Henry Blake Fuller

“ It was from Amy Leffingwell.
Cope read it, folded his arms on his desk, bowed his head on his arms, and, being alone, gave a half-sob. Then he lifted his head, with face illumined and soul refreshed. Amy had asked for an end to their engagement.
"What does she say?" asked Lemoyne, an hour later.
"She says what you say!" exclaimed Cope with shining eyes and a trace of half-hysteric bravado. "She does not feel that we are quite so well suited to each other as we ought to be, nor that her feeling toward me is what love really... Can she have been in dramatics too!" ”

“ Phillips caught Cope's glance as it fell in all its glacial geniality.
"He looks down on us!" she declared.
"How down?" Cope asked.
"Well, you're taller than either of us."
"I don't consider myself tall," he replied. "Five foot nine and a half," he proceeded ingenuously, "is hardly tall."
"It is we who are short," said Randolph.
"But really, sir," rejoined Cope kindly, "I shouldn't call you short.
What is an inch or two?"
"But how about me?" demanded Mrs. Phillips.
"Why, a woman may be anything—except too tall," responded Cope candidly. ”

“ Medora broke off a branch of sassafras and swished it to and fro as she walked. "See," she said; "three kinds of leaves on the same tree: one without lobes, one with a single lobe, and one with two."
"Isn't Nature wonderful," replied Cope easily.
Meanwhile the young ladies sauntered along—before or behind, as the case might be—in the company of the young business-man and that of another youth who had come out independently on the trolley. They appeared to be suitably accompanied and entertained. But shiftings and readjustments ensued, as they are sure to do with a walking-party. ”

“ Lemoyne took a line not unlike Mrs. Phillips' own.
"I only wish there were more of them," he declared, looking up from his desk. "I'd like a lady barber for your head, a lady shoemaker for your feet, a lady psychologist for your soul——"
"Stop it!" cried Cope. "I've had about all I can stand. If you want to live in peace, as you sometimes say, do your share to keep the peace." ”

“ Basil Randolph had learned most that he wanted to know, and had learned it without asking too many direct questions. He began to pick at the fussy fringe on the arm of his chair and to cast an empty eye on the other fussy things that filled the room. The two had exhausted long ago all the old subjects, and he did not care to show an eagerness—still less, a continuing eagerness—for this new one: much could be picked up by indirection, even by waiting.
Medora felt him as distrait. "Do you want to go up and see Joe for a little while before you leave us?" ”

“ At the bottom Cope, with his shoes full of sand, turned round and looked up the slope down which his companion was coming. He waved his arms. "It's almost as fine from here!" he cried.
The beach, once gained, was in sight both ways for miles. Not a human habitation was visible, nor a human being. Two or three gulls flew a little out from shore, and the tracks of a sandpiper led from the wet shingle to the first fringe of sandgrass higher up.
"Where are the crowds?" asked Cope, with a sonorous shout.
"Miles behind," replied Randolph. ”

“ Yes, the room was full. Even Joseph Foster had contrived to get himself brought down by Peter: further practice for the day when he should make a still more ambitious flight and dine at Randolph's new table. He sat in a dark corner of the room and tried to get, as best he might, the essential hang of the situation: the soft, insidious insistence of Amy; the momentum and bravado of his sister-in-law; the veiled disparagement of Cope in which George F. Pearson, seated on a sofa between Carolyn and Hortense, indulged for their benefit, or for his own relief ”

“ Phillips' tendency to make him a hero. She was as willing as the girl herself to believe that he had kept Amy's chin above water—not for a moment merely, but through most of the transit to shore. He sat there uneasily, pressing his thumbs between his palms and his closed fingers and drawing up his feet crampingly within their shoes; yet it somewhat eased his tension to find that Medora Phillips was disposed to put Amy into a subordinate place: Amy had been but a means to an end—her prime merit consisted in having given him a chance to function. ”

“ And Amy Leffingwell had gone out somewhat for the sake, perhaps, of walking by the house where Cope lived.
They passed the Science building, with its tower crowned by an ornamental open-work iron pyramid for wireless, and the segregated group of theological dormitories through whose windows earnest ringing young voices were sometimes heard at the practice of sermon-delivery, and the men's club where the billiard tables were doubtless decorously covered with their customary Sunday sheets of black oilcloth, and took intuitively the path which led along the edge of the bluff. ”

“ He recalled their talk as they had walked past the sand-hills on that October Sunday. Cope had disclaimed all inclination for matrimony. He had confessed a certain inability to safeguard himself. Was he a victim, after all? A victim to his own ineptitude? A victim to his own highmindedness? Well, whatever the alternative, a field for the work of the salvage-corps had opened.
At the big house on Ashburn Avenue a like feeling had come to prevail. Medora Phillips herself had passed from the indulgently satirical to the impatient, and almost to the indignant. ”

“ Cope, on his own way to dinner, indulged in parallel imaginings. He saw a larger room than his present, with more furniture and better; a bookcase instead of a shelf; a closet, and hot and cold water in some convenient alcove; a second table, with a percolator on it, at which Arthur, who was a light sleeper and willingly an early riser, might indulge his knack for coffee-making to the advantage of them both. And Arthur had the same blessed facility with toast. ”

“ Cope praised loudly and readily. The region was unique and every view had its charm—every view save one. Beyond the woods and the hills and the distant marshes which spread behind all these, there rose on the bluish horizon a sole tall chimney, with its long black streak of smoke. Below it and about it spread a vast rectangular structure with watch-towers at its corners. The chimney bespoke light and heat and power furnished in quantities—power for many shops, manned by compulsory workers: a prison, in short. ”

“ Beyond his foolish, figured wall were two contrasted types of young vigor, and they babbled, babbled on, in the sensitized hearing of one from whom vigor was gone and for whom hope was set.
"What do you think of her?" Cope had asked. Then he had thrown his face into his pillow and left one ear for the reply.
"She is a clinger," returned Lemoyne. "She will cling until she is loosened by something or somebody. Then she will cling to the second somebody as hard as she did to the first. I'm not so sure that it's you as an individual especially." ”

“ Hortense remained for several days in a condition of sullen anger—she was a cloud lit up by occasional unaccountable flashes of temper. "Whatever in the world is the matter with her?" asked her aunt in more directions than one. And Amy Leffingwell, blissfully busy over her little trousseau and her selection of china-patterns, protested with wide-open, inquiring blue eyes against the intrusion of such a spirit at such a joyous time. ”

“ Most of us, at one time or another, have thrust forward our preferences in the same confident way.
Cope made less of an impression than his patroness had hoped for. Somehow his lithe youthfulness, his fine hair and teeth and eyes, the rich resonance of his voice counted for little—except, perhaps, with the granddaughter. The middle-aged people about him were used to young college men and indifferent to them. Cope himself felt that he was in a new environment, and a loftier one. ”

“ Cope stood on the height, and tossed his bare head like a tireless young colt. The sun fell bright on his mane of yellow hair. He took in a deep breath. "It's good!" he declared. "It's great! And the water looks better yet. Shall we make it in a rush?" He began to plunge down the long, broken sand-slope. Each step was worth ten. Randolph followed—with judgment. He would not seem young enough to be a competitor, nor yet old enough to be a drag. ”

“ But that evening, as they sat on a settle before the driftwood fire, Medora took pains to place herself in the middle. Carolyn was a sweet young flower, doubtless—humbler, possibly, than Amy or Hortense; yet she too perhaps must be extirpated, gently but firmly, from the garden of desire.
"You look better already," Medora said to Cope. "You'll go back to-morrow a new man." ”

“ Ceremonially, at least, the rite was complete.
"It's never so cold the second time," declared Cope encouragingly. "One dip doesn't make a swim, any more than one swallow—"
He flashed his soles in the sunlight and was once again immersed, gulping, in a maelstrom of his own making.
"Twice, to oblige you," said Randolph. "But no more. I'll leave the rest to the sun and the air."
Cope, out again, ran up and down the sands for a hundred feet or so. "I know something better than this," he declared presently. He threw himself down and rolled himself in the abundance of fine, dry, clean sand. ”

“ In an atmosphere of general newness a thing did not need to be very old to be an antique.
The least old of all things in Randolph's world were the students who flooded Churchton. There were two or three thousand of them, and hundreds of new ones came with every September. Sometimes he felt prompted to "collect" them, as contrasts to his older curios. They were fully as interesting, in their way, as brasswork and leatherwork, those products of peasant natures and peasant hands. But these youths ran past one's eye, ran through one's fingers. ”

“ The morning air was brisk and cool after last night's shower. Like the trees under which they passed, it gave the first decided intimation of autumn. They set off at a lively pace toward the college towers and the lake.
Cope was soon sailing along with his head high, his trim square shoulders much in action, and his feet throwing themselves spiritedly here and there. Amy, who was not very tall, kept up as well as she could.
"This isn't too fast for you...?" she asked presently.
"No; but it may be a little too fast for you. Excuse me; I've never learned to keep pace with a woman. ”

“ Cope made no effort to respond to the other's glowing self-satisfaction, but sat with thoughtful, downcast eyes at his desk before the untouched themes. "What's the matter?" asked Lemoyne. "Has she been calling up again?"
Cope raised his head and gave him a look. Lemoyne saw that his very first guess had been correct.
"This is a gay life!" he broke out; "just the life I have come down here to lead. You're making yourself miserable, and you're making me miserable. It's got to end." ”

“ The more serious among them went no further, indeed, than to say that if a man had found himself making a mistake, the sooner he got out of it the better. For weeks this affair of Cope's had hung over the blackboard like a dim tapestry. Now it was gone; and when he tabulated in chalk the Elizabethan dramatists or the Victorian novelists there was nothing to prevent his students from seeing them.
Medora Phillips became sympathetic and tender. She let him understand that she thought he had been unfairly treated. This did not prevent her from being much kinder to Amy Leffingwell. ”

“ Phillips, "can you do nothing whatever to entertain?"
Cope gained another stage on the way to self-consciousness and self-control. Entertainment was doubtless the basic curse of this household.
"I sing," he said, with naïf suddenness and simplicity.
"Then, sing—do. There's the open piano. Can you play your own accompaniments?"
"Some of the simpler ones."
"Some of the simpler ones! Do you hear that, girls? He is quite prepared to wipe us all out. Shall we let him?"
"That's unfair," Cope protested. "Is it my fault if composers will write hard accompaniments to easy airs?" ”

“ But there was no such consolation for poor abashed Cope. He had disclosed himself, for some reason or other, a weakling; and he had weakened at a conspicuously wrong time and in a conspicuously mistaken place. He had hoped, over the cigars and coffee, to lay the foundation of an acquaintance with the brother-in-law who was a trustee,—to set up an identity in this influential person's mind as a possible help to the future of Arthur Lemoyne. But the man now in the dining-room, or the drawing-room, or wherever, might as well be in the next state. ”

“ Cope was not allowed, indeed, to overlook the vague horizon where, through the pine groves, the blue of sky and of sea blended into one; but, under Medora Phillips' guidance, his eyes were mostly turned inland.
"People think," she said, "that 'the Dimes' means nothing beyond a regular row of sandhills following the edge of the water; yet half the interest and three-quarters of the variety are to be found in behind them. See my wide marsh, off to the southeast, with those islands of tamarack here and there, and imagine how beautiful the shadows are toward sunset. ”

“ Cope made his last plunge and returned red and shivering to use the two handkerchiefs.
"Well, we have thirty minutes," said Randolph, as they resumed their march. On the one hand the ragged line of dunes with their draping, dense or slight, of pines, lindens and oaks; on the other the unruffled expanse of blue, spreading toward a horizon even less determinate than before.
"No, I'm not at all apt," said Cope, returning to his theme; "not even for self-defense. I suppose I'm pretty sure to get caught some time or other."
"Each woman according to her powers and gifts. ”

“ Cope rose. "Nothing to tell anyone," he repeated. "Noth-ing."
"Then let me tell you something." There was an angry thrill in her voice. "For I am not so selfish and cold-hearted as you are. I have seen nobody but you all these months. I have never tried harder to please anybody. You have scarcely noticed me—you have never given me a glance or a thought. You could interest yourself in that silly Amy and in our foolish Carolyn; but for me—me—Nothing!"
Cope came down from the throne. ”