"There isn't much of anything we can't prove if we argue long enough, is there?" Cosden retorted. "If I hadn't heard all that before, and if I hadn't seen the way the 'system' worked out, I should be almost persuaded. Some one told me once that there were two sides to every story except that of Cain and Abel, but I came across an Icelandic myth a while ago in which Abel was the murderer, and since then I've refused to believe anything until I know the other side. Probably the only way for you and me to agree on this question is for each of us to buy some stock in the other fellow's company."
XV
Edith had secured the necessary records for the victrola from the hotel office, and she and Cosden were alone in the ball-room ready for the first lesson in modern dancing. Cosden had never before noticed how enormous the room was, or how many of its windows opened onto the piazza, or how curious the average hotel guest is when a novice is about to be initiated into the mysteries of terpsichorean art.
"Pay no attention to them," Edith reassured him. "Those who know how to dance have had to go through it, and those who haven't learned are perishing for an opportunity. Listen!" she cried, as the music began. "Can you possibly make your feet behave when you hear that heavenly one-step? Look!"
Lifting her skirts gracefully above her ankles, Edith made herself a veritable part of the music, pirouetting up and down and around, while he watched her in mingled admiration and trepidation.
"There!" she cried, stopping before him; "it's perfectly simple, you see. Now, you try it."
"By myself?" he inquired.