The new atmosphere reached even Foster on the top floor; and when, one evening in mid-December, he finally carried out his long-meditated plan to dine with Randolph, the household situation was uppermost in his mind. That he had not the clearest understanding of the situation did not diminish his interest in it. Though he sat in the dark, and far apart, some sense all his own, cultivated through years of deprivation, came to his aid. Peter brought him down the street and round the corner; and Randolph’s Chinaman, fascinated by his green shade and his tortuous method of locomotion (once out of his wheeled-chair), did the rest. “You had better stay all night,” Randolph had suggested; and he was glad to avoid a second awkward trip on the same evening.
Foster had wondered whether Cope would be present. He had not asked to meet him—for he hardly knew whether he wished to or not. Though this was an “occasion,”—and his—he had left Randolph to act quite as he might choose. There was a third chair at table and Randolph delayed dinner ten minutes while waiting for it to be filled.
“Well, let’s go in and sit down,” he said presently, with a slight twist of the mouth. He spoke lightly, as if it were as easy for Foster to sit down as for himself. But Foster got into his place after a moment and contrived to spread his napkin over his legs.
“I expected Bertram Cope,” Randolph went on; “but he isn’t here, and I have no word from him and do not know whether—”
He paused, obviously at a loss.
“Not here?” repeated Foster. “Is there, then, one place where he is not?”
“Why, Joe—!”
“Our house is full of him!” Foster burst out raucously. He had removed the green abat-jour, for the candle-shades (as they sometimes will) were performing their office. In the low but clear light his face seemed distorted.
“He rises to my floor like incense. The very halls and stairways reek with his charms and perfections.”
“Well, you escape him here,” said Randolph ruefully.
“The whole miserable place is steaming with expectation—with the deadly aroma of a courtship going stale. I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!”
“Courtship?”
“You may think it takes two, but it doesn’t. That foolish girl has thrown the whole place into discomfort and confusion; and I don’t know who’s for or who’s against—”
“What foolish girl?” asked Randolph quickly. Sing-Lo was at his elbow, changing plates: it was assumed, justly enough, that he would not be able to follow the intricacies of a situation purely occidental.
“Our Amy,” replied Foster, with a dash of bitterness.
“Amy Leffingwell?” asked Randolph, still more quickly.
Foster had blind eyes, but alert ears. He felt that Randolph was surprised and displeased. And indeed his host was both. That boy fallen maladroitly in love? thought Randolph. It was a second check. He had exerted himself to show a friendliness for Cope, had expected to enjoy him while he stayed on for his months in town, and had hoped to help push his fortunes in whatever other field he might enter. He had even taken his present quarters—no light task, all the details considered—to make Cope’s winter agreeable, no less than his own. And now? First the uncounted-upon friend from Wisconsin with whom Cope was arranging to live; next, this sudden, unexpected affair with that girl at Medora’s. Did the fellow not know his own mind? Could he formulate no hard-and-fast plan? Here Randolph, in his disappointment, inconsistently forgot that a hard-and-fast plan was largely his real annoyance and grievance. Then he remembered. He looked at the vacant place, and tried for composure and justice.
“I shall probably hear some good reason, in due time,” he said.
“I hope so,” rejoined Foster; “but it takes these young fellows to be careless—and ungrateful.” He made no pretense of ignoring the fact that Randolph had moved into this apartment more on account of Cope than for any other reason.
“H’m, yes,” responded Randolph thoughtfully. “I suppose it is the tendency of a young fellow who has never quite stood on his own legs financially to accept about everything that comes his way, and to accept it as a matter of course.”
“It is,” said Foster.
“I know that I was that way,” continued Randolph, looking studiously at the nearest candle-shade. “I was beyond the middle twenties before I quite launched out for myself, and any kindness received was taken without much question and without much thanks. I presume that he still has some assistance from home. …”
He dropped youthful insouciance over favors received to consider the change that marriage makes in a young man’s status. “I wouldn’t go so far as to assert that a young man married is a man that’s marred—”
“This is stiff doctrine,” Foster acknowledged.
“But somehow he does seem done for. He is placed; he is cut off from wide ranges of interesting possibilities; he offers himself less invitingly to the roving imagination. …”
Meanwhile Cope, with Randolph’s invitation driven altogether from his mind by more urgent matters, was pacing the streets, through the first snow-flurries of the winter, and was wondering, rather distractedly, just where he stood. Precisely what words, at a very brief yet critical juncture, had he said, or not said? Exactly how had he
