round without having their
best friends tell them they are 'branded with the ear-marks' of their
business. They are just as commercial as I am, and some of them aren't
nearly as careful to play the game straight. That is where I can't
comprehend Monty's attitude. If a man observes the 'finer instincts' in
his business, as I believe I do, why isn't the brand it marks him with a
hall-mark of respectability in any society in which he wants to mingle?"

Edith had been very busy with her fancy-work, and she did not look up
when Cosden appealed to her for an answer.

"Now you're getting nearer to what Mr. Huntington means," she said with
decision. "You know your business world,--its customs and its standards,
and as you have just explained they are not always consistent. The same
is true of the social world, and that, as I understand it, Mr.
Huntington knows better than you do. The social world has its customs
and standards just the same, and in many cases they are equally
inconsistent. You can't explain these inconsistencies in one any more
than in the other; they simply exist. What you still have to do is to
become familiar with them as you have with those in the business world."

"That is where the wife comes in,--that's what she's for," Cosden
insisted. "That's the very reason I want to marry a woman who knows that
end of the game. When I select a partner in my business I don't want him
to handle my end, but rather some part of it which he can do better than
I can. And the same thing ought to apply here."

"Perhaps it ought, Mr. Cosden, but that is just the point,--it doesn't;
and the first thing Mr. Huntington would tell you is that the two don't
mix. Here are two distinct worlds which touch each other very closely;
the one admits the other to a certain extent, the other never admits the
one."

"Then the wife won't do it?"

"Not alone. Many a wife has accomplished for her husband what he never
could have gained for himself, but only when the man has permitted her
to teach him how to leave his business behind him when he leaves his
office. Business plays its part in the social world, but it is one of
those polite amenities not to recognize the machinery which makes
society possible."

Cosden moved uncomfortably in his chair. "I'm not a climber," he said.
"I haven't any desire to force myself in where I'm not wanted; but here
I am, a member of some of the best clubs in my own city, recognized in
the business world,