Bertram Copes Year | Page 4

hear, Mr. Randolph? You are to meet Mr. Bertram Cope."
Cope, who had risen and had left any embarrassment consequent upon
the short delay to Basil Randolph himself, shot out a hand and
summoned a ready smile. Within his cuff was a hint for the
construction of his fore-arm: it was lean and sinewy, clear-skinned, and
with strong power for emphasis on the other's rather short, well-fleshed
fingers. And as he gripped, he beamed; beamed just as warmly, or just
as coldly--at all events, just as speciously--as he had 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