The weak spots shown up by the analysis Huntington had made of his friendship with Cosden caused him real anxiety, explain them as he would. It was one thing to play with a man three times a week and another to live with him for a month of consecutive holidays. He had wondered whether their relations could ever return to what he had believed them to be before the shock came to his sense of propriety. Cosden's new state of mind shifted the balance so that the scales hung even, and the hope thus engendered made him indifferent to sliced drives, bad lies, or topped approaches. To Huntington, a friendship such as this had been assumed the proportions of a trust, and to disturb it was to shake the foundations of his every-day life to a most disquieting extent.
"This visit to Bermuda hasn't been at all what I expected," Cosden confided to him; "but I'm inclined to think it has been a success after all."
"I have found much to interest me here," Huntington admitted.
"Between you and Miss Stevens I've learned a few things about myself I didn't know before. The experience hasn't been altogether palatable, but perhaps it will prove salutary."
"That is ancient history now, Connie," Huntington protested, following his usual custom of avoiding the unpleasant. "Why bring it up again? Keep your mind on your game."
"It hasn't become ancient history yet," he insisted. "I want you to understand that I appreciate your friendliness in going out of your way to say disagreeable things when you thought I needed to hear them. It isn't every one who would have done it."
"That's all right; now let's forget it."
"I don't want to forget it. In fact I'm particularly keen on remembering it. I tackled a job before I knew how to handle it, with the inevitable consequences. Now I think I can come nearer to understanding what the game is."
He paused long enough to negotiate a particularly difficult stymie which Huntington had laid him on the third green. As the ball dropped into the cup he looked up with a satisfied smile.
"You see I can play a game that I do understand, don't you, Monty? I'm going to play this new game just as well after I'm on to it. You were right: that little Thatcher girl is all I thought she was, but we are absolutely unsuited. I had to find it out for myself, but now it is as clear to me as it has been to you from the beginning. And this isn't the only thing I've found out."