“Do you know,” said Cope, with a sort of embarrassed laugh, “I feel as if I were letting myself become the focus of interest. Oughtn’t I to do something to make the talk less personal?”
He glanced about the meagre little room. It gave no cue.
“I’m sure Amy and I are satisfied with the present subject,” returned Medora.
But Cope rose, and gathered his bathrobe—or dressing-gown—about him. “Wait a moment. I have some photographs I can show you—several of them came only yesterday. I’ll bring them down.”
As soon as he had disappeared into the hall, Mrs. Phillips gave a slight smile and said quickly:
“For heaven’s sake, Amy, don’t look so concerned, and mournful, and sympathetic! Anybody might think that, instead of your being my chaperon, I was yours!”
“He doesn’t look at all well,” said Amy defensively.
“He might look better; but we can’t pity a young man too openly. Pity is akin to embarrassment, for the pitied.”
Cope came downstairs the second time at a lesser pace. He carried a sheaf of photographs. Some were large and were regularly mounted; others were but the informal products of snap-shottery.
He drew up his chair nearer to theirs and began to spread his pictures over the gray and brown pattern on his lap.
“You know I was teaching, last year, at Winnebago,” he said. “Here are some pictures of the place. Science Hall,” he began, passing them. “Those fellows on the front steps must be a graduating class.
“The Cathedral,” he continued. “And I think that, somewhere or other, I have a group-picture of the choir.
“Sisterhood house,” he went on. “Two or three of them standing out in front.”
“Sisterhood?” asked Mrs. Phillips, with interest. “What do they do?”
Cope paused. “What do they do, indeed? Well, for one thing, they decorate the altar—Easter, Harvest home, and so on.”
“That isn’t much. That doesn’t take a house.”
“Well, I suppose they visit, and teach. Sort of neighborhood centre. Headquarters. Most of them, I believe, live at home.”
“Dear me! Is Winnebago large enough to require settlement-work?”
“Don’t drive me so! I suppose they want to tone in with the cathedral as a special institution. ‘Atmosphere,’ you know. Some tracts of our great land are rather drab and vacant, remember. Color, stir—and distinction, you understand.”
“Is Winnebago ritualistic?”
“Not very. While I was there a young ‘priest,’ an offshoot from the cathedral, started up a new parish in one of the industrial outskirts. He was quite earnest and eloquent and put up a fine service; but nobody except his own father and mother went to hear him preach.”
Mrs. Phillips returned to the Sisterhood house.
“Are they nice girls?” she asked acutely.
“Oh, I guess so. I met two or three of them. Nice girls, yes; just trying to be a little different. Here’s the boathouse, and some of the fellows in their rowing-clothes. Some sailboats too.”
“Can you sail?” asked Amy. She had the cathedral-choir in one hand and now took the boat-club in the other. She studied both pictures intently, for both were small and crowded.
“Why, I have all the theory and some of the practice. Those small inland lakes are tricky, though.”
“Probably no worse than ours,” said Mrs. Phillips. “Do help poor Amy,” she went on. “Are you in either of these groups?”
“No. Didn’t I tell you I was trying to get away from the personal? I’m not in any of these pictures.” Amy unconsciously let both half-drop, as if they held no particular interest, after all. And the hand into which the next photograph was put gave it but lukewarm welcome.
Mixed in with these general subjects were several of a more personal nature: groups of twos and threes, and a number of single figures. One face and figure, as Mrs. Phillips presently came to notice, occurred again and again, in various attitudes and costumes. It was a young man of Cope’s own age—or perhaps two or three years older. He was of Cope’s own height, but slightly heavier, with a possible tendency to plumpness. The best of the photographs made him dark, with black, wavy hair; and in some cases (where sunlight did not distort his expression) he indulged a determined sort of smile. He figured once, all by himself, in choir vestments; again, all by himself, in rowing toggery; a third time, still by himself, in a costume whose vague inaccuracy suggested a character in amateur theatricals.
“Who is this?” inquired Mrs. Phillips, with the last of these in hand.
Cope was prompt, but vague.
“Oh, that’s a chum of mine, up there. He belongs to a dramatic club. They give The School for Scandal and Caste, and—well, more modern things. They have to wear all sorts of togs.”
“And here he is again? And here? And here?”—shuffling still another picture into view.
“Yes.”
“He’s fond of costume, isn’t he?”
“Very versatile,” returned Cope, lightly and briefly. “Clothes to correspond.”
Mrs. Phillips began to peer again at the picture of the choir-group. “Isn’t he here too?”
“Yes. With the first tenors. There you have him—third from the left, just behind that row of little devils in surplices.”
“You and he sing together?”
“Sometimes—when we are together.”
“ ‘Larboard Watch’ and ‘Suona la Tromba’ and—?”
“Oh, heavens!” said Cope. He threw up his head quite spiritedly. There was now more color in his cheeks, more sparkle in his eyes, more vibration in his voice. Amy looked at him with a vanishing pity and a growing admiration.
“Let us fellows be of our own day and generation,” he added.
“Willingly,” said Mrs. Phillips. “But my husband was fond of ‘Larboard Watch’; I heard him sing in it before we were married. Shall I ever hear you sing together?” she asked.
“Possibly. He is coming down here early in January. To look after me.”
“After you?” Mrs. Phillips reviewed the photographs once more. “I imagine you may sometimes have to look after him.”
Cope sobered a little. “Sometimes,” he acknowledged. “We shall look after each other,” he amended. “We are going to live together.”
“Oh, then, he is coming to stay? You’ve been a long
