Hamlen seemed to hang expectantly upon the answer.
"Of course," Huntington replied promptly. "If you hadn't asked me, I should have come anyhow. It's an inherent right which I demand."
Hamlen pressed his hand and turned to Mrs. Thatcher, who walked with him to the door.
"I don't know whether to thank you or to curse you, Marian," he said feelingly in a low voice. "Through you I have had more interjected into my life in this single day than in the twenty-odd years which have passed by. Is this the dawn of a to-morrow or the epitome of human suffering? Are you my Genius or my Nemesis? Before God I ask the question seriously. I myself cannot answer it."
"Don't try," she answered, smiling; "let Time do that!"
V
Cosden had been sitting on the hotel piazza half an hour when "Merry" Thatcher emerged from the dining-room, gazed about the almost total vacancy as if looking for some one, and then advanced, recognizing in the solitary smoker an acquaintance of the night before.
"I'm always the first one," she complained after greeting him. "We're going sailing this morning, but I might have known that no one else would be down for breakfast at anywhere near the appointed time."