“Yes, the appeal (not always honest) to chivalry—though devotion is sometimes a close second. You’re maneuvered into a position where you’re made to think you ‘must.’ I’ve known chaps to marry on that basis. … It’s weary waiting until Madame dies and Madonna steps into her place.”
“Meanwhile, safety in numbers.”
“Yes, even though you’re in the very midst of wishing or of wondering—or of a careful concern to cloak either.”
“Don’t dwell on it! You fill me with apprehensions.”
Randolph put up his arm and pointed. A roof through a notch between two sandhills beyond a long range of them, was seen, set high and half hidden by the spreading limbs of pines. “There it is,” he said.
“So close, already?” Such, indeed, it appeared.
“Not so close as it seems. We may just as well step lively.”
Cope, with an abundance of free action, was treading along on the very edge of things, careless of the rough shingle and indifferent to the probability of wet feet, and swinging his hat as he went. In some such spirit, perhaps, advanced young Stoutheart to the ogre’s castle. He even began to foot it a little faster.
“Well, I can keep up with you yet,” thought Randolph. Aloud, he said: “You’ve done very well with your hair. Quite an inspiration to have carried a comb.”
Cope grimaced.
“I trust I’m free to comb myself on Sunday. There are plenty of others to do it for me through the week.”
X
Cope at His House Party
“You look as fit as two fiddles,” said Medora Phillips, at the top of her sandhill.
“We are,” declared Randolph. “Have the rest of the orchestra arrived?”
“Most of us are here, and the rest will arrive presently. Listen. I think I hear a honk somewhere back in the woods.”
The big room of the house, made by knocking two small rooms together, seemed fairly full already, and other guests were on the back porch. The Graces were there, putting the finishing-touches to the table—Helga had not come, after all, but had gone instead, with her young man, to spend a few sunny afternoon hours among the films. And one of the young businessmen present at Mrs. Phillips’ dinner was present here; he seemed to know how to handle the oil-stove and the pump (with the cooperation of the chauffeur), and how to aid the three handmaidens in putting on the knives, forks, plates and napkins that Helga had decided to ignore. The people in the distant motorcar became less distant; soon they stopped in a clearing at the foot of the hill, and before long they appeared at the top with a small hamper of provisions.
“Oh, why didn’t you ask us to bring something!” cried Cope. Randolph shrugged his shoulders: he saw himself lugging a basket of eatables through five miles of sand and thicket.
“You’ve brought yourself,” declared Mrs. Phillips genially. “That’s enough.”
There was room for the whole dozen on the dining-porch. The favored few in one corner of it could glimpse the blue plane of the lake, or at least catch the horizon; the rest could look over the treetops toward the changing colors of the wide marshes inland. And when the feast was over, the chauffeur took his refreshment off to one side, and then amiably lent a hand with the dishes.
“Let me help wipe,” cried Cope impulsively.
“There are plenty of hands to help,” returned his hostess. She seemed to be putting him on a higher plane and saving him for better things.
One of the better things was a stroll over her tumultuous domain: the five miles he had already covered were not enough.
“I’ll stay where I am,” declared Randolph, who had taken this regulation jaunt before. He followed Cope to the hook from which he was taking down his hat. “Admire everything,” he counselled in a whisper.
“Eh?”
“Adjust yourself to our dominant mood without delay or reluctance. Praise promptly and fully everything that is ours.”
The party consisted of four or five of the younger people and two or three of the older. Most of them had taken the walk before; Cope, as a novice, became the especial care of Mrs. Phillips herself. The way led sandily along the crest of a wooded amphitheatre, with less stress on the prospect waterward than might have been expected. Cope was not allowed, indeed, to overlook the vague horizon where, through the pine groves, the blue of sky and of sea blended into one; but, under Medora Phillips’ guidance, his eyes were mostly turned inland.
“People think,” she said, “that ‘the Dunes’ means nothing beyond a regular row of sandhills following the edge of the water; yet half the interest and three-quarters of the variety are to be found in behind them. See my wide marsh, off to the southeast, with those islands of tamarack here and there, and imagine how beautiful the shadows are toward sunset. Look at that thick wood at the foot of the slope: do you think it is flat? No, it’s as humpy and hilly as anything ever traversed. Only this spring a fascinating murderer hid there for weeks, and last January we could hear the howls of timber-wolves driven down from Michigan by the cold. And see those tall dead pines rising above it all. I call them the Three Witches. You’ll get them better just a few paces to the left. This way.” She even placed her hand on his elbow to make sure that her tragic group should appear to highest advantage. Yes, he was an admirable young man, giving admirable attention; thrusting out his hat toward prospects of exceptional account and casting his frank blue eyes into her face between-times. Charmingly perfect teeth and a wonderful sweep of yellow hair. A highly civilized faun for her highly sylvan setting. Indifferent, perhaps, to her precious Trio; but there were other young fellows to look after them.
Cope praised loudly and readily. The region was
