"You and Miss Thatcher," Huntington completed. "You see how the search narrows itself. I shall continue my investigations until I discover the truth. "How perfectly ridiculous!" Edith cried, not yet convinced as to his sincerity. "Why, Merry is a mere child, and--what makes you think there is anything of that kind in Mr. Cosden's mind?" "His vindictiveness. Haven't you noticed the way he treated Billy? And he has actually been harsh with me on two occasions. It isn't like Connie; and if it affects him like this now, Heaven alone knows what the outcome will be if matters go further. You know the old song: "_You may carve it on his tombstone, you may cut it on his card, That a young man married is a young man marred._" "There you go again," laughed Edith; "the cynic once more leaps into the limelight." "But won't you pledge yourself to assist me in my noble work? Why not form ourselves into a society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Single Persons, and be sworn to do all we can to intervene between matrimony and its victims?" "Of course each would be at liberty to use his own judgment?" queried Edith, amused. "Yes; so long as he did not confound judgment with sentiment." "That is a capital suggestion," she agreed smiling. "I will gladly join you. Our first undertaking, I presume, will be to prevent affairs from going any further between Merry and Mr. Cosden--granting that they exist?" "I don't say that. I recognize in you a superior person, and as such I have absolute confidence that you will act in accord with the unwritten constitution of our Society." "Thank you for that confidence," Edith said still smiling. Then she added enigmatically, "Whenever I accept a responsibility I always rise promptly to the emergency. In the present instance it requires careful consideration. Now, if you will excuse me I will take my morning constitutional." Huntington was not sorry to have a few moments of solitary contemplation. Throwing away a half-smoked cigar, he drew his pipe from his pocket and filled it with his favorite mixture--unchanged since he first became acquainted with it at college. A cigarette represented to Huntington the casual inconsequence of youth, a cigar the aristocracy of smoking, a pipe that comfortable companionship which encourages relaxation and introspective thought. With the first whiff he pulled his hat down over his face, settled deep in his chair, and began to run over the events of the past few days. Huntington's mind was methodical if not always orderly, and his account of stock, when finally classified under the head of "responsibilities," summed up about as follows: _Responsibility 1_: To keep peace with Connie, and yet persuade him against or frighten him out of his present assinine intentions. _Responsibility 2_: To pull Hamlen out of the solitary life which he had affected, and to force him to assume that position in the world to which he rightly belonged.