Having returned to town by a method that put the minimum tax on his powers, Cope was in shape, next day, for an hour on the faculty tennis-courts. He played with no special skill or vigor, but he made a pleasing picture in his flannels; and Carolyn, who happened to pass—who passed by at about five in the afternoon, lingered for the spectacle and thought of two or three lines to start a poem with.
Cope, unconscious of this, presently turned his attention to Lemoyne, who was on the eve of his first dress rehearsal and who was a good deal occupied with wigs and lingerie. Here one detail leads to another, and anyone who goes in wholeheartedly may go in dreadfully deep. Their room came to be strown with all the disconcerting items of a theatrical wardrobe. Cope soon reached the point where he was not quite sure that he liked it all, and he began to develop a distaste for Lemoyne’s preoccupation with it. He came home one afternoon to find on the corner of his desk a long pair of silk stockings and a too dainty pair of ladies’ shoes. “Oh, Art!” he protested. And then—not speaking his essential thought—“Aren’t these pretty expensive?”
“The thing has got to be done right,” returned Lemoyne. “Feet are about the first thing they notice.”
At the actual performance Lemoyne’s feet were noticed, certainly; though perhaps not more than his head. His wig, as is usually the case with dark people, was of a sunny blond hue. Its curls, as palpably artificial as they were voluminous, made his eyes look darker and somehow more liquid than ever. The contrast was piquant, almost sensational. Of course he had sacrificed, for the time, his small moustache. Lemoyne was not “Annabella” herself, but only her chief chum; yet shorter skirts and shorter sleeves and a deliberately assumed feminine air helped distinguish him from the hearty young lads who manoeuvred in the chorus.
Just who are those who enjoy the epicene on the stage? Not many women, one prefers to think; and surely it arouses the impatience, if not worse, of many men. Most amateur drama is based, perhaps, on the attempted “escape”: one likes to bolt from his own day, his own usual costume, his own range of ideas, and even from his own sex. Endeavors toward this last are most enjoyable—or least offensive—when they show frank and patent inadequacy. It was Arthur Lemoyne’s fortune—or misfortune—to do his work all too well.
Mrs. Phillips found his performance as little to her taste as she had anticipated. Carolyn Thorpe got as much enjoyment out of the gauche carriage and rough voices of the “chorus girls” as she had expected, but was not observed to warm toward “Annabella’s” closest friend. The Pearsons, back from their wedding trip, had seats near the big crimson velvet curtain. Pearson himself openly luxuriated in the amusing ineptitude of two or three beskirted acquaintances among the upper classmen, but frowned at Lemoyne’s light tenor tones and mincing ways. Of course the right sort of fellow, even if he had to sing his solo in the lightest of light tenors, would still, on lapsing into dialogue, reinstate himself apologetically by using as rough and gruff a voice as he could summon. Not so Lemoyne: he was doing a consistent piece of “characterization,” and he was feminine, even overfeminine, throughout.
“I never liked him, anyway,” said George to Amy.
Amy gave a nod of agreement. Yet why this critical zeal? There was but one man to like, after all.
“That makeup! That low-cut gown!” said George, in further condemnation. “There’s such a thing as going too far.”
Basil Randolph met Cope in the back lobby at the close of the performance. The dramatic season in the city itself had begun to languish; besides that, Randolph, in order to maintain his place on the edge of the life academical, always made it a point to remember the Grayfriars each spring.
“A very thorough, consistent piece of work—your friend’s,” said Randolph. He spoke in a firm, net, withholding tone, looking Cope full in the face, meanwhile. What he said was little, perhaps, of what was in his mind; yet Cope caught a note of criticism and of condemnation.
“Yes,” he almost felt constrained to say in reply, “yes, I know what you did for him—for me, rather; and possibly this is not the outcome foreseen. I hope you won’t regret your aid.”
Randolph went past him placidly. He seemed to have little to regret. On the contrary, he almost appeared to be pleased. He may have felt that Lemoyne had shown himself in a tolerably clear light, and that it was for Cope, should he choose, to take heed.
Two days later, Randolph gave his impression of the performance to Foster. “It’s just what I should have expected,” declared the cripple acrimoniously. “I’m glad you never had any taste for the fellow; and I should have been quite as well pleased if I hadn’t found you caring for the other.”
Randolph took refuge in a bland inexpressiveness. There was no need to school his face: he had only to discipline his voice.
“Oh, well,” he said smoothly, “it’s only a passing amitié—something soon to be over, perhaps.” He used an alien word because he could not select, on the instant, from his stock of English, the word he needed, and because he was not quite sure what idea he wanted to express. “I only wish,” he went on, in the same even tone, “that this chap had been doing better by his work. At one early stage of the rehearsals there was a lot of registration and fee-paying for the new term. Well, if he hasn’t been satisfactory, they needn’t blame me. Let them blame the system that diverts so much time and attention to interests quite outside the regular curriculum.”
“You talk like a book!” said Foster, with blunt disdain.
“Language—” began Randolph.
“—was made to conceal thought,” completed the other. “Stop
