“None too well,” replied Cope. “I shall soon begin to look for another room. I rather expect to change about holiday time.”
“I am thinking of making a change too,” declared Randolph.
“Why, could you better yourself?” asked Cope, in a tone of surprise. “I never knew a bachelor to be better fixed.”
“I need a little wider margin of room. I can afford it, and ought to have had it long ago. And I learn that the lease of the people I’m with expires in the spring. My collection is growing; and I ought to have another bedroom. Think of not being able to put a man up, on occasion! I shall take a small apartment on my own account, catch some Oriental who is studying frogs’ legs or Occidental theology; and then—open house. In a moderate measure, of course.”
“That listens good—as the young fellows say,” replied Cope. “A not uncommon ideal, possibly; but I’m glad that some man, now and then, is able to realize it.”
“I should hope to see you there,” said Randolph intently.
“Thank you, indeed. Yes, while my time lasts. But my own lease is like your landlord’s—short. Next year—who knows where?”
“Why not here?”
“Oh!” Cope shrugged, as if conscious of the need of something better, and of presently deserving it. “Some big university in the East?” wondered Randolph to himself. Well, the transfer, if it came, was still a long way ahead.
As he walked home to dinner he entertained himself by imagining his new regime. There would be an alert, intelligent Jap, who, in some miraculous way, could “do for him” between his studies. There would be a cozy dining-room where three or four fellows could have a snug little dinner, with plenty of good talk during it and after it. There would be, finally, a convenient little spare room, wherein a young knight, escaped from some “Belle Dame sans Merci,” might lean his sword against the wardrobe, prop his greaves along the baseboard, lay his steel gauntlets neatly on the top of the dresser, fold his hands over the turned-down sheet of a neat three-quarter-width brass bedstead, and with a satisfied sigh of utter well-being pass away into sleep. Such facilities, even if they scarcely equaled a château on the Ridge or a villa among the Dunes, might serve.
Cope, on his own way to dinner, indulged in parallel imaginings. He saw a larger room than his present, with more furniture and better; a bookcase instead of a shelf; a closet, and hot and cold water in some convenient alcove; a second table, with a percolator on it, at which Arthur, who was a light sleeper and willingly an early riser, might indulge his knack for coffee-making to the advantage of them both. And Arthur had the same blessed facility with toast.
Then his thoughts made an excursion toward Randolph. Here was a man who was in business in the city, and who was related, by marriage, to the board of trustees. How soon might one feel sufficiently well acquainted with him to ask his friendly offices in behalf of the newcomer—the man who might reasonably be expected the first week in January?
XIII
Cope Dines Again—and Stays After
Medora Phillips’ social activities ran through several social strata and her entertainments varied to correspond. Sometimes she contented herself with mere boy-and-girl affairs, which were thrown together from material gathered within her own household and from the humbler walks of undergraduate life. Sometimes she entertained literary celebrities, and invited the head professors and their wives to meet them. And two or three times a season she gave real dinners to “society,” summoning to Ashburn avenue, from homes even more architectural than her own, the banking and wholesale families whose incomes were derived from the city, but who pillared both the university and the many houses of worship in Churchton itself. And sometimes, when she passed over the older generation of these families in favor of the younger, her courses were more “liberal” than Churchton’s earlier standards quite approved.
On such formal occasions her three young ladies were dispensed with. They were encouraged to go to some sorority gathering or to some fudge-party. On the occasion now meditated she had another young person in mind. This was the granddaughter of one of the banking families; the girl might come along with her father and mother. She was not very pretty, not very entertaining; however, Mrs. Phillips needed one girl, and if she were not very attractive, none the worse. The one girl was for the one young man. The one young man was to be Bertram Cope. Our fond lady meant to have him and to show him off, sure that her choicest circle could not but find him as charming as she herself did. Most of us, at one time or another, have thrust forward our preferences in the same confident way.
Cope made less of an impression than his patroness had hoped for. Somehow his lithe youthfulness, his fine hair and teeth and eyes, the rich resonance of his voice counted for little—except, perhaps, with the granddaughter. The middle-aged people about him were used to young college men and indifferent to them. Cope himself felt that he was in a new environment, and a loftier one. Several of these were important people, with names familiar through the town and beyond. He employed a caution that almost became inexpressiveness. He also found Mrs. Phillips a shade more formal and stately than her wont. She herself, in her furtive survey of the board, was disappointed to find that he was not telling. “Perhaps it’s that girl,” she thought; “she may be even duller than I supposed.” But never mind; all would be made right later. Some music had been arranged and there would be an accompanist who would help him do himself full justice.
“They’ll enjoy him,” she thought confidently.
She had provided an immensity of flowers. There was an excess of light, both from electric bulbs
