hout her assistance, and the woman in her failed to find the
satisfaction she had anticipated.

"Well," Cosden said finally, rising and holding out a hand to each, "I
can't say that you've given me much enlightenment, but you've made some
things fairly clear. It will be a long time before I can look my
business in the face without blushing; but I count on those who are
really my friends to stand by me while I pumice down the marks of the
branding-iron. In the meantime, don't you think for a moment that I'm
indifferent to this thing we're talking about. Now that I know it
exists, in spite of your doubts, I intend to get it. If business
interferes, I'll cut out business. I refuse to let anything stand
between me and what I want."

* * * * *

XVIII

* * * * *

Cosden pursued the subject now uppermost in his mind with the same
relentless energy which he applied to other and more agreeable
undertakings. He had no desire to make himself a "ladies' man," such as
Edith Stevens described her brother and as he knew him to be; but this
idea that he was unfitted to enter into any circle he might choose,
provided he could force the entrance, was as novel as it was
disagreeable. When Huntington first intimated that he lacked certain
qualities Cosden had not taken him seriously. Monty was a Brahmin,
albeit one of the best of fellows, and this class had never been an
object of his envy nor considered by him an example to be emulated.
Cosden had discovered that those who constituted it were eager enough to
know him and to be intimate with him when once they came to realize, in
a business way, that this relationship might serve their own best
interests. Born outside the sacred circle, he expected nothing else, and
the fact of his friendship with Huntington, and his close
acquaintanceship with others of the same stamp, seemed to him a triumph
of merit over birth. If a man could trace his ancestry back to the right
people he became a member of this group automatically, and in spite of
lack of personal achievement. How much more credit, Cosden argued, to
the man who forced recognition through sheer accomplishment alone.

For this reason he felt that Monty's criticism, if it was to be taken as
such, was the expression of a class rather than an individual. It was
not to be expected that his friend, reared in so unpractical an
atmosphere, should sympathize with or eve