* * * * *
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 probationary period with Edith Stevens
with marked success, and this opportunity of consecutive days with her
amid such congenial surroundings filled him with a delight which he had
never found in his business successes. Edith was right, Huntington was
right, Cosden admitted, in their contention that there was something
finer and more satisfying than business ideals; but he gave Edith the
credit for having proved it to him.
He went to extremes in this swing of the pendulum as in all others, but
the net result was a smoothing down of many of the rough corners, and a
tempering of the aggressive individualism which had often offended.
Cosden sized himself up correctly when he remarked to Edith, "I never
expect to be the finished product Monty is, but I'm going to quit
advertising the fact."
Edith could but admire the persistency with which he worked upon his
disagreeable problem. Her curiosity to see "how deep it went" developed
during the course of several other experiences together, into a complete
willingness to forget past delinquencies, and a real desire to encourage
him in the pursuit of his new course. It interested her to see that the
same forcefulness which had made itself disagreeable before was the very
agent which had accomplished the change she admired; that it was this
same dogged determination which maintained the present poise and gave
him the new dignity.
Marian was delighted by the way her guests grouped themselves, and
everything seemed to play wonderfully into her hands. Edith appropriated
Cosden and appointed herself his hostess; brother Ricky enjoyed himself
hugely motoring around the country in one of the Thatcher automobiles,
and did not ask to be considered except at meals; Philip kept his boy
friends engaged in an absorbing series of outdoor activities which
prevented Billy from interfering with her plans for Merry; Mr. Thatcher
was so engrossed with business matters that he became almost a
negligible quantity, which his guests understood and overlooked;
Huntington so far, Marian rejoiced to admit, had carried himself
admirably, dividing his time between Merry, Hamlen and herself in such a
way as to be really helpful instead of a menace to her plans. Never had
she entertained a group of friends so accommodating, and she was more
deeply appreciative at this time than she cared to state.
Edith and Cosden strolled down a leaf-covered walk, flanked by antique
statuettes, to an attractive pavilion at the end of the vista. Here they
seated themselves after a leisurely walk about the estate. Edith knew
she was taking chances, but as she felt quite capable of defending her
position she saw no reason why she should not enjoy Cosden's continued
devotion.
"I've ordered tea served here," she announced. "We seem to be a little
early."
"I'm in no hurry," Cosden replied cheerfully; "are you?"
"I have forgotten how to hurry, after these delicious weeks here," Edith
answered, leaning back in her rustic chair. "I think it agrees with me
to be deliberate, as Marian is. I am going to cultivate it."
"You are deliberate with me, all right," he declared. "I don't quite
understand myself nowadays. Usually when I find that I am making little
progress along one line I shift onto another, but now I seem perfectly
contented to sit back and watch you act your part. That shows that
there's something deeper in all this, doesn't it?"
"You might shift back to Merry," she replied calmly.
"No," he said with decision; "I've learned the rules now, and you don't
catch me revoking.--Tell me, if you don't like me, why do you let me
hang around like this, and if you do like me, what's the use of putting
me off so long?"
"There are loads of people I don't even take the trouble to like or
dislike, whom I 'put off,' as you call it."
"Do you really dislike me?"
"No," Edith drawled slowly, as if deliberating; "I can't say that. In
fact I think I rather like you--in spots."
Cosden leaned forward eagerly. "Isn't it stronger than that?" he
demanded.
"I can't say it is," she replied, her voice manifesting the same
interest which she might show if he had asked any other commonplace
question; "but don't get down on your knees now, for here comes the tea
and I loathe demonstration before servants."
"All right," Cosden said with resignation but without losing his
cheerfulness; "you don't discourage me a bit. I guess counsel is just
collecting a little extra fee for that break in Bermuda. I'll wait."
"I know how many lumps you take in your tea, and I know that you prefer
cream, but shall I pass you the raspberry jam?"
"No, thank you," he replied promptly. "My mother always used to dose me
up with calomel disguised in raspberry jam, and I can't eat it now
without tasting the medicine."
"Very well," Edith laughed, "try some honey. But please tell me what has
put your friend Monty in the dumps. At Bermuda he was stimulating, but
down here he's as cheerful as a crutch."
"Monty in the dumps?" Cosden echoed, surprised. "Why, I hadn't noticed
it. Just before Hamlen came to visit him, he was way down,--bemoaned his
age, and all that sort of thing. I thought we'd got him out of that. I
must look him over and see what the trouble is.--Here come our hostess
and Hamlen. Did you ever see such a change in any one?"
Marian approached with her brightest smile. "I'm glad Edith is keeping
you from being bored," she said. "I'm afraid I've been very remiss."
"I don't see how you could divide yourself into much smaller bits, Mrs.
Thatcher," Cosden replied. "This is a big family you have at present."
"The bigger the better," she exclaimed brightly. "I hoped I should find
you out here, and as I see the tea is still hot perhaps Edith will let
us join you. Philip and I have been walking and talking until we are
really tired."
"I am entranced with all this," Hamlen said, turning to Edith. "I had no
idea, when I paraded my few acres at Bermuda, that I was competing with
an estate like Sagamore. I wonder some one didn't rebuke me for my
presumption!"
"Isn't that a pretty compliment!" Marian cried. "You have put yourself
into every inch of your beautiful place, Philip; Harry and I have only
done that to a very small extent. It is beautiful, I admit, and I love
it just as I love the beauties with which you have surrounded yourself
at home."
"It makes little difference, after all, where one finds it, so long as
it is beauty," Hamlen replied. "'The dawn is my Assyria; the sunset and
moonrise my Paphos and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall
be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my
Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.' I used to think Emerson must
have written that in Bermuda, but it might have been written here."
Edith caught the expression on Cosden's face and almost laughed.
"What's the use?" he whispered to her without being detected. "This pace
is too swift for me! He reeled that off as easily as I could the latest
quotations on copper!"
"Oh, Philip!" Mrs. Thatcher exclaimed, "I can't tell you what it means
to me to see you yourself again after that awful shock you gave me at
Bermuda! Truly, when we left you behind us I gave up hope."
"What hope there was you took away with you, so I was forced to follow."
"Come, Cossie--Connie--," Edith stumbled,--"if I'm to call you by your
given name you'll have to change it to something reasonable,--this is no
place for us."
"Don't let us drive you away," Marian protested.
"That's all right; we want to be driven away. If we stay longer, and Mr.
Hamlen talks like that, Mr. Cosden will become sentimental.--Bye, bye."
Mrs. Thatcher and Hamlen watched them as they strolled leisurely up the
path, Edith swinging her parasol and Cosden walking meekly beside her.
Finally Marian turned to him and laughed.
"What a dance that girl is leading him!"
"Do you think she cares for him?"
"In her way; but if he marries her he will have earned her!--He went
down to Bermuda on purpose to become engaged to Merry."
"He did!" Hamlen exclaimed, surprised; "why, they were never together
when I saw them."
"Nor often at other times. Of course, it was ridiculous,--but with you,
Philip, she'll be the happiest girl in all the world."
His eyes dropped quickly as she turned the conversation, and the
expression on his face completely changed.
"You are wrong, Marian," he protested; "no happiness can ever come to
any woman through me."
"Don't disparage yourself," she answered gently. "You are a different
man from what you were. Do you think I would counsel this if I were not
sure?"
"You believe it, Marian," he conceded, "and I wish I shared your
confidence. But I know myself. The time when I might have made something
of what I had passed long ago. If I am to go on at all it must be with
my real self suppressed, and the only way to do this is to plod my path
alone."
"Why slip back, Philip? Why suppress your real self?"
"I know the danger of permitting it to assume control."
"When last we talked you seemed willing to accept my judgment."
"I am still, in everything but this. I appreciate your desire for my
happiness, Marian, but you are taking a responsibility beyond what is
wise. I am complimented by your daughter's willingness to listen to an
offer of marriage from me, but if the test really came she could not
meet it."
"She would, Philip,--she would."
"I cannot comprehend it," he continued; "she has seen me at my worst."
"She understands you, and appreciates the wonderful qualities you
possess. She is too young to know the depth of love, but old enough to
recognize what a man like you can become to her. If you would only
speak with her you too would understand."
Hamlen moved uncomfortably in his chair, and was silent for what seemed
an interminable period. When at last he turned he spoke with a
conviction which shocked her.
"No, Marian," he said deliberately; "it can never be. Let us end this
farce before it goes too far."
"Philip!" she cried, seeing her work of months crumbling before her, and
reading in his determined face the miscarriage of what she believed to
be predestined. "I can't permit you to destroy the years which remain to
you."
She leaned over and took his hand in hers. Success had been so near that
she could not see it slip away from her now without a supreme effort.
Merry needed such a man as this and Hamlen needed her. Why should these
false ideas, created by years of self-depreciation, stand in the way of
what she knew was best?
"I can't let you destroy the years which remain to you," she repeated
earnestly. "I can't see my child's happiness marred by your foolish
insistence upon ideals which rest on conditions now long since passed
away. Philip, if you loved me once, show it now by your confidence in my
judgment, by your faith in my purpose. Tell me one reason why this
should not be."
"If I loved you once?" he echoed her words with a force which startled
her. "Tell you one reason why this should not be? The one answers the
other, Marian; for that love, intensified by the denial of twenty
years, is now a power I can't withstand."
"Philip!" she cried, striving to release her hand which he held in a
grip which hurt her, "you don't mean that you still--"
"I mean that I have never ceased to love you, Marian. Look at me now and
tell me if you doubt it. Even while I cursed you for ruining my life, I
loved you. Every day of the twenty years I have lived alone I have had
your face before me, I have held out my arms beseeching you to come to
me, I have beaten my head against the wall in despair that the one
longing of my heart could never hope for realization."
"You never told me--I did not know--"
"I have at least been strong enough to keep my secret, Marian; but it is
sacrilege for you to talk to me of marriage to your daughter. Now that
you know the truth you will urge no further. Could anything be more
dishonorable than to offer myself to her when even to-day my love for
you is beating at my heart until I can scarcely contain it? No, no! let
us have an end to all this mockery! In the name of a life's devotion, in
the name of the love you once had for me--"
"Release me, Philip," she entreated, frightened by his tenseness; but he
only tightened his grip upon her hand. She realized the importance of
terminating this impossible situation, regardless of the pain it might
inflict.
"I never loved you, Philip," she said deliberately. "At the time, I
thought I did; but it was my mind and not my heart you dominated."
He dropped her hand as if she had struck him, and, dazed, supported
himself against the rustic chair.
"You never loved me?" he repeated brokenly after her. "You never--oh,
God! why did you tell me that! Why did you come back into my life to
stir up those forces which had crushed me, but which I had at last
subdued!"
Then he turned his eyes upon her, full of the reproach which he dared
not trust himself to speak.
"If it was the domination of my mind then, why should it not be now?" he
asked in a voice which trembled with emotion. "Look at me, Marian!"
"Don't, Philip, I entreat of you; you frighten me!
"Look at me!" he commanded, and she slowly raised her head and gazed
into his face.
"Do you remember the last time you looked at me like that?" he asked
quietly, but even in his low tones there was a compelling force she
recognized.
"Come," he said rising, and drawing her toward him. "If it was not love
which brought you to my arms before, then it must be the same impulse
to-day. Come, Marian, it is not the daughter I want, it is you,--my
beloved, my sweetheart of years gone by!"
"Philip!" she protested feebly, "Philip--I entreat--" but the old,
irresistible influence was too strong, and he folded her in his arms.
In a moment his face changed as if touched by a magician's wand. The
lines which years and disappointment had traced were miraculously
smoothed away, and the expression of contentment was that which comes
only when the seeker has at last reached the consummation of his quest.
The lips moved silently, the eyes looked far into the distance. The past
was forgotten, the future unheeded, but the wonderful present was his!
A convulsive sob from Marian finally brought him to himself. He loosened
his hold, and gazed into her face with abject horror.
"My God!" he cried, as he allowed her limp form to slip back into the
chair. "What have I done! Marian, child, speak to me! Tell me that you
forgive me! It was the years which did it, not I; Marian! speak to me!
Tell me you forgive me!"
He gazed helplessly around as no response came. She lay there, her head
resting on the back of the chair, sobbing hysterically but giving no
sign that she even heard his words. He watched her until at last she
opened her eyes and regained control. Then he spoke again.
"Leave it unspoken, Marian," he exclaimed with an agony in his voice
which the suspense intensified. "I have said it to myself. I have made
myself an outcast, a pariah! Let me take you to the house. Then you need
never think of me again."
"No," she said brokenly; "leave me here."
"This is the end, Marian!" The words came short and crisp. "I ask your
forgiveness no more. There are some things which are past forgiveness. I
only ask you to forget.--Good-bye!"
* * * * *