* * * * *

However abrupt Cosden's action may have appeared to Miss Stevens or to
Huntington, in his own mind he believed himself to have selected the
psychological moment for which he had patiently waited. It was true that
he had seen comparatively little of Merry Thatcher, but the time had
been well spent in preparation for the grand event. Now, particularly
since Huntington had spoken as he did, Cosden was eager to put his
new-found knowledge to the test, and to disprove his friend's
contention.

It was a business axiom with Cosden that an order must be half sold
before the salesman approached the prospective buyer. "People don't buy
anything these days," he hammered into his sales-manager; "they have to
be sold." And Cosden was a man who practised what he preached. The
frankly-admitted lack of familiarity on his part with the particular
market in which he proposed to trade was offset, he believed, by the
expert coaching he had received from Miss Stevens; and this should have
prepared him for any emergency. After all, were not the principles the
same the world over? Somewhere, back in the hazy, academic past when
Latin had been compulsory, he remembered that a certain gentleman whose
name he could not then recall had plunged _in medias res_. He remembered
distinctly how much this act had won his admiration; now he proposed to
emulate his illustrious predecessor.

Even granting that Cosden's self-analysis was correct to the extent that
he possessed no romance in his make-up, the present surroundings were
such as to suggest the "psychological moment" even to the most obtuse.
The sloop, after running before the wind, was skilfully guided in and
out among the little islands and past the beautiful shores of Boaz and
Somerset by a hand on the tiller to which sailing was evidently
second-nature. The girl rested against the gunwale, her eye alert, her
face lighted by a smile of quiet contentment, her white, lithe figure
brightly contrasted against the varying background of blue water and the
green of the islands as they were left behind.

"Where did you learn to handle a boat?" Cosden asked her, interrupting
the silence which she seemed content to accept.

"Oh, there's nothing to it here," she answered. "I wonder if they have a
breeze like this all the time in Bermuda? It seems to be ready-made for
the visitors. But I think it would become monotonous, don't you? I like
something to wor