Part 8

"First aid to the wounded is right in my line," Edith assured him helpfully.

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 upon his main topic.

"I'm a peculiar sort of man, I've no doubt--"

"I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for a man who didn't possess individuality," she interrupted emphatically.

"Well, perhaps it is more than individuality. Men seem to understand me all right, but I've never had a sister, and I've been too tied down by my business to cultivate women. I'm a man's man--I suppose that about expresses it."

"That's a good recommendation; look at my brother,--he's a lady's man. Would you change individualities with Ricky?"

"Perhaps not," Cosden said guardedly; "still in this matter your brother could probably give me a pointer or two.--Hang it all! when I talk to a man I don't have any difficulty in making myself understood, but here I am, floundering round with you like a school-boy!"

"Just imagine for the moment that I am a man and that you are talking to me about some one else--"

"That's it exactly; I knew you would understand. I thought Monty would help me out, but he absolutely refuses to take me seriously. The truth of the matter is that I've decided to get married."

Even with the preparation given her by Huntington's remarks Cosden's statement came with an abruptness which surprised Edith into a becoming flutter. Her eyes fell for the moment and she could feel a flush come into her face. Knowing how some men admire the combination of blue eyes and rosy cheeks she hastened to look up, but was disappointed to find her companion's gaze resting upon the distant horizon.

"You have decided?" she asked archly; "where does the girl come in?"

"Oh, she'll come in all right at the finish, I've no doubt," Cosden replied. "I'm taking you at your word, and I'm talking to you just as I would to a man. I want you to tell me what I ought to do to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I've always got what I've gone after, and it would break me all up to come a cropper just because I hadn't handled the matter right."

"Have you given the prospective bride any suggestion of your intentions?" Edith inquired, her eyes again drooping.

"Not a word. That's not my way. I always plan things out to the finish, and then it's plain sailing to the end."

"Have you reason to think she cares for you?"

"She has no more idea that I think of marrying anybody than you had before I began to tell you; but I don't see why she should have any special objection to me. The whole point is, I'm somewhat older than she, and I'm not sure that I speak the same language."

Edith's mind executed some lightning mathematical calculations, and she wondered if he were older than he looked.

"There is not too much difference, I am sure."

"Just eighteen years," Cosden announced with finality.

The color left Edith's face, and then it returned with greater strength. Her surprise showed only in her snapping eyes, for she held herself well in hand; but her mind was working fast. She was thankful enough that he had been so wrapped up in himself that he was oblivious to her mistake.

"It would serve him right if I did marry him, to pay him back for this," was what her eyes said, but the words she spoke fitted well enough into Cosden's understanding.

"Well, of course, eighteen years is a good deal--"

"Just the proper handicap." Cosden repeated the phrase he had used in his discussion with Huntington. "Women grow old faster than men."

Edith bit her lip to hold back the caustic reply which was almost spoken. He certainly was intent upon his purpose, but that did not excuse his lack of gallantry. His friend could give him points on that! The responsibility she had told Huntington she would assume became a real one!

"Perhaps," she seemed to assent; "but of course it makes a difference who the girl is. If I knew her--"

"You know her all right; it's Merry Thatcher."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, as if the identity was a complete surprise. "Yes, you would have to plan your campaign pretty carefully with Merry. She is a girl with definite ideas of her own, and she might not be influenced by the fact that you always get what you go after."

Cosden looked at her suspiciously.

"Yes; I think I could help you," she added quickly.

"I'd be mighty grateful if you would," Cosden said with obvious relief.

"Now, let me see--" Edith proceeded carefully, but the way was clearing before her. "I think you will need to take quite a course of training," she laughed. "Are you prepared to do that?"

"When I place myself in my doctor's hands I usually take his medicines."

"All right; then we'll start in at once. I must ask you a lot of questions. Are you fond of athletics?"

"Next to my business, it's my longest suit."

"There is the first point of common interest. You are making a good start.--Are you fond of reading?

"I like a good detective story."

"How about Stevenson and Ibsen and Lafcadio Hearn?"

"Not in mine, except 'Treasure Island' and 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'"

Edith pursed her lips. "Not so good on the second test, Mr. Cosden. How about opera?"

"My favorites are 'Lohengrin' and the 'Merry Widow.'"

"Horrors! That you must keep sacredly hidden from the dear girl. I've known her to go to the opera eight times in one week, and sigh for more. Of course you adore orchestral music?"

"You'll have to score zeros against me on music, but perhaps I can come back strong in some other branches."

She held up a finger chidingly. "You from Boston, and don't rave over your Symphony Orchestra! That is a real blow! I supposed every one in Boston went to the Symphony concerts just for the prestige, even though he couldn't tell whether the orchestra was playing or only tuning up."

"You see I'm not trying to sail under false colors."

"Well, now I come to the supreme test of all: do you dance?"

Cosden threw up his hands in real despair. "You are making me look ridiculous," he said. "I knew the old dances, but I've never put myself up against the new ones. I suppose I could learn."

"Well, well, well!" ejaculated the fair inquisitor. "All I can say is that you showed real business judgment in coming to me first. Merry would have made short work of you; she's crazy about dancing. Oh, don't look so serious; the case may not be so hopeless as it seems."

"I don't see how it could be much worse." Cosden was genuinely chagrined.

"It isn't every one who finds a fairy godmother waiting for him when he comes out of his chrysalis, Mr. Cosden," Edith explained. "She will help young Lochinvar to throw aside his antiquity and come down to date. In two weeks' time you'll feel so spritely that Mr. Huntington and his friends of equal age will bore you,--all provided that you follow your instructor's precepts."

Cosden caught the contagion of her optimism. "It's mighty good of you, Miss Stevens. I have no right to ask so much of a comparative stranger."

"Don't worry a bit," Edith reassured him. "You are to start right in and practise on me. I'll teach you the new steps, and coach you in all that's needful. You may lose your breath and a few friends, but I'll guarantee to show you how to win a wife. Now you may begin your education by leading me in to luncheon."

* * * * *

XII

* * * * *

Out of the helpless floundering in the lap of his "responsibilities" a realization came to Huntington that immediate action of some sort was imperative to prevent him from breaking his most zealously observed commandment, "Thou shalt not worry." His antipathy to this favorite pastime was not due to an acceptance of the Japanese theory that worry produces poison in the human system, but rather to a willingness on his part to let others do what he himself found distasteful. It was an article of faith with him to avoid the unpleasant. During luncheon Cosden was wrapped in his own thoughts, which gave final opportunity for this realization to crystallize into a conclusion that the moment was at hand to demonstrate his good intentions to Mrs. Thatcher, and to become better acquainted with her daughter,--all in a single operation.

"If my leaving the table won't disturb your reflections--" he began.

Cosden looked up quickly and smiled. "I didn't intend to be such poor company, Monty," he apologized. "The fact is, I have a good deal on my mind. Of course you can't understand what that means; all you have to do is to eat three meals a day, stand still while Dixon dolls you up at stated intervals and go to sleep at night after he tucks you away in your little trundle-bed."

There was an indulgent expression in Huntington's eye as he listened. "Yes," he acquiesced; "it is always difficult for any one to see the other fellow's viewpoint. But don't apologize; I think I like you better when you're quiet.--Now, if you don't mind, I'll have a word with Mrs. Thatcher."

He strolled leisurely to the table where the Thatcher party sat.

"I am going over to Mr. Hamlen's villa this afternoon," he announced; "I wonder if Miss Merry would care to go with me."

"I'd love to," the girl replied promptly, with evident eagerness in her voice. "Especially if you are going to talk with him as you did the other evening," she added.

"You're taking that Hamlen chap rather seriously, aren't you?" Stevens volunteered.

"He's entitled to it," Huntington said with a decision which Stevens took to be a rebuff, and subsided.

Mrs. Thatcher was quick to understand that Huntington was acting in response to her suggestion of the night before, and her face showed her appreciation.

"I have wanted Merry to see those wonderful grounds," she exclaimed; "this is just the time to do it."

"When does our Society go into executive session?" asked Edith, with a significant smile; "my committee wishes to report progress."

"Splendid!" Huntington responded. "The notices shall be sent out at once." Then he turned again to Merry. "You'll go?" he asked.

"Of course I will; I'll be ready whenever you say."

"I'll telephone Hamlen and see what time he would prefer to have us come."

* * * * *

"Shall we walk?" she asked him, as they met at the appointed hour on the piazza of the hotel.

"It's over two miles," he suggested doubtfully. The idea of walking anywhere when a conveyance was within reach never occurred to Huntington naturally.

"I don't mind the distance at all unless you do," she replied; "I always walk when I can, and the afternoon is delightful."

As Huntington regarded his vivacious companion he was conscious of another shock similar to those he had experienced when he first saw her and her mother the evening of his arrival. She had discarded the unconventional costume of the morning, exchanging it for an afternoon gown of softest texture, so girlish, yet to the practised eye revealing in every detail the artist's creation,--arraying herself with such special care that her escort could not fail to understand her appreciation of his attention. It was Marian Seymour once more whose hand he held in his as he assisted the girl down the long steps, and his mind leaped back again over the five and twenty years. But what a difference at his end of the picture! She was the same, but he--well, the years had dealt kindly with him he must admit, but forty-five at best must pay homage to twenty! Her youthful figure was disguised but not hidden by the quaint gown of white Georgette crepe and lace, relieved from its monotone by a soft, moon-blue satin girdle, embroidered with roses and leaves in pastel shades. The wide-brimmed hat of the same crepe, its crown of blue satin banded with flowers, the dainty parasol, and the white kid colonials completed a becoming costume. Huntington concluded that his slipper, so carefully preserved at home, was as antique a souvenir as himself! "Shall we walk?" she asked; he would have liked nothing better than to parade up and down forever before every one he knew with this splendid young creature beside him, exhaling all that glowing health and youth could add to the natural charms which were her birthright! Particularly was he unable to resist giving Cosden a look of triumph as they passed by him at the steps.

"Room for one more in your party?" Cosden asked, rising impulsively.

"Full house, Connie," was the uncompromising response. "We're off on a missionary trip, and you wouldn't be interested."

To Merry herself this was an adventure as pleasing as it was unusual. Huntington had made a deep impression upon her on that one occasion to which she so often referred. In her quiet, tense way the girl was a hero-worshiper, and in that single moment Huntington had qualified for the hero's crown. That he should have selected her as his companion for this afternoon was enough to set her cheeks aglow and to make her eyes sparkle with girlish anticipation.

"I'm afraid my nephew Billy has been imposing on your good-nature, these days," he began.

"Billy?" she laughed. "Not a bit of it! Billy is the best fun ever. I never saw such an irrepressible boy; he's just like a big St. Bernard pup!"

Huntington decided to remember this for later use in time of need.

"I suppose we old-stagers forget how youthful we were at his age, but sometimes it seems to me as if Billy would never grow up."

"Oh, he's all right, Mr. Huntington," Merry reassured him. "My brother Phil is older, but every now and then he breaks out just the same. I think they're lots of fun. It's only when they become serious that I feel worried about them."

"Billy isn't often guilty of that," was Huntington's comment. "When he and I are alone I don't mind having him bubble over. It keeps me young, so I rather like it; but down here it seemed as if he was getting in every one's way,--just like a puppy, as you say. Mr. Cosden--"

"I'm afraid Mr. Cosden doesn't remember his own boyhood as well as you remember yours," Merry interrupted. "How much more he would enjoy himself if he had a bump of humor, wouldn't he?"

"Connie? Why, I never noticed that he lacked humor. Of course Connie is very intense; he goes at his business as if it were the only thing in life, and when it comes to play it's the same way. Now that you speak about it, I don't know that I have noticed much sense of humor in him. Perhaps that's why we pull together so well."

"I'm glad you asked me to go with you this afternoon," Merry continued. "Mother has told me something about Mr. Hamlen, and I feel terribly sorry for him. He was so miserably unhappy the other evening. She says he has one of the most wonderful places she ever saw."

"He has; but I believe you will be even more interested in studying the man than his frame. The morning I spent with him stands out as an event in my life. You heard us discussing college the other evening; well, Hamlen is the product of the one great fault in the life at Harvard when we were there."

"For Phil's sake, I hope all the faults are overcome by now."

Huntington smiled. His face was one which smiled easily, adding to the charm of his low, well-modulated voice.

"Most of the faults have been eradicated," he replied, "but weaknesses will always exist. Perhaps I should have called this a weakness. To-day it is partially remedied, and I believe that the new freshman dormitories are going to be a large insurance clause against it."

"I don't believe I understand--"

"Nor can you until I cease speaking in enigmas," laughed Huntington. "I once went to a lecture William James gave on Pragmatism, and all I took away as a reward for my hour of careful listening was that 'nothing is the only resultant of the one thing which isn't.' I upbraided him for it when next we met, and he explained that the prerogative of a philosopher is that he can retreat behind meaningless expressions and still be considered wise. I am no philosopher, so it is cowardly of me to try to take similar advantage of you. Hamlen is a college-made recluse, and there is no denying the fact that at Harvard there has been less effort made by the students to find out the personal characteristics of their classmates than at any of the other colleges. Each fellow has had to show them forth himself, and it had to be done his freshman year. If he held back, as Hamlen did, they have let him stay in his shell; then he concluded they didn't like him."

"But a boy can't advertise his characteristics--"

"No; but he can manifest them in legitimate ways. Why, my freshman year there was a little fellow in the Class who didn't weigh a hundred pounds, and had no more strength than a cat; but he went in for crew, football, baseball, track athletics, debating,--and everything else you could imagine. He was no good in any of them, and didn't come within a mile of making any team. We all made fun of him and we all loved him for his grit. He didn't have to advertise; we knew him through and through. That is the kind of boy that makes good at Harvard."

"Some boys wouldn't realize the importance of this until too late, with no one to tell them, would they?"

"That is the whole point, Miss Merry, and it hasn't taken you as long to see it as it has taken the college authorities. When Hamlen and I were there no one made any effort to shake us up together. I had my own small circle of friends, and we cared precious little for any one outside of it. If I had known Hamlen then as I have come to know him here in less than a week, I should have insisted on his being one of that little circle; but I didn't know him at all. I am watching this segregation of the freshmen with great interest. It seems as if they must get to know each other better now; but if this experiment doesn't solve the problem then the authorities must keep on trying until they find one that does."

They walked on in silence for several moments. Huntington was deeply in earnest, and Merry eager to hear every word. Her father, not being a college man, had always been more or less intolerant of the claims made by college graduates, so her ideas had naturally been colored by his views. Her brother was sent to Harvard because his mother wished it, not because Thatcher had changed his opinions, and Merry's new views, as gained by her brother's life there, had not given her any deeper understanding. What Huntington said to Hamlen supplied her with another viewpoint, and she was keenly interested in this continuation of the same subject.

"Hamlen is a man cowed and embittered by his experiences," Huntington said, speaking again. "Every time he has gone out into the world it has been head foremost, without looking. He has butted against stone wall after stone wall when he could have seen the opening had he used his eyes. Each time he has been bruised he has fancied that the world struck him, when in reality the wound was self-inflicted."

"Has he no friends--no hobby which can take him out of himself?"

"He believes himself to be friendless, but he has a hobby; I discovered it when I was at his villa yesterday. Do you happen by any chance to know anything of the artistic side of bookmaking?"

"I took some lessons from Cobden-Sanderson while we were in London two winters ago, but I haven't done much with what I learned."

"Did you really?" Huntington stopped short and looked at her in genuine surprise. "That is a curious coincidence! I hadn't the remotest idea, when I asked the question, that you knew there was anything in a book except the story. Well, that does simplify matters! Hamlen has a hand-press and a miniature bindery, and has made some really exquisite volumes. It is his one remaining human trait. I've known the books for years, but no one could find out who made them. Well, well! I promise that you shall see Hamlen this afternoon in a mood quite different from the one you saw him in the other night; you shall know the man as I know him, and better than he knows himself!"

* * * * *

Huntington noticed a new light in Hamlen's eyes as he greeted them at the villa. The man was more reserved in the presence of a third person, but Huntington was relieved to find that the fact of Merry's coming did not throw his host back into that restrained attitude which he manifested when first they met.

"I have brought you another congenial soul," Huntington explained.

"Can there be such--for me?" Hamlen demanded, but his guest continued as if he had not heard.

"Quite accidentally I find that Miss Merry has been a pupil of Cobden-Sanderson's, and I want her to see what you have done in this miniature island press of yours."

"I should be so interested," Merry exclaimed eagerly.

"How can it interest any one but me?" Hamlen asked incredulously. "I am parading my inmost self in public, and it seems indecent."

"I should not wish to intrude--" the girl began but Hamlen held up a deprecating hand, and the expression on his face refuted the apparent lack of courtesy.

"I am sure you won't misunderstand, Miss Thatcher, being, as Mr. Huntington says, a congenial soul. It is I who am apologizing. To have any one show interest in what I do is a new experience, and I hesitate for fear I may be indelicate. And yet I want to show you what I've done!"

"Of course I understand," Merry replied cordially; "I'm proud to be among the first to see your work."

"Before we go indoors, may I not take you around the grounds?" he turned to Huntington. "Perhaps you are in the mood for it to-day?"

"By all means," his guest responded. "It will give us exactly the right atmosphere for what is to follow."

Huntington rejoiced to see Hamlen's attitude. For an hour they wandered from one point to another, Merry in a state of ecstasy from the superb beauty of it all, Hamlen supremely happy in this sympathetic companionship of which he knew so little, and Huntington contentedly watching the life-drama enacting before his eyes. On the stage such a sudden change from tragedy to comedy would have been considered crude, for who could write lines of such delicacy as to portray the yearning of a human soul, or what actors are there so great that they could mimic the birth of hope? "God is the master-dramatist, after all," Huntington murmured to himself as he studied the changes which made the tortured derelict of a few days before into the contained and self-respecting host.

They returned to the house, and Hamlen took them to his press and bindery. Huntington purposely kept in the background, asking a question now and then, adding a word only where it was necessary, and giving his host the opportunity of explaining the finer points of the work to the responsive and comprehending mind of the girl. Little by little he could see the real Hamlen emerge from his manufactured self under the influences around him.

But his interest was not wholly centered in Hamlen. Until to-day Huntington had observed Merry only in her relation to others; now he felt a personal pride in the way she carried herself, in her quick understanding, her sympathetic responsiveness. He felt unconsciously for these brief moments a pleasurable sense of possession which added to his enjoyment.

"Now take us to your library," he said to Hamlen at length. "You told me that you had there some examples of the old master-printers at which you had scarcely looked. I want to see them; perhaps they may show us the influences which unconsciously affected your work."

"Most of them belonged to my father," Hamlen explained, as he opened the door for his guests to pass through into the larger room.

"He was a collector, then?"

"In a small way. As I look back, he must have known a good deal about old books; but I had no interest then, so they made little impression."

Huntington glanced around at the shelves critically.

"Classics, classics, classics!" he cried. "Good heavens, man, do you mean to tell me that you haven't any modern books at all?"