Part 13

"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 increase your assets. The first girl you select doesn't fit into your plans, as you had expected, so you look me over critically, tell me it doesn't take you long to make up your mind, and offer me a partnership.--All that remains, I suppose, is for us to discuss office hours and the division of the profits! My word! You are the most mercenary human creature I ever met!"

Edith was splendid in her anger, but Cosden refused to take her seriously.

"Come," he insisted; "you are far too sensible to look at it that way. Why, every one in the hotel is asking if we are engaged. What shall I tell them?"

"Tell them you proposed to me and that I refused you," she retorted defiantly, turning from him and disappearing through the open door.

* * * * *

XIX

* * * * *

"Well Marian, my play-time is over for the present," Thatcher remarked as he folded a cable he had just received and placed it in his pocket. "They need me at the office, so I'll sail on Monday. There's no reason for you to leave until later unless you wish to."

She looked up at him with an expression of such real disappointment that he felt the unspoken reproach.

"We have stayed a month longer than we intended, as it is," he explained, "and my going need not hasten your plans at all."

"I don't want you to return alone, Harry, and I loathe the thought of turning my back on this enchanting spot. Truly, each day makes it more difficult to leave it."

"Then if you don't go at once the problem may become serious," he laughed.

"You are so different down here, Harry, I hate to give you up to business again. That is a wife's real rival; I'm jealous of it."

"A rival which has made our pleasures possible, so you should be friends. Only a few years more of it, little woman, and then you may plan my days as well as yours. Then we'll have one long play-time together."

"You've been saying that for five years," she protested petulantly; "but we seem to come no nearer. Haven't we enough to do that now?"

"Who shall say what 'enough' really is?" he smiled, taking her hand in his and looking with affection into her deep eyes. "That isn't what holds me; it takes time to work out of the old interests without serious loss, Marian, and present conditions aren't helpful."

"I suppose not," she agreed unwillingly; "but do make the period of waiting as short as possible. Merry and Philip are grown now, and I'm hungry for another honeymoon, such as we have been having here."

"Some day, little woman, some day!"

"Don't say that, Harry!" she protested again, this time more vigorously. "There is no expression in the English language I detest so much as 'some day.' When I was a little girl I had an uncle who was forever going to take me somewhere or give me something 'some day'; and 'some day' never came! I've always looked upon those two words as a diabolical combination invented by older people as an aggravation to children. But I will be patient, Harry. Can't you start in now to take some medicine which will be sure to clear your blood of business by the time these things you speak of work themselves out?"

"If present conditions continue," he laughed, "they will accomplish what you wish better than anything so homeopathic as physic. We shall all be thrown out of business whether we like it or not. This cable I have just received," he continued more soberly, "is a case in point: the government is starting in to 'investigate' one of our pet interests, and the stock has begun to drop out of sight already. It is paternalism with a vengeance: protecting the infant industries to encourage their growth, and then spanking them when they respond!"

"Well," Marian sighed, "it's all Greek to me, but if you say it's wrong then I know it is. Now," she added, slipping her arm through his, "let's go over to the pool and see what is going on there."

Shouts of laughter and sounds of splashing greeted them as they reached the top of the tiled steps of the "Princess" pool, and they paused for a moment to see the finish of an exciting race.

"You're too fast for us, Miss Merry," Huntington acknowledged his defeat. Then he turned to Cosden who finished just behind him.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself to let a girl beat you like that, Connie?" he demanded.

"How about yourself?" was the retort; "you always claimed to be some swimmer."

"You let me win!" Merry declared.

"Indeed I didn't," Huntington protested stoutly. "It is eminently unfit that woman should defeat man in any athletic contest; she has beaten us out in everything else, and we must reserve something. Perhaps Connie let you beat him,--did you, Connie?"

Cosden laughed consciously. "Did I ever let any one beat me in anything when I could prevent it?" he asked.

"There you are," Huntington waved his arms dramatically. "We admit ourselves temporarily defeated, but not disgraced. As for myself, I shall immediately go into strict training, in an endeavor to alter my lines from endurance to speed."

The Thatchers strolled along the edge of the pool and seated themselves on one of the benches at the farther end of the enclosure.

"Here come Edith and Philip Hamlen," Marian called her husband's attention to the new arrivals; "where do you suppose she found him?"

"Hello, people," Edith greeted them. "Mr. Hamlen has been waiting for you in the hotel, and I told him I thought we should find you here. This looks to me like a perfectly good party."

"Come sit with us," Thatcher urged, drawing up another bench. "We elderly folk will watch the children at play."

Edith suddenly caught sight of Cosden and she perceptibly stiffened. "Children!" she echoed, with an inflection of her voice and a toss of the head which attracted Marian's attention. "How is it that Mr. Cosden goes into the water? I should think he would be afraid of rust."

"I supposed it was by your orders, Edith," Marian said smiling. "Isn't he still acting under your instructions? But why 'rust'?"

"Certainly not by any orders of mine," she replied with emphasis. "What he needs as an adviser is a machinist to keep that wonderful business head of his in repair. Wouldn't you think it would rust if he got it wet?"

Edith's new attitude was more intelligible to Marian than to the men, but discretion suggested a change of subject.

"Harry is taking us home with him on Monday," she announced, suddenly turning to Hamlen and watching him narrowly as she spoke.

"On Monday?" Hamlen repeated after her. The color rushed into his usually pale face, and a tremor in his voice showed how much the news affected him. "You are going Monday?"

"The Thatcher family intact," Marian answered him; "I don't know about the others."

"Of course Ricky and I go when you do," Edith added. "I'm quite ready. The place is beginning to pall on me."

There was an injured look in Hamlen's face as he turned to her quickly. "Don't say that of my beautiful island!" he begged.

"Oh, the place is all right," Edith assured him; "it is simply some of the foreign element I don't like."

"Must you really go?" Hamlen asked Thatcher appealingly.

"It is my master's voice, and we slaves of the market dare not disregard the call."

Hamlen forced a smile. "I shall miss you," he said simply.

"Come with us," Marian urged in a low voice. "That would make our visit here complete."

The man made no response, yet she could see no signs of weakening. The color left his face and it was now more ashen than before. The lips were tightly compressed as if he feared to trust them, and his hands clenched the walking-stick he held in front of him with a grip of iron. He mastered himself at last, and the pathetic smile which wrung Marian's heart whenever she saw it returned to his face. It was too clearly the reflection of a wound which pride alone concealed from sight.

"You are too generous," he said at length, feeling the necessity of making some response,--"far too generous; but it is like you, Marian. Huntington is generous too, but you both are mistaken in your kindness. There are some exotic growths which can't be transplanted; I am one of those."

He paused for a moment; then he continued: "I must ask one more favor before you go--come to me to-morrow afternoon and let us have a final celebration in honor of our reunion. Come to my villa, all of you, and in the midst of the family I have created--my flowers, my trees--let me dedicate my home anew to the dear friends who have brought life back to me, even though they too will soon join the memories amongst which I must continue to live. Give me this last experience to remain with me after you are gone."

"Of course we will, Philip,--we would love to come," Marian replied, affected by his words and the depth of emotion which his voice expressed. "It will be the one remembrance we would most rejoice to take back with us if we can't take you. For these days, Philip," she added in a voice so low that he alone could hear,--"these days have not been vital ones for you alone, dear friend. Our meeting has brought back much to me which I shall always cherish, and beyond all I wish I might be the means of giving you back that happiness you lost through me."

"No, no! You mustn't say that, Marian!"

"Oh, but I feel the burden of it, Philip! You give me no chance to make restitution. If you would only come--"

A tremor ran through his frame but he quickly controlled himself. "No, Marian," he said firmly; "you must come to me!"

While the little group were conversing together the bathers had left the pool, and now one by one appeared from the bath-houses, radiant from their invigorating exercise, and looking for new worlds to conquer. Cosden was first, and he seated himself on the bench beside Edith.

"Am I forgiven?" he asked in a low tone, but with a smile which expressed confidence in the answer.

"I never talk shop outside of business hours," was the chilling response, as she drew herself slightly away from him and looked straight ahead.

Merry was not far behind, and her appearance prevented Edith's hauteur from becoming too apparent.

"Mr. Huntington and I are going to have another race to-morrow morning," she announced. "I'm sure he let me beat him this time just to humiliate me the more when he shows what he can really do."

"I'd back you against the field if I could find any takers," Cosden insisted. "That shows what I think of his chances."

"It's great fun, anyway. Isn't this a fine old world, Momsie?" she cried impulsively, throwing her arms around her mother's neck and kissing her.

"'Here comes the bride,'" chanted Cosden as Huntington finally walked toward them with his dignified stride. "If I took as much time to prink as you do I believe I could fuss myself up to look like something."

"You'd need a file!" Edith ejaculated spitefully.

"I beg your pardon?" Cosden interrogated, but no explanation was vouchsafed.

"This looks to me like a council of war," Huntington remarked.

"Call it rather a demobilization," Thatcher corrected. "I have made myself everlastingly unpopular by deciding to return to New York on Monday. Marian insists on leaving when I do, and the Stevenses are equally considerate of my pleasure. So I've spoiled everything."

"I have only been waiting for some one stronger than I to determine my own departure, so I include myself among the refugees. And Hamlen will go with me, won't you, my friend?"

Hamlen held up his hand deprecatingly. "I must complete my sentence of exile," he said with finality.

"Have you heard anything from New York?" Cosden inquired. "I left orders not to cable."

"The market is bad, and liable to become worse."

"Then my vacation is over, too. How about the trolley project?"

"Another postponement. I'll give you the details later."

"Mr. Hamlen has invited us to have tea with him to-morrow afternoon as a farewell celebration, and I have accepted for all."

"Not a farewell, Mrs. Thatcher," Huntington corrected, looking across at Hamlen. "There are some souls to whom we never say farewell. If he won't come with us now it simply means a brief postponement. This friend of mine cannot come into my life as he has done these weeks and then go out of it again. He and I have already lost too many years of the companionship which should have been ours; now together we must make up for lost time."

Hamlen looked at him gratefully but did not answer. In single file the little party walked along the narrow edge of the pool, down the steps and back to the hotel. Cosden manoeuvered so that he had a word with Edith before they separated.

"I sha'n't let you be cross with me," he said.

"I'm not cross; 'disgusted' is the word if you really want to know."

"But suppose my speaking was more sudden than my decision?"

"I would rather not discuss it, if you please."

"I've seen a great deal more of you than I have of Merry--"

"But when you make up your mind, Mr. Cosden--" Edith recalled his own words.

"I never change it without reason," he replied. "And more than that, it is very unprofessional to desert a client just when he needs you most."

"When a client disregards his counsel's advice it is time to change counsel," she retorted with decision.

"Oh, dear, no!" Cosden replied in so conciliatory a tone that she was partly mollified. The words rang with greater sincerity than she had believed him to possess. "That isn't the way real counsels do at all, especially when the client is so contrite."

"What is their custom?" Edith asked, amused in spite of herself.

"They charge it up on the bill and make him pay handsomely for his presumption."

"Oh!" she said, weakening a little in the caustic attitude she had assumed. "If it comes down to a matter of bookkeeping perhaps we can effect a compromise."

* * * * *

XX

* * * * *

"To-day, Connie, is Saturday, to-morrow is the Sabbath, in which we are not permitted to toil, neither can we spin, and on the day which followeth we sail," Huntington remarked at luncheon.

Cosden regarded his companion critically. "It doesn't rhyme so I know it isn't poetry; then it must be Scripture."

"Freely paraphrased, it means that this afternoon is the last opportunity we shall have to exercise our golf-clubs on Bermudian soil."

"Enough said," Cosden answered sententiously; "I'll be ready whenever you are. What a relief it will be to play on a real course again when the season opens at home!"

"I admit that this is the one great deficiency of an otherwise admirably ordered resort," Huntington agreed. "Still, it is a whole lot better than no course at all, so let us be philosophers.--I'll be ready in an hour."

The afternoon's round proved an eventful one to Huntington. Not that his clubs were under better control, or that he was less penalized by the atrocious lies encountered so frequently. Not that he succeeded in defeating his opponent, which was usually the measure of an eventful day; but he found Cosden in a state of mind which gave him infinite relief.

The weak spots shown up by the analysis Huntington had made of his friendship with Cosden caused him real anxiety, explain them as he would. It was one thing to play with a man three times a week and another to live with him for a month of consecutive holidays. He had wondered whether their relations could ever return to what he had believed them to be before the shock came to his sense of propriety. Cosden's new state of mind shifted the balance so that the scales hung even, and the hope thus engendered made him indifferent to sliced drives, bad lies, or topped approaches. To Huntington, a friendship such as this had been assumed the proportions of a trust, and to disturb it was to shake the foundations of his every-day life to a most disquieting extent.

"This visit to Bermuda hasn't been at all what I expected," Cosden confided to him; "but I'm inclined to think it has been a success after all."

"I have found much to interest me here," Huntington admitted.

"Between you and Miss Stevens I've learned a few things about myself I didn't know before. The experience hasn't been altogether palatable, but perhaps it will prove salutary."

"That is ancient history now, Connie," Huntington protested, following his usual custom of avoiding the unpleasant. "Why bring it up again? Keep your mind on your game."

"It hasn't become ancient history yet," he insisted. "I want you to understand that I appreciate your friendliness in going out of your way to say disagreeable things when you thought I needed to hear them. It isn't every one who would have done it."

"That's all right; now let's forget it."

"I don't want to forget it. In fact I'm particularly keen on remembering it. I tackled a job before I knew how to handle it, with the inevitable consequences. Now I think I can come nearer to understanding what the game is."

He paused long enough to negotiate a particularly difficult stymie which Huntington had laid him on the third green. As the ball dropped into the cup he looked up with a satisfied smile.

"You see I can play a game that I do understand, don't you, Monty? I'm going to play this new game just as well after I'm on to it. You were right: that little Thatcher girl is all I thought she was, but we are absolutely unsuited. I had to find it out for myself, but now it is as clear to me as it has been to you from the beginning. And this isn't the only thing I've found out."

"The air is pretty clear down here, Connie; one can see a long ways."

"Yes, when he's supplied with a pair of binoculars like you and Miss Stevens. The thing I can see clearest now is that I'm not ready to marry any girl just at present."

Huntington stopped as he was about to swing, dropped his club, and seized Cosden by the shoulders.

"Then you aren't going to desert me!"

"Hold on!" Cosden cried as he released himself; "you're going too fast! Don't overlook the fact that I said 'just at present.' It may be I shall never marry, but something tells me that there are wedding-bells for me before I get through with it. There's no doubt at all, however, that before that takes place I must acquire some of those flossy things you've taught me to look for. I'm going to take a few hundred shares in some humanizing company and see what it does for me. Then I'll find out just what there is in it, and let the future take care of itself."

Now that Cosden had come to these eminently satisfactory conclusions Huntington was too wise to offer any advice. His courage rose as this responsibility rolled away from his overburdened shoulders, and he dared hope that before he reached New York Mrs. Thatcher would voluntarily abandon her quixotic notion concerning Merry and Hamlen. This would leave him free to pull the strings for Billy,--but here he sighed. Could he hope ever to bring the boy up to the standard he himself would insist upon before permitting any thought of an alliance? And was the sigh all because of doubts of Billy? Forty-five must give way to twenty, but he admitted to himself that the supreme burden of all remained. If some of those years could only be turned back! But he knew himself now, and in that knowledge rested power.

Sunday dawned bright and clear, one of those superlative days which Bermuda produces now and then as an aggravation to her departing visitors, and to demonstrate that she herself can improve even upon her own perfection. Those who had planned to devote the morning to packing against the morrow's sailing found the voice of duty too weak to make itself heard above the irresistible call to the open. Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher seized the opportunity to drive again to Harrington Sound, Merry and Huntington took a final walk to Elba Beach, while Cosden insisted that Edith Stevens permit him to escort her to the Barracks and the band concert. This left Ricky Stevens entirely out in the cold, but he was so accustomed to it that he did not even notice that it had happened again. Cheerfully lighting a cigarette, after the others had departed, and swinging his stick with an energy deserving of better things, he devoted the morning to making a final round of the tobacco-shops, laying in a huge amount of additional smoking materials.

By afternoon all were again united, and set off together for Hamlen's villa. Their host elected to receive them in the garden instead of at the house, and as the guests passed through the rustic arbor, vivid in the coloring of the _poinsettia_ which bore it down, each felt in varying degree the dramatic effect of the reception. Hamlen stepped quietly forward to receive them, clad in the familiar white doe-skin suit which was never so effective as against its present background. His manner was courtly, but the reserve his friends had seen broken down during their visit again possessed him, and his face, even when he smiled to welcome them, was reminiscent of some great renunciation.

"Forgive me for not meeting you when you first drove up," Hamlen said to Marian. "In my sentimentality I preferred to greet you here. These trees, these shrubs, these flowers," he indicated, "I planted one by one. I tended them in their infancy, I have watched them in their growth. To me they have personalities as much as human beings. They represent my family, they are all I have, and, as I told you yesterday, I want them to join me in this last meeting before you depart and leave us to ourselves."

Their host's attitude was not fully appreciated except by the three who knew him best, so it was natural that by degrees the party separated in such a way that Mrs. Thatcher, Merry and Huntington were left with him while the others explored the grounds in greater detail.

"For the first time in my life, Marian," Hamlen said, "I shall regret to see a steamer pass my Point and leave me cut off from the world. As I told you, always before I have gloried in it. To-morrow--"

"We shall be waving to you to-morrow, Philip, and wishing you were with us."

"It won't be long," Huntington added, "before you will be on one of those same steamers on your way to us."

"I hope so," was the non-committal reply.

"We do want you, all of us," Merry smiled persuadingly. "We have come to know each other so well here that we shall miss not being where we can run in to disturb you in your work."

"I shall miss those interruptions too, and the work will be all I shall have to fall back upon. Somehow," he added, turning to Huntington,--"somehow I haven't been able to do the same work since you have been here. I don't understand it. I have been happier during these weeks than in all the years which preceded them, yet my work has not been so good. Why is it?"

"The reason is obvious," Huntington answered quietly, but with a degree of satisfaction in his tone. "In what you say I find a pledge that you will come to us. Our visit, Hamlen, has disturbed the equilibrium of your life; it can never be the same again. Your work now is not so good because your mind has found a new horizon, and refuses to confine itself within the narrow compass which it had before. You can't do as good work again until your life finds new anchorage. Then you will reach heights beyond your dreams; but it will be through your friends that the new anchorage will come. We can afford to be patient, Hamlen, for you must surely turn to us; you cannot avoid it no matter how hard you try."

Huntington's magnetic voice affected Hamlen as deeply as his words. His vision seemed so clear, his domination so complete that it startled the weaker man. Mrs. Thatcher and Merry knew at that moment that, if he chose, Huntington could have compelled Hamlen to follow him to the ends of the earth; and the response their host made showed that he recognized it too.

"You won't force me, Huntington?" he appealed.