The “Arcadian” rested lazily at anchor just outside the harbor, apparently as willing as other visitors to drift on the tide of peace and contentment. The coils of smoke, rising straight upward from its funnels, supplied the only sign of intended departure. The bustle and activity usually attendant upon a sailing seemed absent, and the boat lay there like a pleasure-yacht ready to take on board its master’s guests.

This impression deepened as the passengers from the tender were transferred on board and moved about the spacious decks, visiting their state-rooms resplendent with inviting brass bedsteads in place of the discouraging berths, and inspecting the swimming-pool.

“You must be sure of your weather before you indulge yourself there,” Cosden remarked. “They told us, coming down, of a dignified British admiral who was tempted to a plunge, but no sooner was he in the pool than a young cyclone struck the boat, and for twenty minutes he was thrown forwards and backwards and sideways in spite of the efforts of the stewards to get him out. As he weighed nearly three hundred pounds the situation became serious. Finally, when the water was drawn off, he was dragged upon the stone slabs more dead than alive and held there until the storm abated, indifferent to the dignity of his person or to the glory of the British navy.”

“That ought to act as an excellent flesh-reducer,” Huntington commented. “Perhaps it would serve in my efforts to alter my lines for speed.”

“I don’t see that you need it,” Edith laughed; “but we’ll all be down to give encouragement.”

“About that time you’ll be making love to your little brass bedstead,” remarked Mrs. Thatcher.

Edith’s face fell. “I forgot all about that!” she cried aghast. “You don’t think it will be as rough going back as it was coming down, do you? Oh! I forgot all about that!”

“It’s certain to be bad enough to make you feel ‘very annoyed,’” Marian confirmed maliciously.

“Let’s go on deck,” Ricky Stevens said with a sudden show of interest; “it’s so awfully stuffy down here!”

Edith gave him a glance of approval. “For once in your life, Richard Stevens, you have a real idea. I can feel the boat beginning to roll now.”

“Nonsense!” Huntington laughed, “we’re scarcely out of the harbor yet; but the deck is much the better place; we are passing close to the shore and this last view of the islands is beautiful. We shall have ample opportunity to inspect the boat later on.”

“I’ve seen all I want to,” Edith asserted, as they started back to the companion way. “It was silly of me to forget that awful experience coming down. I am sure the boat is rolling, in spite of your denials.”

“Then look,” Huntington insisted, as they stepped out on the deck again. “You could navigate this sea in a canoe.”

“Well, anyway,” she compromised, “I shall be much more comfortable in my little steamer chair, so lead me to it.”

Mrs. Thatcher, still affected by her last sight of Hamlen, was glad to sit down beside her friend while the others walked up and down the decks, watching the passing panorama of the shore, knowing that it would last too short a time at best.

“Marian,” Edith said suddenly, “I have a presentiment that I shall die of seasickness on this trip home, and there is something I want to say to you while I can.”

“No one ever died of seasickness, child,” Marian laughed; “but if you have something serious on your conscience the sooner you get it off the better.”

“It’s Mr. Cosden,” Edith explained.

“I noticed that something had gone wrong in that quarter. Has he escaped you, after all?”

“It is really too bad of you to take advantage of me when I’m so ill!”

“My poor Edith!” Marian said soothingly, “forgive me, dear; I forgot your serious condition for the moment. Tell me about Mr. Cosden.”

“He is impossible,” the invalid announced. “I really thought there was some hope for him until a few days ago, but he is so frightfully commercial that he crocks.”

“He what?”

“It comes off on everything he touches. He can’t look at anything from any other standpoint. It’s a tragic disappointment to me, and I think it just as well that I am going to expire from this awful seasickness. I really thought I could train him, but he’s too crude. That is the only word to use.”

“He can’t be that or he couldn’t be Monty Huntington’s friend. I rather like him. He’s blunt and matter-of-fact and all that; but I like to see a man with confidence in himself.”

“I have an idea that Mr. Huntington has somewhat revised his opinions. I certainly have; and whatever anybody else may think I agree with myself.”

“That ought to be comforting to you, my dear; but I’m really sorry things haven’t pulled through this time. I’m afraid it’s your last chance. What did he do that was crude, refuse to propose?”

Edith sat bolt upright, her cheeks flaming, with all signs of her recent indisposition vanished.

“I hate you in that tantalizing mood, Marian Thatcher! You always put the meanest interpretation on everything! Of course he proposed, but he didn’t do it in a nice way; he just figured it out as if it was one of his business deals, and made me feel as if I ought to go right to the shipping department and get packed up.”

“My dear Edith,” Marian expostulated; “you mustn’t be so fastidious. It doesn’t make so much difference how these men propose; the main thing is to have them do it. Truly, I’m disappointed in you! Here you have been working desperately to lead him to a point where he would let you put the ball and chain on him, and then, for some silly little reason, you let him get away from you! Really, I’m disappointed! From what I’ve seen, you two seem admirably suited to each other.”

“You don’t understand, Marian,” she protested; “he made this trip for the express purpose of picking out a wife ”

“In Bermuda? Why couldn’t he find one nearer home?”

“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.”

It was fortunate, if Miss Stevens was to unburden her heart to her friend at all, that she acted so promptly, for after the headland of St. George’s and St. David’s light-house faded away in the distance it became apparent that the elements were not kindly disposed toward those on board the “Arcadian.” The air became oppressive in its sultriness, and the clouds gathered ominously. Within an hour the calmness of the sea was forgotten. The little party playing shuffleboard found it difficult to keep their feet, and of a sudden a sharp, vicious squall struck the boat, sending all uncertain passengers to their state-rooms. Luncheon, served with difficulty, found a reasonable number at their seats, but by dinner-time the “good sailors” might have selected any locations they chose. Nature had declared a division, and the state-room stewards found far greater demand upon their services than did those in the dining-saloon. The majority of the passengers simply endured until the safe haven of New York harbor might be reached, the minority adjusted themselves to the conditions and made the most of them.

Merry and Huntington were among the fortunate minority.

“At last I have found something to struggle against!” she cried enthusiastically during the storm, as they stood in a sheltered position on deck watching the quivering steamer plow steadfastly through the great waves.

“Still eager for a struggle!” Huntington exclaimed smiling, understanding the spirit of the girl better than he cared to acknowledge. “I don’t like to think of you as struggling at all.”

“I must,” she said firmly. “Unless I do, I feel myself slipping backwards.”

“Of course,” he admitted, “struggling means development, yet my wish for you is freedom from anything which opposes. Is it selfishness on my part, this desire to keep you as you are, or is it merely another of those paradoxes of which life is made up?”

“Whatever it is,” Merry answered simply, “I know that your wish is for my good, for I know you are my friend.”

She turned toward him as she spoke and looked full in his face with an expression of confidence in her own which tested Huntington’s self-denial. But the years the inexorable years were there!

“It is you who have made me realize the necessity of struggling,” she continued. “It is through the companionship I have had these weeks with you, and your friendship, that I have been able to crystallize ideas which before were so uncontrolled that they made me restless and discontented. What I heard you say to Mr. Hamlen, what I have seen in your every-day philosophy has taught me to concentrate my efforts in one grand struggle with myself.”

“If you keep it there,” Huntington answered, “I shall be content; it would be no kindness to wish it otherwise. But one of these days, little friend, some man will come along with a nature equal to your own, and in the division of the struggle you will find the happiness multiplied. That will be your chance to contribute your share to the real life which you will jointly live.”

“You have remembered what I said that first time we walked home from Mr. Hamlen’s!”

“I shall always remember it. From it I first learned the depth and beauty of your womanhood.”

“Please, Mr. Huntington ” she begged deprecatingly; but her companion saw no reason to recall the words.

On the second morning the passengers came up on deck in anticipation of landing in the afternoon. Even Edith Stevens had passed through the ordeal without the fatal results she had predicted. Cosden seized the first opportunity for a final word of reconciliation.

“Don’t give me up,” he urged. “I’ve learned a lot of things down here, and I appreciate what you have done for me more than I have shown. I’m going to do a bit of sandpapering when I get home, and I want you to let me run in to see you once in a while in New York, just to report progress.”

And Edith, either because after her experiences she felt too weak to combat him, or because she thought he needed encouragement, ingloriously capitulated.

The final good-byes were said on the dock, after the customs officials had completed their inspection.

“Of course we’ll see you in New York now and then,” Mrs. Thatcher said to the two men; “and when we open up at the shore we must plan a real reunion.”

“I shall hope to have Hamlen here by then,” Huntington remarked.

“You are more optimistic than I; but in the mean time I shall be eager to receive news of him through you.”

“Drop in at the office next time you’re in town, Cosden,” said Thatcher; “we’ll talk over Consolidated Machinery and the Bermuda Trolleys.”

“I’m thinking of getting out of business altogether, to devote myself to art,” was Cosden’s enigmatical reply; but the expression on Edith Stevens’ face showed that at least she understood.