rs."

"Poor Ricky!" Marian said sympathetically; "he never gets any credit for
sacrificing himself."

"I've acted in the interests of my sex," Edith asserted stoutly. "Ricky
is a joke. Except for the fact that he's my own brother I'd say he was
a scream. If it hadn't been for me he would have married some girl and
bored her to extinction. She couldn't have escaped him, but I can.
Somebody owes me a debt of gratitude."

"Well," Marian sighed, "I wish you luck; if Mr. Cosden isn't smart
enough to protect himself it will be his own fault."

"Why be catty, Marian?" Edith retorted with asperity. "It isn't
becoming."

Marian laughed. "You silly child!" she said. "You are the most supremely
selfish creature in the world, but you are so blissfully unconscious of
the fact that I love you for it. Some one has to stand up for Ricky;
Heaven knows he can't stand up for himself."

"Very good." Edith was only partly mollified. "I've no doubt Ricky will
be exceedingly grateful, but if you were to ask me I'd say that you have
men enough on your hands already without him. Now, I'm going to my room
to dress for luncheon. Afterwards, when you find an opportunity, I want
you to pump Mr. Huntington dry about Cossie--Connie--I'll never get used
to that name!--and leave me to do the rest."

Unconscious of plots and counterplots, Cosden and Huntington sauntered
innocently onto the piazza after their noonday meal. Billy had managed
to get himself invited to the Thatchers' table, so the two friends had
lunched by themselves. Both were self-centered, but neither noticed it
because of his own abstraction. Cosden was measuring up the girl as his
opportunity for observation broadened, Huntington was still affected by
his experience with Hamlen. Curiously enough, in spite of their
friendship, or perhaps because their intimacy gave each so clear a
knowledge of the other's characteristics neither one cared to speak of
the subject which was uppermost in his mind. "Monty is too much of a
cynic to appreciate my situation here," Cosden told himself; and
Huntington, without even mentally putting it into words, knew that
Hamlen did not and never would appeal to Cosden.

Shortly after the men had lighted their cigars the party from the
Thatchers' table joined them. Marian noticed that Edith casually dropped
into the chair beside Cosden's, and was amused to see that she began
operations at once.

"What are we going to do this afternoon?" Edith querie