Bertram Copes Year | Page 5

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 all conventions. In its
upper story was the commodious apartment which was known in quiet
times as the picture-gallery and in livelier times as the ball-room. It was
the mistress' ambition to have the lively times as numerous as
possible--to dance with great frequency among the pictures. Six or
eight couples could gyrate here at once. There was young blood under
her roof, and there was young blood to summon from outside; and to
set this blood seething before the eyes of visiting celebrities in the arts
and letters was her dearest wish. She had more than one spare bedroom,
of course; and the Eminent and the Queer were always welcome for a
sojourn of a week or so, whether they came to read papers and deliver
lectures or not. She was quite as well satisfied when they didn't. If they
would but sit upon her wide veranda in spring or autumn, or before her
big open fireplace in winter and "just talk," she would be as open-eyed
and open-eared as you pleased.
"This is much nicer," she would say. Nicer than what, she did not
always make clear.
Yes, the house was nearly three-quarters of a mile to the west of the
campus, but it was twice as far as if it had been north or south. Trains
and trolleys, intent on serving the interests of the great majority, took
their own courses and gave her guests no aid. If the evening turned cold
or blustery or brought a driving rain she would say:
"You can't go out in this. You must stay all night. We have room and to
spare."
If she wanted anybody to stay very much, she would even add: "I can't
think of your walking toward the lake with such a gale in your
face,"--regardless of the fact that the lake wind was the rarest of them
all and that in nine cases out of ten the rain or snow would be not in
people's faces but at their backs.
If she didn't want anybody to stay, she simply ordered out the car and

bundled him off. The delay in the offer of the car sometimes induced a
young man to remain. Tasteful pajamas and the promise of a suitably
early breakfast assured him that he had made no mistake.
Cope's first call was made, not on a tempestuous evening in the winter
time, but on a quiet Sunday afternoon toward the end of September.
The day was sunny and the streets were full of strollers moving along
decorously beneath the elms, maples and catalpas.
"Drop in some Sunday about five," Medora Phillips had said to him,
"and have tea. The girls will be glad to meet you."
"The girls"? Who were they, and how many? He supposed he could
account for one of them, at least; but the others?
"You find me alone, after all," was her greeting. "The girls are out
walking--with each other, or their beaux, or whatever. Come in here."
She led him into a spacious room cluttered with lambrequins, stringy
portieres, grilles, scroll-work, bric-a-brac....
"The fine weather has been too much for them," she proceeded. "I was
relying on them to entertain you."
"Dear me! Am I to be entertained?"
"Of course you are." Her expression and inflection indicated to him that
he had been caught up in the cogs of a sizable machine, and that he was
to be put through it. Everybody who came was entertained--or helped
entertain others. Entertainment, in fact, was the one object of the
establishment.
"Well, can't you entertain me yourself?"
"Perhaps I can." And it almost seemed as if he had been secured and
isolated for the express purpose of undergoing a particular course of
treatment.
"----in the interval," she amended. "They'll be back by sunset. They're

clever girls and I know you'll enjoy them."
She uttered this belief emphatically--so emphatically, in truth, that it
came to mean: "I wonder if you will indeed." And there was even an
overtone: "After all, it's not the least