriage. It was natural, indeed, that he should be shocked by it; yet it had been a surprise to have the easy-going Monty rouse himself to the extent of making definite objections to the method of procedure. But Cosden had observed that Huntington's conscience every now and then, like his liver, became overburdened, and on these rare occasions he was liable to make remarks which would sting if taken seriously.

Now, however, it had been brought home to him that perhaps, after all, his friend's comments might contain a grain of truth. The fact was forced home not so much by what Merry Thatcher said to him as the wide divergence of viewpoint which became apparent as a result of their discussion. Cosden instinctively felt himself in the presence of something higher and finer than himself, and this feeling put him at a disadvantage. When he had ridden to Elba Beach with Merry and Billy they were companions and all met on the same footing; now, with Merry alone, he realized that the girl looked upon him as a man with ideas rather than ideals, and with a creed of life which she neither understood nor cared to understand. Yet he was not the first man to apply business principles to this all-important partnership, and others had not made themselves ridiculous. "Your business has been your religion and you are branded with its ear-marks," Monty told him. It was the branding which caused the trouble, Cosden concluded. The "finer instincts" could not be bought, perhaps, but surely they might be acquired. He had been too crude in the manner of expression. It came down to a question of finesse in this as in any other transaction of life, and when reduced to this medium he thought he understood.

To arrive at this point required time. After a brief and silent luncheon with Huntington Cosden set out by himself for a long walk, returning in season for dinner in what appeared outwardly his normal mental condition. In the evening he visited with the little group which had formed the habit of taking their coffee together on the piazza, however far their paths might diverge during the day. Even Edith Stevens was deceived, but Huntington knew his friend's temperament well enough to realize that he was working everything out in his mind preparatory to the next step, by which he would endeavor to regain the lost ground.

By the following morning Cosden had arrived at several definite conclusions, and his courage returned. He breakfasted at his usual early hour, and Edith Stevens, for some reason best known to herself, came down-stairs at about the same time. After breakfast, as had become almost a habit, they sat together on the piazza, he with his cigar, she with an infinite nothing upon which from time to time she plied a not overworked needle.

"Well," he said at length, knocking off the ash from his cigar and regarding it contemplatively for some moments before he continued,--"Monty gave it to me good and straight yesterday, didn't he?"

"You asked him to--"

"I know I did. You remember the man who said he didn't get what he expected, and some one told him he was lucky not to get what he deserved? Well, I got both."

"Mr. Huntington had to say what he thought; you forced him to."

"But I didn't really believe he did think it. I've been bowling along all these years, and I suppose I've become too complacent. When I called myself names yesterday I hadn't the slightest idea that any one would agree with me. It was a case where I wanted to be contradicted."

"Oh!" was all that Edith said, but the exclamation conveyed more to Cosden regarding her real attitude than a whole vocabulary.

"Then you agree with Monty?" he demanded.

Edith had expected this crisis to come, so it did not find her wholly unprepared. In fact she had been awaiting it as the point from which his education was to be continued, as she had explained to Huntington. She pursed her lips a little as she replied.

"Yes--and no," she answered slowly, showing a serious consideration of the subject which impressed Cosden. "I think he was right in saying that business has left its mark upon you, but entirely wrong in his assumption that what you lack can't be acquired."

"Of course it can," Cosden agreed emphatically; "and what is more, it's going to be acquired. I don't intend to have anything stand in my way. The only thing to consider is just how and when."

"Exactly," she encouraged him,--"just how and when. These are the questions. Have you answered them?"

"Not yet. I'm trying first to understand what Monty meant. I thought I had learned the game. While, as I've told you, I started out with the definite intention of making money, I've bent over backwards to conduct my affairs so that they should be absolutely above criticism. I believed that in doing this I proved that I had those 'finer instincts' which mean so much to Monty. I've made other people play the game square with me, but I've always played it square with them. My principle has been to fix things so that the other fellow would do right because he had to, and I would do right because I wanted to. You have to do that because the other fellow doesn't always want to. Take one case for example: I had a contract for a number of years with a house to supply them with goods of a certain standard, made in accord with a fixed formula. Six months ago my superintendent told me that by some mistake at the factory these goods had been ten per cent. below the standard called for, covering a period of nearly five years. My customer had made no complaint--he supposed he was getting what the contract called for, and so did I. The natural thing to do was to make all future deliveries up to standard and to let it go at that; but that isn't my way. The man had paid for something he hadn't received, and it was up to me to make good. So I figured out the difference between the two grades, and the volume of business, and sent him an explanation and a check for $6500."

"That must have been a pleasant surprise for him, and you made a customer for life."

"Yes," Cosden replied, with a queer expression on his face: "it was a pleasant surprise for him all right. He wrote me a beautiful letter, telling me what a noble, upright thing it was to do, and that he didn't believe another man in the trade would have done it. He even expressed his deep appreciation. Last month the contract came up to be renewed, and he canceled it because another house cut me a quarter of a cent a pound, and I wouldn't meet it."

"I never heard of such a thing!" Edith cried indignantly. "But you have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing."

"Yes; I have the satisfaction and the other fellow has the contract. But I am only telling you about it to show you why I can't understand Monty. I thought I was showing some of those finer things he says I don't possess. The man who canceled that contract was born with those wonderful 'instincts,' and exhales them with every breath."

"I don't believe you do understand just what Mr. Huntington means," she said quietly.

"Let me tell you something more," Cosden went on. "There is many a corporation right in the city of Boston that spends more money in lobbying at the State House than it does in producing its goods, yet the officers of those same corporations go around without having their best friends tell them they are 'branded with the ear-marks' of their business. They are just as commercial as I am, and some of them aren't nearly as careful to play the game straight. That is where I can't comprehend Monty's attitude. If a man observes the 'finer instincts' in his business, as I believe I do, why isn't the brand it marks him with a hall-mark of respectability in any society in which he wants to mingle?"

Edith had been very busy with her fancy-work, and she did not look up when Cosden appealed to her for an answer.

"Now you're getting nearer to what Mr. Huntington means," she said with decision. "You know your business world,--its customs and its standards, and as you have just explained they are not always consistent. The same is true of the social world, and that, as I understand it, Mr. Huntington knows better than you do. The social world has its customs and standards just the same, and in many cases they are equally inconsistent. You can't explain these inconsistencies in one any more than in the other; they simply exist. What you still have to do is to become familiar with them as you have with those in the business world."

"That is where the wife comes in,--that's what she's for," Cosden insisted. "That's the very reason I want to marry a woman who knows that end of the game. When I select a partner in my business I don't want him to handle my end, but rather some part of it which he can do better than I can. And the same thing ought to apply here."

"Perhaps it ought, Mr. Cosden, but that is just the point,--it doesn't; and the first thing Mr. Huntington would tell you is that the two don't mix. Here are two distinct worlds which touch each other very closely; the one admits the other to a certain extent, the other never admits the one."

"Then the wife won't do it?"

"Not alone. Many a wife has accomplished for her husband what he never could have gained for himself, but only when the man has permitted her to teach him how to leave his business behind him when he leaves his office. Business plays its part in the social world, but it is one of those polite amenities not to recognize the machinery which makes society possible."

Cosden moved uncomfortably in his chair. "I'm not a climber," he said. "I haven't any desire to force myself in where I'm not wanted; but here I am, a member of some of the best clubs in my own city, recognized in the business world, and acquainted with every one who is worth knowing. Until within twenty-four hours I supposed that I was as much a part of the social organization as I chose to be,--no more, no less. Now, the best friend I have in the world tells me point blank that the very thing I supposed was most to my credit is a bar across the path I have elected to take. I'm not ready yet to admit it. Monty says that I've lost something, but he's wrong: apparently the attributes he has in mind I never even possessed."

"Then the more reason to exert yourself until you do possess them."

"But if I lack them, why haven't I felt the lack before?" he appealed. "I'm thrown all the time with the very men on whom the social life of Boston rests."

"Where, if I may ask?"

"In business, and at my clubs."

"But not in their homes?" Edith pursued.

"No," Cosden admitted; "there has never been any reason to meet them there."

Edith folded her work deliberately and looked squarely at her companion.

"My friend," she said with decision, "'the time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.' Some one must set you right. You have too much knowledge in other directions to be so childlike in this. If you still look upon me as confidential adviser, I'll appoint myself that one."

"I should be eternally grateful."

"Then don't be offended if I speak plainly. I believe that I understand the situation exactly: you have pursued the even tenor of your way all these years, following a definite plan, and accomplishing your set purpose. In the confidence of having accomplished it, you decide that the moment has arrived to exercise a side of your nature which up to that moment has scarcely interested you, and you try to put your new thought into execution as mechanically as you have carried through every other purpose which you have ever had. Your election to your clubs, no doubt, was the result of careful and business-like plans, laid down when your name was first proposed, and followed up with the same irreproachable persistency which would be applied to any other business undertaking."

"Of course," he acknowledged: "that is the only way to put anything through."

"So your clubs, which you have looked upon to certain extent as social achievements, have been only a part of your every-day business routine, after all?"

"Yes; if you choose to put it that way."

"Then let me tell you that however intimate you become with any man, you are not admitted to his social circle until he has presented you to his wife or sisters, and has invited you to his home. Every woman knows that, and I supposed every man did."

"My ignorance is perhaps the best evidence of how crude I really am," Cosden said soberly.

"Don't say crude," Edith protested considerately; "say rather that your social life has been undeveloped. Until this new desire for a home came to you the necessity of considering that side had not appealed, and when you once decided to make the grand plunge the only way you knew how to go at it was as if you were selecting a partner in your business. Perhaps, as you say, the same rules ought to apply, but I assure you they don't. And that is just where you stand now."

"Then I will learn the rules which do apply," he asserted with determination. "But why, if this is so all-important, have you yourself so little use for society?"

"It is a very different matter, my friend, to make light of something which you have and something which you lack. I may despise society, but if it was society that despised me you'd see me starting a campaign in New York that would make a football game look like a funeral procession."

Cosden regarded his animated companion for some moments in silence, but any one who knew him would have recognized that his mind had seized upon the germ of a new idea which pleased him, but which he was considering critically for the moment.

"Look here," he said suddenly. "It doesn't take me long to make up my mind. Why couldn't I persuade you to start a campaign like that for me--for us--in Boston?"

The abruptness of the suggestion, and the complete change from the subdued and humiliated seeker after light back to the dominating man of affairs who forces the solution of his dilemma, took even the astute Edith by surprise.

"Am I by any chance to consider that as an offer of marriage?" she demanded.

"That is just what I mean. What do you say?"

"Well, of all things!" She rose to her feet and walked up and down the piazza with Cosden following close behind. It was a moment or two before she recovered herself, and then she turned on him.

"I take back all the sympathy I ever gave you," she cried indignantly, "and I hate myself for having tried to help you with my advice."

Cosden regarded her outbreak with consternation. "I always supposed an offer of marriage was the greatest compliment a man could pay a woman," he exclaimed surprised.