until I found out that I was different from other people. This is what
the boys at the Club meant when they jollied us about our friendship. I
always thought I was as good as anybody, but if an experience like this
can make me lose my confidence in myself then the matter is really
serious. It is this confidence which has made it possible for me to
accomplish what I have, and if I once lose it then my strength is gone.
It's all I have, Monty,--I can see that now. I must protect it, and you
must help me. You must tell me what the trouble really is; I don't care
how brutally frank you are so long as you tell me."

"Then come over here and sit down," the older man said gently. "I will
try to make it clearer to you. The finer instincts I referred to can't
be bought, for they are not for sale; they come from every-day contact
with the humanities, and with those whose lives are spent in this
atmosphere. Your business has been your religion, Connie, and you are
branded with its ear-marks as plainly as the goods your factories
produce. Now, for the first time, you find yourself in an atmosphere
which considers business only as a means to bring the refinements of
life within closer reach, and it stifles you because of your
unfamiliarity with it."

Cosden listened patiently to the lengthy discussion which followed with
the same attention which he gave to Thatcher when the trolley
proposition was outlined, but his expression when Huntington finally
paused and looked up showed bewilderment rather than comprehension.

"I hear your words, Monty," he said frankly, "and your meaning is as
dense as Merry's talk about her 'vision.' But there's one thing you
haven't said, probably because you want to spare my feelings, which no
doubt explains the whole thing. This knowledge of the 'finer instincts'
comes naturally to you, Monty, because you were born in that atmosphere
you speak of; I wasn't. Some men acquire them as a result of their own
efforts, some devote their efforts to other things, as I have done. 'You
can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Isn't that what you really
mean to say, Monty?"

"You are too severe on yourself, Mr. Cosden," Edith said
sympathetically, affected by the spectacle of this strong,
self-sufficient man suffering under the lash without realizing in the
least the power which wielded it. In his complacent mood she had longed
for the ability to wound his self-assurance, but the climax had been
reached wit