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. "It was while we were at school together," Edith explained. "Marian was irresistible then--as now, and every man she met lost his head altogether; but for a time she and Mr. Hamlen were engaged. Then she married the last man we expected; but she and Harry have been very happy. It simply shows that you never can tell." "Did you know Hamlen then?" "No; but I heard enough about him. If he had been merely intelligent instead of intellectual he might have had her just as well as not. He simply frightened her out of it." "Where did Monty come in?" "I never heard of him; things couldn't have gone very far." "You remember what he said just before we started out this morning? I know him pretty well and Monty doesn't speak like that unless there is something back of it." "Well," Edith laughed, "I'm sure I should have known, even so. Why, I could reel off so many names that you would think Marian was a heartless coquette; but it wasn't that at all. She simply loved attention, as all women do." "How about the daughter?" queried Cosden.