“You should have seen how he shook himself free from that sail, and all,” she said. “And while we were swimming in he held his hand under my chin—at least part of the time. And when we reached the sandbars he put his arm through mine and helped me over every one.” And in this state of mind she went off to her class.
Cope was received by his own class with a subdued hilarity. His young people felt that he had shown poor judgment in going out on the water at all—for the University, by tacit consent, left the lake pretty well alone. They thought that, once out, he had shown remarkably inept seamanship. And they thought that he had chosen a too near and too well-lighted stage for the exhibition of both. This forenoon the “Eighteenth Century Novelists” involved Smollett, and with every reference to the water looks of understanding traveled from student to student: that the class was of both sexes made the situation no better. Cope was in good enough physical condition—the unspeakable draught from the unspeakable flask had ensured that—but he felt what was in the air of the classroom and was correspondingly ill at ease.
He had had, for several days, an understanding with Basil Randolph that they were to go together to the next weekly reception of the president’s wife. Randolph wished to push Cope’s fortunes wherever he might, and to make him stand out from the general ranks of the young instructors. He had the entrée to the Thursdays at the president’s house, and he wanted Cope to meet personally and intimately, under the guidance he could provide, a few of the academic dignitaries and some of the wealthier and more prominent townspeople. Notwithstanding Mrs. Phillips’ confident impression, Cope’s exploit at her own table had gained no wide currency. The people she had entertained were people who expected and commanded a succession of daily impressions from one quarter or another. With them, a few light words on Cope’s achievement were sufficient; they walked straight on toward the sensation the next day was sure to bring. But of course the whole University knew about his second performance. Some of its members had witnessed it, and all of them had read about it, next day, in Churchton’s four-page “Index.”
The president’s wife was a sprightly lady, who believed in keeping up the social end of things. Her Thursdays offered coffee and chocolate at a handsomely appointed table, and a little dancing, now and then, for the livelier of the young professors and the daughters of the town’s best-known families; above all, she insisted on “receiving”—even on having a “receiving line.” She would summon, for example, the wife of one of the most eminent members of the faculty and the obliging spouse of some educationally-minded banker or manufacturer; and she herself always stood, of course, at the head of her line. When Cope came along with Randolph, she intercepted the flow of material for her several assistants farther on, and carried congestion and impatience into the waiting queue behind by detaining him and “having it out.”
She caught his hand with a good, firm, nervous grasp, and flashed on him a broad, meaningful smile.
“Which saved which?” she asked heartily.
Mrs. Ryder, who was farther along in the line, but not too far, beamed delightedly, yet without the slightest trace of malice. An eminent visiting educator, five or six steps behind our hero, frowned in question and had to have the situation explained by the lady in his company.
Cope, a trifle embarrassed, and half-inclined to wish he had not come, did what he could to deprive the episode of both hero and heroine. It was about an even thing, he guessed—a matter of cooperation.
“Isn’t that delightful!” exclaimed the president’s wife to the wife of the banker, before passing Cope on. “And so modern! Equality of the sexes. … Woman doing her share, et cetera! For this,” she presently said to the impatient educator from outside, “are we coeducational!” And, “Good teamwork!” she contrived to call after Cope, who was now disappearing in the crowd.
Cope lost himself from Randolph, and presently got away without seeing who was pouring coffee or who was the lightest on foot among the younger professors. The president’s wife had asked him, besides, how the young lady had got through it, and had even inquired after her present condition. Well, Amy Leffingwell was enrolled among the University instructors, and doubtless the wife of the institution’s head had been well within her rights—even duly mindful of the proprieties. But “The Index”! That sheet, staid and proper enough on most occasions, had seemed, on this one, to couple their names quite unwarrantably. “Couple!” Cope repeated the word, and felt an injury. If he had known that Amy had carefully cut out and preserved the offending paragraph, his thought would have taken on a new and more disquieting tone.
In the inquiry of the president’s wife about the condition of his copartner in adventure he found a second source of dissatisfaction. He had not called up to ask after Amy; but Mrs. Phillips, with a great show of solicitude, had called up early on Monday morning to ask after him. He had then, in turn, made a counter-inquiry, of course; but he could take no credit for initiative. Neither had he yet called at the house; nor did he feel greatly prompted to do so. That must doubtless be done; but he might wait until the first fresh impact of the event should somewhat have lost its force.
Mrs. Phillips’ voice had kept, over the telephone, all its vibratory quality; its tones expressed the most palpitating interest. It was already clear—and it became even clearer when he finally called at the house—that she was poetizing him into a hero, and that she regarded Amy herself as but a means, an instrument. At this, Cope felt a little more mortified than before. He knew that he had done poorly in the boat, and he
