"I hope you will never grow up, if to lose your enthusiasm is the penalty." "Then you don't think it's unwomanly?" she asked, grateful for his approval. "On the contrary," Cosden asserted. "It is enthusiasm which wins in everything to-day. Confidence in one's self, belief in one's subject, enthusiasm in its presentation; that is my daily creed." "But you are a man," Merry protested. "You have made your success, so you have a right to have confidence in yourself--" "My success is only partially complete," Cosden interrupted, quick to seize the easy opening. "When I left college I undertook to make money: I did make it. Then I undertook to compel that money to earn me a place in the business world: I made that dream come true. Now I have reached the third effort. My money is of value only so far as it secures for me what I want, and a part of what I want I can't get alone: that is a home, with the right woman in it. A man can make his clubs and all that sort of thing by himself, but it takes a woman to secure for him the social life which he ought to have. I'm looking for that woman now, and I intend to get her." A smile crossed Merry's face as Cosden concluded his matter-of-fact statement. "You are demonstrating your daily creed," she said. "Of course I am. If I didn't you would accuse me of inconsistency." "Have you found the woman you--intend to get?" "I'm not sure. What kind of woman do you think she ought to be?" Merry's face sobered, and she became thoughtfully serious. "First of all, a woman who loved you," she said at length; "that goes without saying." It was Cosden who smiled this time. "I see you still have some old-fashioned ideas left; I had looked upon you as absolutely up-to-date." "Is love old-fashioned?" "Love is a result rather than a cause. It comes from the combination of one or more causes: propinquity, similarity of tastes, natural attributes, I might go on indefinitely. Two natures are attracted to each other before marriage, but love really comes as a result of the closer companionship which follows. Could anything be more common-sense or scientific than that?" "Is that what men believe?" she asked. "Not all; which explains the appalling list of matrimonial bankrupts." They were out beyond Ireland Island now, past the great dry-dock and the barracks. The girl brought the boat about and started on the homeward tack. "That is a very interesting idea," she said soberly as she shifted to starboard. "It never occurred to me that love had become a commodity. That is very interesting." "But you haven't told me what kind of woman you think my wife should be," Cosden insisted. "She should be a poor girl, of good birth and personal attractions," she answered promptly. "Why poor?"