Bertram Cope's Year

by Henry Blake Fuller

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 co-educational!" 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 was not sure that, in the first moment of the upset, he should have freed himself unaided; and he confessed that he had not been quite in condition to do very well on the way landward. However, all passed…. Within a fortnight or less the incident would have dropped back into its proper perspective, and his students would have found some other matter for entertainment. In the circumstances he grasped at the first source of consolation that came. Randolph was now installed in his new apartment and felt that, though not fully settled, he might risk asking Cope to dinner. "You are the first," Randolph had said. Cope could not escape the flattery; it was almost comfort.

His prompt acceptance was most welcome to Randolph. Cope had dwelt, for a moment, on the actual presence of Aunt Harriet and on his need of her. Randolph had made no precise study of recent chronology, taking the reason given over the wire as a valid one and feeling glad that there was no hitch this time.

Randolph gave Cope a rapid view of the apartment before they sat down to dinner. There were fewer pictures on the newly-papered walls than there were to be, and fewer rugs on the freshly-varnished floors. "My standing lamp will be in that corner," said Randolph, in the living-room, "—when it comes." He drew attention to a second bedroom where a man could be put up on occasion: "you, for example, if you ever find yourself shut out late." He saw Sir Galahad's gauntlets on the dresser. He even gave Cope a glimpse of his kitchen, where a self-contained Oriental, slightly smiling but otherwise inexpressive, seemed to be dealing competently with the gas-range. But Cope was impressed, most of all, by the dining-room table and its paraphernalia. At Mrs. Phillips' he had accepted the china, silver and napery as a matter of course—an elaborate entity quite outside his own thoughts and calculations: it was all so immensely far beyond his reach and his needs. Randolph, however, had dealt as a bachelor with a problem which he himself as a bachelor must soon take up, on however different a scale and plane. For everything here was rich and handsome; he should not know how to select such things—still less how to pay for them. He felt dashed; he felt depressed; once more the wonder of people's "having things." He sipped his soup in the spirit of humility, and did not quite recover with the chops.

Randolph made little talk; he was glad merely to have Cope there. He indulged no slightest reference to the accident; he assumed, willingly enough, that Cope had done well in a sudden emergency, but did not care to dwell on his judgment at the beginning. Still, a young man was properly enough experimental, venturesome…

Cope had recovered himself by the time dessert was reached. He accomplished an adjustment to his environment, and Randolph was glad to feel his unaffected response to good food properly cooked and served. "He sha'n't gipsy all the time," Randolph said to himself. "I shall try to have him here at least twice a week." Once in a while the evening might be stormy, and then the gauntlets would be laid on the dresser—perhaps after an informal smoke in pajamas among the curios ranged round the small den.