dinner-engagement: at least he had said that immediate concerns of
importance had driven the date from his mind, and that he was sorry.
Randolph, only too willing to accept any fair excuse, good-naturedly
made this one serve: the boy was not so negligent and ungrateful, after
all. He got the rest of the story a few days later, in a message from
Foster. What _was_ the boy, then? he asked himself. He recalled their
talk as they had walked past the sand-hills on that October Sunday.
Cope had disclaimed all inclination for matrimony. He had confessed a
certain inability to safeguard himself. Was he a victim, after all? A
victim to his own ineptitude? A victim to his own highmindedness? Well,
whatever the alternative, a field for the work of the salvage-corps had
opened.
At the big house on Ashburn Avenue a like feeling had come to prevail.
Medora Phillips herself had passed from the indulgently satirical to
the impatient, and almost to the indignant. Her niece thought the new
relation clearly superfluous. She put away the portrait in oil, but she
rather hoped to resume work on it, some time. Meanwhile, she was far
from kind to Amy.
Cope soon made an obligatory appearance at the house. He was glad
enough to have the presence and the support of Arthur Lemoyne. The call
came on a rigorous evening at the beginning of the second week in
January. The two young men had about brought their new quarters to
shape and subjection. They had spent two or three evenings in shifting
and rearranging things--trifling purchases in person and larger things
sent by express. They had reached a good degree of snugness and
comfort; but----
"We've got to go tonight!" said Cope firmly.
"Tonight?" repeated Lemoyne. "Unless I'm mistaken, we're in for a deuce
of a time." He snuggled again into the big easy chair that had just
arrived from Winnebago.
"We are!" returned Cope, with unhappy mien. "But it's got to be gone
through with."
"I'm talking about the weather," rejoined Lemoyne plumply. He was
versed in the reading of signs as they presented themselves a hundred
and fifty miles to the north, and he thought he could accurately apply
his experience to a locale somewhat beyond his earlier ken. The vast
open welter of water to the east would but give the roaring north
wind a greater impetus. "We're going to have tonight the storm of the
season."
"Storm or no storm, I can't put it off any longer. I've got to go."
As they started out the wind was keen, and a few fine flakes, driven
from the north, flew athwart their faces. When they reached Mrs.
Phillips' house, Peter, wrapped in furs, was sitting in the limousine
by the curb, and two or three people were seen in the open door of the
vestibule.
"Well, the best of luck, _cher Professeur_," Cope heard the voice of
Mrs. Phillips saying, in a quick expulsion of syllables. "This is going
to be a bad night, I'm afraid; but I hope your audience will get to the
hall to hear you, and that our Pierre will be able to get you back to
us."
"Oh, Madame," returned the plump little man, "what a climate!" And he
ran down the walk to the car.
Yes, Mrs. Phillips had another celebrity on her hands. It was an
eminent French historian who was going across to the campus to deliver
the second lecture of his course. "How lucky," she had said to
Hortense, just after dinner, "that we went to hear him _last_ night!"
Their visitor was handsomely accommodated--and suitably, too, she
felt--in the Louis Quinze chamber, and he was expected back in it a
little after ten.
"Why, Bertram Cope!" she exclaimed, as the two young men came up the
walk while the great historian ran down; "come in, come in; don't let
me stand here freezing!"
It turned out to be a young man's night. Mrs. Phillips had invited a
few "types" to entertain and instruct her Frenchman. They had come to
dinner, and they had stayed on afterward.
Among them was the autumn undergraduate whom Cope, at an earlier day,
had disdainfully called "Phaon," a youth of twenty. "You know," said
Medora Phillips to Randolph, a few days later, when reviewing the stay
of her newest guest, "Those sophisticated, world-worn people so
appreciate our fresh, innocent, ingenuous boys. M. Pelouse told me, on
leaving, that Roddy quite met his ideal of the young American. So
open-faced, so inexperienced, so out of the great world...."
"Good heavens!" said Randolph impatiently. "Do they constitute the
world? You might think so,--going about giving us awards, and hanging
medals on us, and certifying how well we speak French! Fudge! The world
is changing. It would be better," he added, "if more of us--college
students included--learned how to speak a decenter English. I went to
their dramatic club the other evening. Such pronunciation! Such
delivery! I almost longed for the films."
A second "young American" was present--George F. Pearson. Pearson lived
with his parents in another big house a block down the street. Mrs.
Phillips had summoned him as a type that was purely indigenous--the
"young American business man." Pearson had just made a "kill," as he
called it--a coup executed quite without the aid of his father, and he
was too full of his success to keep still; he was more typical than
ever. The Professor had looked at him in staring wonder. So had Amy
Leffingwell--in the absence of another target for her large, intent
eyes.
But Medora Phillips knew all about George and Roddy. The novelty was
Lemoyne, and she must learn about him. She readily seized the points
that composed his personal aspect, which she found good: his general
darkness and richness made him a fine foil for Cope. She quickly
credited him with a pretty complete battery of artistic aptitudes and
apprehensions. She felt certain that he would appreciate her ballroom
and picture-gallery, and would figure well within it. The company was
young, the night was wild, and cheer was the word. She presently led
the way upstairs. Foster, as soon as he heard the first voices in the
hall and the first footfalls on the bare treads of the upper stairs,
shut his door.
Lemoyne felt the big bare room--bare save for a piano and a fringe of
chairs and settles, large and small--as a stage; and he surmised that
he, the new-comer, was expected to exhibit himself on it. He became
consciously the actor. He tried now the assertive note, and now the
quiet note; somehow the quiet was the louder of the two. Pearson, who
was in a conquering mood tonight, scented a rival in the general
attention, and one not wholly unworthy. Pearson was the only one of the
four in evening dress, and he felt that to be an advantage. He, at
least, had been properly attired to meet the elegant visitor from
abroad. As for poor Roddy, he had come in an ordinary sack: perhaps it
was partly this which had prompted M. Pelouse (who was of course
dressed for the platform) to find the boy such a paragon of simple
innocence.
All costumes were alike to Lemoyne; he had appeared in dozens. If he
lacked costume now, he made it up in manner. He had bestowed an
immensity of manner on Amy Leffingwell, downstairs: his cue had been a
high, delicate, remote gravity. "I know, I know," he seemed to say;
"and I make no comment." Upstairs he kept close by Cope: he was
proprietary; he was protective. If Cope settled down in a large chair,
Lemoyne would drape himself over the arm of it; and his hand would
fall, as like as not, on the back of the chair, or even on Cope's
shoulder. And when he came to occupy the piano-stool, Cope, standing
alongside, would lay a hand on his. Mrs. Phillips noticed these minor
familiarities and remarked on them to Foster, who had lately wheeled
his chair in. Foster, a few days later, passed the comment on to
Randolph, with an astringent comment of his own.--At all events, Amy
Leffingwell remained in the distance, and George Pearson shared the
distance with her.
Foster had broken from his retirement on hearing the voices of Cope and
Lemoyne combined in song. The song was "Larboard Watch," and he
remembered how his half-brother had sung in it during courtship, with
the young fellow who had acted, later, as his best man. Lemoyne, at the
first word of invitation, had seated himself at the instrument--a
lesser than the "grand" downstairs, but not unworthy; then, with but a
measure or so of prelude, the two voices had begun to ring out in the
old nautical ballad. Lemoyne felt the composition to be primitive,
antiquated and of slight value; but he had received his cue, and both
his throat and his hands wrought with an elaborate expressiveness. He
sang and played, if not with sincerity, at least with effect. His voice
was a high, ringing tenor; not too ringing for Cope's resonant
baritone, but almost too sweet: a voice which might cloy (if used
alone) within a few moments. Cope was a perfect second, and the two
went at it with a complete unity of understanding and of sentiment.
Together they viewed--in thirds--"the gath'ring clouds";
together--still in thirds--they roused themselves "at the welcome call"
of "Larboard watch, ahoy!" Disregarding the mere words, they attained,
at the finish, to something like feeling--or even like a touch of
passion. Medora Phillips had never heard Cope sing like that before;
had never seen so much animation in his singing face. By the fourth bar
there had been tears in her eyes, and there was a catch in her breath
when she exclaimed softly, "You dear boys!" It was too soon, of course,
to make Lemoyne "dear"--the one boy was Cope. It was really his voice
which she had heard through the soaring, insinuating tones of the
other. Foster, sitting beside her, suddenly raised his shade and peered
out questioningly, both at the singers and at his sister-in-law. He
seemed surprised--and more.
Pearson was surprised too, but kept his applause within limits.
However, he praised Lemoyne for his accompaniment. Then he begged Amy
for an air on the violin; and while they were determining who should
play her accompaniment, the wind raged more wildly round the gables and
the thickening snow drove with a fiercer impetus against the windows.
Lemoyne (who was a perfectly good sight-reader) begged that he might
not be condemned to spoil another's performance. This was the result of
an understanding between Cope and himself that neither was to
contribute further. Presently a simple piece was selected through which
the unskilled Carolyn might be trusted to pick her way. Cope listened
with a decorous attention which was designed to indicate the highest
degree of sympathetic interest; but his attitude, so finely composed
within, yet so ineffectively displayed without, was as nothing to the
loud promptness of Pearson's praise. Amy glanced at Cope with
questioning surprise; but she met Pearson's excesses of commendation
with a gratified smile.
Shortly before ten o'clock there was a stir at the front door. Mrs.
Phillips rose hastily. "It is M. Pelouse; let me go down and pet him."
Yes, it was M. Pelouse. "Oh, Madame!" he said, as before, but with an
expressiveness doubly charged, "what a climate!" He was panting and was
covered with fine snow. Behind him was Peter, looking very grave and
dour.
"Shall I be wanted further?" asked Peter in a tense tone, and with no
trace of his usual good-natured smile.
"What! Again?" cried Mrs. Phillips, while Helga, farther up the hall,
was undoing the Professor; "three times on a night like this? No,
indeed! Get back into the garage as fast as you can."
"Oh, Madame!" said the Professor, now out of his wrappings and in
better control of his voice. "They were so faithful to our beautiful
France! The _salle_ was almost full!"
"Well," said Mrs. Phillips to herself, "they got there all right, then.
I hope most of them will get back home alive!"
"What a climate!" M. Pelouse was still saying, as he entered the
ball-room. He had not been there before. He ran an appraising eye over
the pictures and said little. But as soon as he learned that some of
them were the work of the late M. Phillips he found words. He led the
company through a tasteful jungle of verbosity, and left the ultimate
impression that Monsieur had been a remarkable man, whether as artist
or as collector.
Yet he did not forget to say once more, "What a climate!"
"Is it really bad outside?" asked Pearson. M. Pelouse shrugged his
shoulders. It was _affreux_.
"It is indeed," corroborated Mrs. Phillips: she had spent her moment at
the front door. "Nobody that I can find room for leaves my house
tonight." This meant that Cope and Lemoyne were to occupy the chintz
chamber.
M. Pelouse gradually regained himself. Cope interested him. Cope was,
in type, the more "American" of the two new arrivals. He was also, as
M. Pelouse had heard, the _pretendant_,--yes, the _fiance_. Well, he
was calm and inexpressive enough: no close and eager attendance; cool,
cool. "How interesting," said the observer to himself. "And
Mademoiselle, quite across the room, and quite taken up"--happily, too,
it seemed--"with another man: with the other man, perhaps?..."
At half past ten Pearson rose to leave; Cope and Lemoyne rose at the
same time. "No," said Mrs. Phillips, stopping them both; "you mustn't
think of trying to go. I can't ask Peter to take you, and you could
never get across on foot in the world. I can find a place for you."
"And about poor Roddy?" asked Hortense.
"Roddy may stay with me," declared Pearson. "I can put him up. Come on,
Aldridge," he said; "you're good for a hundred yard dash." And down
they started.
"I don't want to stay," muttered Cope to Lemoyne, under cover of the
others' departure. "Devil take it; it's the last thing in the world I
want to do!"
"It's awkward," returned Lemoyne, "but we're in for it. After all, it
isn't _her_ house, nor her family's. Besides, you've got me."
Mrs. Phillips summoned Helga and another maid, who were just on the
point of going to bed, and directed their efforts toward the chintz
chamber. "Ah, well," thought M. Pelouse, "the _fiance_, then, is going
to remain over night in the house of his _fiancee_!" It was droll; yet
there were extenuating circumstances. But--such a singular climate,
such curious temperaments, such a general chill! And M. Pelouse was
presently lost to view among the welcome trappings of Louis Quinze.
22
_COPE SHALL BE RESCUED_
Next morning Cope left the house before breakfast. He had had the
forethought to plead an exceptionally early engagement, and thus he
avoided meeting, after the strain of the evening before, any of the
various units of the household. He and Lemoyne, draping their
parti-colored pajamas over the foot of the bedstead, left the chintz
chamber at seven and walked out into the new day. The air was cold and
tingling; the ground was white as a sheet; the sky was a strident,
implacable blue. The glitter and the glare assaulted their sleepy eyes.
They turned up their collars, thrust their hands deep into their
pockets, and took briskly the half mile which led to their own
percolator and electric toaster.
Cope threw himself down on the bed and let Lemoyne get the breakfast.
Well, he had called; he had done the just and expected thing; he had
held his face through it all; but he was tired after a night of much
thought and little sleep. Possibly he might not have to call again for
a full week. If 'phone messages or letters came, he would take them as
best he could.
Nor was Lemoyne very alert. He was less prompt than usual in gaining
his early morning loquacity. His coffee was lacking in spirit, and much
of his toast was burnt. But the two revived, in fair measure, after
their taxing walk.
They had talked through much of the dead middle of the night. Foster,
wakeful and restless, had become exasperated beyond all power of a
return to sleep. Concerns of youth and love kept them murmuring,
murmuring in the acute if distant ears of one whom youth had left and
for whom love was impossible. Beyond his foolish, figured wall were two
contrasted types of young vigor, and they babbled, babbled on, in the
sensitized hearing of one from whom vigor was gone and for whom hope
was set.
"What do you think of her?" Cope had asked. Then he had thrown his face
into his pillow and left one ear for the reply.
"She is a clinger," returned Lemoyne. "She will cling until she is
loosened by something or somebody. Then she will cling to the second
somebody as hard as she did to the first. I'm not so sure that it's you
as an individual especially."
Cope had now no self-love to consider, no self-esteem to guard. He did
not raise his face from out the pillow to reply. But he found Lemoyne
rather drastic. Arthur had shown himself much in earnest, of course; he
had the right, doubtless, to be reproachful; and he was fertile in
suggestions looking toward his friend's freedom. Yet his expedients
were not always delicate or fair: Cope would have welcomed a lighter
hand on his exacerbated spirit, a more disinterested, more impartial
touch. He was glad when, one afternoon at five, a few days later, he
met Randolph on the steps of the library. Randolph, by his estimate,
was disinterested and impartial.
The weather still held cold: it was no day for spending time,
conversationally, outside; and they stepped back for a little into a
recess of the vestibule. Cope found an opening by bolstering up his
previous written excuses. He was still very general.
"That's all right," replied Randolph, in friendly fashion. "Some time,
soon, we must try again. And this time we must have your friend." His
glance was kind, yet keen; nor was it brief.
Randolph had already the outlines of the situation as Foster understood
them. He sometimes slipped in, on Sunday forenoon, to read the
newspapers to Foster, instead of going to church. Hortense and Carolyn
came up now and then: indeed, this reading was, theoretically, a part
of Carolyn's duties, but she was coming less and less frequently, and
often never got beyond the headlines. So that, every other Sunday at
least, Randolph set aside prayer-book and hymnal for dramatic
criticisms, editorials, sports and "society."
This time Foster was full of the events of Friday night. "As I make it
out, he kept away from her the whole evening, and that new man helped
him do it. Our friend down the street, Hortense says, showed every
disposition to cut in, and the girl showed at least some disposition to
let him. I don't wonder: when you come right down to it, he's twice the
man the other is."
"Young Pearson?"
"Yes."
"Clever lad. Confident. But brash. Just what his father used to be."
"He praised her playing. Cope sat dumb. And next morning he hurried
away before breakfast. You know what kind of a morning it was. Anything
very pressing at the University on a Saturday morning at eight?"
"I hardly know."
"How about this sudden new friend?" Foster twitched in his chair.
"Medora," he went on, "seems to have no special fancy for him. She even
objects to his calling Cope 'Bert.' Of course he sings. And he seems to
be self-possessed and clever. But 'self-possessed'--that doesn't
express it. He was so awfully, so publicly, at home; at least that's as
I gather it. Always hanging over the other man's chair; always finding
a reason to put his hand on his shoulder...."
"Body-guard? No wonder Pearson came to the fore."
"I don't know. What I've heard makes me think of----"
And here, Foster, speaking with a keen and complicated acerbity,
recalled how, during earlier years of travel, he had had opportunity to
observe a young married couple at a Saratoga hotel. They had made their
partiality too public, and an elderly lady not far away in the vast
"parlor" had audibly complained that they brought the manners of the
bed-chamber into the drawing-room.
"They talked half through the night, too," Foster added bitterly.
"Young men's problems," said Randolph. "Possibly they were considering
Pearson."
"Possibly," repeated Foster; and neither followed further, for a
moment, the pathway of surmise.
Presently Randolph rose and scuffled through the ruck of newspapers,
with which no great progress had been made. "Is Medora at home?" he
asked.
"I think she's off at church," said Foster discontentedly. "And
Hortense went with her."
"I'll call her up later. If I can get her for Wednesday--and Pearson
too...."
Foster, accustomed to piecing loose ends as well as he could, did not
ask him to finish. Randolph picked up a crumpled sheet from the floor,
reseated himself, and read out the account of yesterday's double
performance at the opera.
When Randolph, then, met Cope in the vestibule of the library, on
Monday, he felt that he had ground under his feet. Just how solid, just
how extensive, he was not quite sure; but he could safely take a few
steps experimentally. Cope was a picture of uncertainty and woe; his
face was an open bid for sympathy and aid.
"You are unhappy," said Randolph; "and I think I know why." He meant to
advance toward the problem as if it were a case of jealousy--a matter
of Pearson's intrusion and of Amy's seemingly willing acceptance of it.
Cope soon caught Randolph's idea, and he stared. He did not at all
resent Randolph's advances; misapprehension, in fact, might serve as
fairly, in the end, as the clearest understanding.
Randolph placed his hand on Cope's shoulder. "You have only to assert
yourself," he said. "The other man is an intruder; it would be easy to
warn him off before he starts in to win her."
"George Pearson?" said Cope. "Win her? In heaven's name," he blurted
out, "let him!"
It was a cry of distaste and despair, in which no rival was concerned.
Randolph now had the situation in its real lines.
"Well, this is no place for a talk," he said. "If you should care to
happen in on me some evening before long...."
"I have Wednesday," returned Cope, with eagerness.
"Not Wednesday. I have an engagement for that evening. But any evening
a little later."
"Friday? The worst of my week's work is over by then."
"Friday will do." And they parted.
Randolph had secured for his Wednesday evening Medora Phillips and
Hortense. Hortense was the young person to pair with Pearson, who had
thrown over an evening at his club for the dinner with Randolph. The
talk was to be--in sections and installments--of Amy Leffingwell, and
of Cope in so far as he might enter. Medora would speak; Hortense would
speak; Randolph himself should speak. To complete the party he had
asked his relations from the far side of the big city. His sister would
preside for him; and his brother-in-law might justify his expenditure
of time and trouble by stopping off in advance for a brief confab, as
trustee, at the administration building, with the president. A
compatriot had been secured by Sing-Lo to help in dining-room and
kitchen.
Randolph had planned a short dinner. His sister, facing the long
return-drive, would doubtless be willing to leave by nine-thirty. Then,
with two extraneous pieces removed from the board, the real matter in
hand might be got under way.
Mrs. Phillips was most lively from the start. She praised the house,
which she was seeing for the first time. She extolled Sing-Lo's
department, and Sing-Lo, who delighted in entertainments, was one broad
smile. She had a word of encouragement for his less smiling helper,
whom she informally christened Sing-Hi; and she chatted endlessly with
Mrs. Brackett--perhaps even helped tire her out. Yes, George Pearson
was to be urged forward for the rescue of Bertram Cope.
Pearson spoke up loud and clear among the males. He was a business-man
among business-men, and during the very few moments formally allowed
for the cigars he made himself, as he felt, tell. And after the
Bracketts left--at nine twenty-five--he was easily content to stay on
for three-quarters of an hour longer.
At nine-forty Pearson was saying, amidst the cigarette-smoke of the den:
"Does she expect to teach the violin all her life?"
He was both ironical and impatient. Clearly a charming, delicate
creature like Amy Leffingwell might better decorate the domestic scene
of some gentleman who enjoyed position and prosperity.
"I hope not, indeed," said Hortense, in a deep contralto.
Pearson cast on Hortense a look which rewarded such discernment.
"Of course he has nothing, now," said Randolph, with deliberation. "And
he may be nothing but a poor, underpaid professor all his life."
"No ring--yet," said Hortense, further. Her "yet" meant "not even yet."
Her deep tone was plausibly indignant.
"I'm rather glad of that," remarked Mrs. Phillips, with an eye
pretendedly fixed on the Mexican dolls. "I can't feel that they are
altogether suited to each other."
"He doesn't care for her," pursued Hortense.