* * * * *
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.
"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.
* * * * *