“My thesis,” he said. “From now on, it must take a lot of my thought and every moment of my spare time.” He looked at the waiting canvas. “Clinch it today. Hurry it through.”
He spoke with a factitious vivacity which almost gave a sense of chill. She looked at him with a shade of dissatisfaction and discomfort.
“What! must it all be done in a drive?” she asked.
“By no means. Watch me relax. Is that my chair? See me drop into complete physical and mental passivity—the kef of the Arabs.”
He mounted the model-throne, sank into the wide chair, and placed his hands luxuriously on its arms. His general pose mattered little: she had not gone beyond his head and shoulders.
Hortense stared. Would he push her on the moment into the right mood? Would he have her call into instant readiness her colors and brushes? Why, even a modest amateur must be allowed her minutes of preparation and approach.
“Passivity?” she repeated, beginning to get under way. “Shall I find you very entertaining in that condition?”
“Entertaining? Me, the sitter? Why, I’ve always heard it was an important part of a portrait-painter’s work to keep the subject interested and amused.”
He smiled in his cold, distant way. The north light cut across the forehead, nose and chin which made his priceless profile. The canvas itself, done on theory in a lesser light, looked dull and lifeless.
Hortense felt this herself. She did not see how she was going to key it up in a single hour. As she considered among her brushes and tubes, she began to feel nervous, and her temper stirred.
“You have a great capacity for being interested and amused,” she said. “Most men are like you. Especially young ones. They are amused, diverted, entertained—and there it ends.”
Cope felt the prick. “Well, we are bidden,” he said; “and we come. Too many of us have little to offer in return, except appreciation and goodwill. How better appreciate such kindness as Mrs. Phillips’ than by gratefully accepting more of it?” (Stilted copybook talk; and he knew it.)
“You haven’t been accepting much of it lately,” she returned, feeling the point of a new brush. She spoke with the consciousness of empty evenings that might have been full.
“Hardly,” he replied. And he felt that this one word sufficed.
“Well, the coast will be clear after the twentieth of April.”
“That is the date, then, is it?” The more he thought of the impending ceremony, the more grateful he was for his escape. Thankfulness had salved the earlier wound; no pain now came from his touching it.
“Yes; on that day the house will see the last of them.”
“The wedding, then, will—?”
“Yes. Aunt Medora says, ‘Why go to Iowa?—you’re at home here.’ Why, indeed, drag George away out to Fort Lodge? Let her own people, who are not many, come to us. Aunt will do everything, and do it handsomely.”
She slanted her palette and looked toward the skylight. Cope’s own glance swept non-committally the green burlap walls. Both of them were seeing pictures of the wedding preparations. Hortense saw delivery-boys at the front door, with things that must be held to the light or draped over chairs. She saw George haling Amy to the furniture-shops and to the dealers in wallpaper. She saw them in cosy shaded confab evening after evening, in her aunt’s library. It was a period of joy, of self-absorption, of unsettlement, of longing, of irritation, of exasperation—oh, would it never end! Cope saw a long string of gifts and entertainments, a diamond engagement-ring, a lavishly-furnished apartment … How in the world could he himself have compassed all this? And how blessed was he among men that he had not been obliged to try!
Hortense went through some motions with her brush, yet seemed to be looking beyond him rather than at him.
“There will be a bridal-trip of a week or so,” she concluded; “and they will be in their new home on the first of May.”
“Very good,” said Cope. He thought he was thinking to himself, but he spoke aloud. “And that ends it.” This last he really did say to himself.
He sank more comfortably into his chair, kept his face properly immobile, and spoke no further word. Hortense brought back her gaze to focus and worked on for a little time in silence. The light was good, her palette was full, her brushes were well-chosen, her eyes were intent on his face. It was a handsome face, displayed to the best advantage. She might look as long as she liked, and a long look preceded every stroke.
Presently she paused, opening her eyes wider and holding aloft her brush. “There will be a bride’s-maid,” she said.
“The deuce!” he thought. “That didn’t end it!” But he said no thing aloud.
“Guess who!”
“Why, how should I—?”
“Guess!” she cried peremptorily, in a tone of bitter derision. “You won’t? Well, it’s Carolyn—our poor, silly Carolyn! And what do you suppose she has started in to do? She is writing an epitha—an epithal—”
“⸺amium,” contributed Cope. “An epithalamium.”
“Yes, an epithalamium!” repeated Hortense, with an outburst of jarring laughter. “Isn’t she absurd! Isn’t she ridiculous!”
“Is she? Why, it seems to me a delicate attention, a very sweet thought.” If Carolyn could make anything out of Amy—and of George—why, let her do it.
“You like her poetry!” cried Hortense in a high, strained voice. “You enjoy her epithalamiums, and her—sonnets. …”
Cope flushed and began to grow impatient. “She is a sweet girl,” he said; “and if she wishes to write verse she is quite within her rights.”
“ ‘Sweet’! There you go again! ‘Sweet’—twice. She ought to know!”
“Perhaps she does know. Everybody else knows.”
“And perhaps she doesn’t!” cried Hortense. “Tell her! Tell her!”
Cope stared. “She is a sweet girl,” he repeated; “and she has been filling very discreetly a somewhat difficult position—”
He knew something of the suppressed bitterness which, in subordinate places, was often the
