"You are evidently in no frame of mind to discuss anything serious now," Cosden retorted; "I'll wait until after dinner."
"Do!" Huntington's face brightened. "Look at the reproachful expression on the bosom of that beautiful white shirt which Dixon has laid out for me. Can't you almost hear the pathos in its tone as it asks to be filled?"
The door slammed, and Cosden's heavy tread could be heard as he disgustedly retreated down the hall to his own room.
One of the compensations of maturity is that the adjustment of proper proportions comes more quickly than to youth. It may be that Cosden saw the modicum of truth which lay beneath his friend's bantering; it may be that he was ashamed to have shown any uncertainty in his mind as to the final outcome of his embassy. At all events, he seemed to be in the best of humor when he dined with Huntington and the boy, and even accepted with good grace the unexpected announcement that Billy and Merry were to "take in" the dance at the "Hamilton." It may be that he was determined to demonstrate his strength of mind, for when the little party reassembled on the piazza, and the young people disappeared soon after the coffee, he devoted himself to Edith Stevens with an assiduity which caused Huntington to smile quietly to himself. Stevens and Thatcher, finding the ladies well provided for, went down-stairs for a game of billiards. Mrs. Thatcher cheerfully accepted Huntington's invitation to stroll to the pier, leaving Miss Stevens and Cosden by themselves.
"I've made an appointment for you on Monday morning," Thatcher remarked to Cosden as he passed by.
"Good! I'll keep it," was the prompt response.
"What do you think of Marian's resurrection?" Edith asked him when they were alone.
Cosden looked in the direction of the pier. "Do you mean—" he began.
"Oh, no!" she interrupted him. "That is merely a revival, which I imagine may develop into an experience meeting. I mean Mr. Hamlen. Think of a devotion that forces a man to bury himself for twenty years! I could throw myself on his neck for restoring my lost belief in the constancy of man."
"I hadn't heard that side of the story," Cosden observed.