"The girl he had selected for the distinguished honor was in Bermuda--" Marian Thatcher was interested. Her amusement over her friend's annoyances, real or imagined, became tempered by curiosity, and that changed a passing incident into an event. "He told you this and yet proposed to you? Who was the other girl?" "You really don't know?" "Certainly not. Why should I know? This is all news to me." "I'm glad to be able to tell you something, my dear Marian," Edith said complacently. "You are so terribly superior it really cheers me up to have the chance to add to your knowledge, even in a small way. Mr. Cosden came down here for the purpose of proposing to Merry." "To Merry!" Marian cried. "That man had the audacity to think he could marry my child! Well, upon my soul! Why, he never saw her more than two or three times before he came to Bermuda! How could he possibly have fallen in love--" "In love!" Edith laughed. "Love? That's a real joke! Mr. Cosden has never dealt in that commodity! I tell you, Marian, he just picks out the thing he wants, and then he gets it--" "He could never get _my_ daughter." "But you just said you admired men who had confidence in themselves--" "I didn't say I cared for men with such unmitigated nerve as that. The idea!" "You thought us well suited to each other." "Certainly I did; that's an entirely different matter. You are just as mercenary as he, and I think you would make a perfect team,--but Merry! Ho, ho! The audacity of it!" Sitting on the edge of her steamer chair Marian tapped the deck excitedly with her toe and carefully adjusted an imaginary crease in her skirt. Suddenly she turned again to her companion. "So he came down to get Merry,--and proposed to you?" "Yes; rather well manoeuvered, wasn't it? You see, don't you, that my mercenary instincts saved you from an unpleasant maternal duty?" "I bless you for it," Marian said heartily; "but you've refused him, so that leaves him loose to begin over again. He's not safe yet." "I wouldn't worry about that just now," Edith reassured her. "Mr. Cosden has learned a few things since he has been under my instruction, and I think he will be less precipitate." "Why don't you continue the good work and polish him up for yourself? You must have found some good points or you wouldn't have gone to all this trouble." "No, Marian; it's too big a contract. I once had hopes but they are gone. The first thing I knew he'd have me packed up in spite of myself and shipped off somewhere. I'm very disappointed, but I dare not take the chance."