"Of course; unless you select some one else in the mean time. Perhaps we'd better wait until after luncheon."

"Oh, I'm serious," Edith protested,--"provided of course that he measures up all right. The more I think it over the more serious I become. Ricky was particularly trying this morning; I'm aghast at the amount of last month's bills, and all in all it makes me realize the importance of not letting one's age become an indiscretion. Even you referred to my pa.s.sing years."

"Poor Ricky!" Marian said sympathetically; "he never gets any credit for sacrificing himself."

"I've acted in the interests of my s.e.x," Edith a.s.serted stoutly. "Ricky is a joke. Except for the fact that he's my own brother I'd say he was a scream. If it hadn't been for me he would have married some girl and bored her to extinction. She couldn't have escaped him, but I can.

Somebody owes me a debt of grat.i.tude."

"Well," Marian sighed, "I wish you luck; if Mr. Cosden isn't smart enough to protect himself it will be his own fault."

"Why be catty, Marian?" Edith retorted with asperity. "It isn't becoming."

Marian laughed. "You silly child!" she said. "You are the most supremely selfish creature in the world, but you are so blissfully unconscious of the fact that I love you for it. Some one has to stand up for Ricky; Heaven knows he can't stand up for himself."

"Very good." Edith was only partly mollified. "I've no doubt Ricky will be exceedingly grateful, but if you were to ask me I'd say that you have men enough on your hands already without him. Now, I'm going to my room to dress for luncheon. Afterwards, when you find an opportunity, I want you to pump Mr. Huntington dry about Cossie--Connie--I'll never get used to that name!--and leave me to do the rest."

Unconscious of plots and counterplots, Cosden and Huntington sauntered innocently onto the piazza after their noonday meal. Billy had managed to get himself invited to the Thatchers' table, so the two friends had lunched by themselves. Both were self-centered, but neither noticed it because of his own abstraction. Cosden was measuring up the girl as his opportunity for observation broadened, Huntington was still affected by his experience with Hamlen. Curiously enough, in spite of their friendship, or perhaps because their intimacy gave each so clear a knowledge of the other's characteristics neither one cared to speak of the subject which was uppermost in his mind. "Monty is too much of a cynic to appreciate my situation here," Cosden told himself; and Huntington, without even mentally putting it into words, knew that Hamlen did not and never would appeal to Cosden.

Shortly after the men had lighted their cigars the party from the Thatchers' table joined them. Marian noticed that Edith casually dropped into the chair beside Cosden's, and was amused to see that she began operations at once.

"What are we going to do this afternoon?" Edith queried breezily.

"We've all been going since breakfast," Stevens suggested; "why not sit still for a while?"

"Ricky!" said his sister severely, "no one asked your opinion. What in the world is the use of sitting still? We can do that at home."

"What do you suggest?" Cosden asked her incautiously.

"Have you been to Harrington Sound?"

"No," he admitted; recognizing at once that he had given an unwise opening.

"Then why don't you let me show you the way?" Edith asked, as if the thought had only just occurred to her.

A chorus of approval went up from Huntington, Mrs. Thatcher and Billy.

"Suppose we all go," Cosden said, seeking safety in numbers.

"We have taken the drive several times," Mrs. Thatcher abetted Edith in her conspiracy, "and I am sure Mr. Huntington is too gallant to leave us. You can drive over and back comfortably by dinner-time."

"Won't you stop on the way home and get me some coral sand?" Merry asked. "Edith will show you the beach."

A drive with Miss Stevens was the last thing Cosden had intended, but as there seemed no possible escape he rose to the occasion and at once ordered the victoria. Nor was the enthusiasm of Billy's send-off balm-of-Gilead to his soul as the carriage moved away from the hotel steps. Edith, in a suit of white Bermuda doe-skin, with a small purple hat perched rakishly on her head, and carrying a purple parasol with handle of abalone pearl, was looking her best, and to the amused onlookers her snapping eyes and beaming countenance seemed to promise compensation.

"I wish we might have a word together about Hamlen," Huntington remarked to Marian as they turned back to the piazza.

"That is the very subject which is uppermost in my mind," she replied eagerly. "You saw him this morning?"

"Yes; and he has absorbed my thoughts ever since. Suppose we sit down and talk him over."

The others in the party left them to themselves. They had heard Huntington's preliminary remark, and understood that they had no part in the conversation.

"He is a pathetic figure," Huntington continued, "and he has won a sympathy from me which I never remember to have given to any one before.

Think of twenty years of solitude! By Jove! he is the Modern Edmond Dantes!"

"I've known him since he was a boy," Marian said as Huntington paused for a moment. "If you are to understand the situation, perhaps I ought to tell you more. For a time, we were engaged, but these relations were broken off soon after his graduation. In fact I feel that I am to a certain extent responsible for his present condition, for he left America as soon as he heard of my engagement to Mr. Thatcher."

Huntington looked up quickly. "That gives Hamlen and me another bond of sympathy," he said quietly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, surprised.

"That same announcement produced disastrous effects upon my life as well."

"Why, you never saw me half a dozen times--"

"Once was enough," he replied seriously.

"Your imagination is as highly developed as your gallantry, Mr.

Huntington," Marian laughed; "but we mustn't let ourselves become diverted.--Philip Hamlen was always sensitive and moody, but until I discovered him down here I had no idea these characteristics could become so exaggerated."

"He believes himself always to have been misunderstood," Huntington added. "To-day he felt that we met on common ground, and the grat.i.tude in his eyes still haunts me."

"Can't we do something for him, between us?" she asked earnestly.

"We must," Huntington a.s.sented with decision. "I am still puzzling over the problem. Have you anything to suggest?"

Mrs. Thatcher did not reply at once, and Huntington respected her silence. He realized that her answer could not be given spontaneously, that the proposition was too vital for anything but the most serious consideration. As a matter of fact, however, she had already considered it. Marian Thatcher was a woman of strong impulses, with strength of will equal to carry them through to success. She had been appalled by Hamlen's condition, and felt keenly her personal responsibility. During the hours which had intervened since the accidental meeting, many of them sleepless hours of the night, she had searched her mind for some expedient which should in part work rest.i.tution. She had discovered a possible solution, but it was of a nature so intimate that she hesitated to take Huntington into her confidence.

"I had thought--" she began at length, but then she paused. "We must pull him out of himself," she began again; "we must get him where he will find something to think of other than himself."

"Suppose that to be accomplished, what then?"

"I had thought--he needs--he needs a woman who believes in him, to give him courage, to restore his lost faith in himself. A friendship such as you or any other man can give will help much, but if the right woman could happen to come into his life--"

"Isn't that taking too long a step for a first one? Huntington inquired.

"Perhaps; but I feel myself so largely responsible that it would mean much to me to atone--"

Marian's intensity made its impression upon Huntington even as it had upon Hamlen; but he could not follow her. How a married woman could make atonement just at this crisis was not clearly apparent. She realized that her stumbling remarks must be confusing.

"It is difficult for me to tell you just what I have in mind," she stated definitely at length. "You don't know me well enough not to misunderstand, and you don't know Merry. But if I am to accept your aid I must run that risk, mustn't I?"

"I shall try not to misunderstand--"

"You mustn't think me unmotherly or indelicate," she continued. "It may be the last thing in the world which ought to happen, but if Philip Hamlen and Merry should take it into their heads to marry it would seem almost like poetic justice, wouldn't it?"

"By Jove, no!" Huntington e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed hastily, with visions of Cosden swimming before his eyes.