as true shook the long-established friendship to the core.

As he analyzed the case Huntington found it difficult to explain why
this complete change in conditions should suddenly have taken place.
Cosden was no different from what he had been during all these years of
their intimacy. In fact, he knew no one among his friends who was so
absolutely consistent in conducting his life in accord with principles
established before their friendship began. Others had commented on
Cosden's commercial instincts, and Huntington always defended him, yet
now these same traits caused him to criticise his friend even more
severely than those whose attitude he had previously thought
unwarranted.

The change, then, Huntington concluded was in himself rather than in
Cosden; and from this point he tried to discover what that change really
was. What had their relations been during these years? They had never
come together in any business way, and Huntington now for the first time
wondered why it would not have been natural for Cosden to turn over to
his office some of his frequent cases in litigation. It had not
previously occurred to him that he might have expected it, but now he
wondered. This in itself was evidence that his friend did not consider
him seriously in the practice of his profession. The real fact was that
they had played together, and that their intimacy had stopped at that
point. Huntington now recalled that in gratifying those characteristics
which found enjoyment in music, art or literature he instinctively
sought the companionship of other friends, and the same analysis
revealed to him that Cosden had done likewise in turning to other and
more kindred spirits in living that part of his life with which his
friend had little sympathy. It had all happened so naturally that
Huntington had never realized until now that in spite of their intimacy
there was a side to each man's life into which the other never entered.

This was the explanation as Huntington thought it out, and the fact that
it could be explained at all gave promise of readjustment. The present
situation did not require any change in the relations of the two
friends. It had been precipitated by the accidental pulling aside of a
curtain which revealed a picture Huntington must always have known was
there, but at which he had always steadfastly refused to look. The
mistake came when Cosden insisted that he peer behind the curtain, and
became intensified when he