Bertram Copes Year | Page 4

beamed before: for on a social occasion one must slightly heighten good will,--all the more so if one be somewhat unaccustomed and even somewhat reluctant.
Mrs. Phillips caught Cope's glance as it fell in all its glacial geniality.
"He looks down on us!" she declared.
"How down?" Cope asked.
"Well, you're taller than either of us."
"I don't consider myself tall," he replied. "Five foot nine and a half," he proceeded ingenuously, "is hardly tall."
"It is we who are short," said Randolph.
"But really, sir," rejoined Cope kindly, "I shouldn't call you short. What is an inch or two?"
"But how about me?" demanded Mrs. Phillips.
"Why, a woman may be anything--except too tall," responded Cope candidly.
"But if she wants to be stately?"
"Well, there was Queen Victoria."
"You incorrigible! I hope I'm not so short as that! Sit down, again; we must be more on a level. And you, Mr. Randolph, may stand and look down on us both. I'm sure you have been doing so, anyway, for the past ten minutes!"
"By no means, I assure you," returned Randolph soberly.
Soberly. For the young man had slipped in that "sir." And he had been so kindly about Randolph's five foot seven and a bit over. And he had shown himself so damnably tender toward a man fairly advanced within the shadow of the fifties--a man who, if not an acknowledged outcast from the joys of life, would soon be lagging superfluous on their rim.
Randolph stood before them, looking, no doubt, a bit vacant and inexpressive. "Please go and get Amy," Mrs. Phillips said to him. "I see she's preparing to give way to some one else."
Amy--who was a blonde girl of twenty or more--came back with him pleasantly and amiably enough; and her aunt--or whatever she should turn out to be-- was soon able to lay her tongue again to the syllables of the interesting name of Bertram.
Cope, thus finally introduced, repeated the facial expressions which he had employed already beside the tea-table. But he added no new one; and he found fewer words than the occasion prompted, and even required. He continued talking with Mrs. Phillips, and he threw an occasional remark toward Randolph; but now that all obstacles were removed from free converse with the divinity of the samovar he had less to say to her than before. Presently the elder woman, herself no whit offended, began to figure the younger one as a bit nonplused.
"Never mind, Amy," she said. "Don't pity him, and don't scorn him. He's really quite self-possessed and quite chatty. Or"--suddenly to Cope himself--"have you shown us already your whole box of tricks?"
"That must be it," he returned.
"Well, no matter. Mr. Randolph can be nice to a nice girl."
"Oh, come now,----"
"Well, shall I ask you to my house, after this?"
"No. Don't. Forbid it. Banish me."
"Give one more chance," suggested Randolph sedately.
"Why, what's all this about?" said the questioning glance of Amy. If there was any offense at all, on anybody's part, it lay in making too much of too little.
"Take back my plate, somebody," said Mrs. Phillips.
Randolph put out his hand for it.
"This sandwich," said Amy, reaching for an untouched square of wheat bread and pimento. "I've been so busy with other people...."
"I'll take it myself," declared Mrs. Phillips, reaching out in turn. "Mr. Randolph, bring her a nibble of something."
"I might----" began Cope.
"You don't deserve the privilege."
"Oh, very well," he returned, lapsing into an easy passivity.
"Never mind, anyway," said Amy, still without cognomen and connections; "I can starve with perfect convenience. Or I can find a mouthful somewhere, later."
"Let us starve sitting," said Randolph, "Here are chairs."
The hostess herself came bustling up brightly.
"Has everybody...?"
And she bustled away.
"Yes; everybody--almost," said Mrs. Phillips to her associates, behind their entertainer's back. "If you're hungry, Amy, it's your own fault. Sit down."
And there let us leave them--our little group, our cast of characters: "everybody--almost," save one. Or two. Or three.

2
COPE MAKES A SUNDAY AFTERNOON CALL
Medora Phillips was the widow of a picture-dealer, now three years dead. In his younger days he had been something of a painter, and later in life as much a collector as a merchandizer. Since his death he had been translated gradually from the lower region proper to mere traffickers on toward the loftier plane which harbored the more select company of art-patrons and art-amateurs. Some of his choicer ventures were still held together as a "gallery," with a few of his own canvases included; and his surviving partner felt this collection gave her good reason for holding up her head among the arts, and the sciences, and humane letters too.
Mrs. Phillips occupied a huge, amorphous house some three-quarters of a mile to the west of the campus. It was a construction in wood, with manifold "features" suggestive of the villa, the bungalow, the chateau, the palace; it united all tastes and contravened