Bertram Cope's Year Part 38

"Language----" began Randolph.

"----was made to conceal thought," completed the other. "Stop talking.

Stop thinking. Or, if you must think, just get your thoughts back on your business."

Foster might have expressed himself still more pungently if he had been aware, as Cope was, of an episode which took place, behind the scenes, at the close of the performance. Lemoyne's singing and dancing in the last act had had a marked success: after all, people had come to enjoy and to applaud. Following two or three recalls, a large sheaf of roses had been pa.s.sed over the footlights; for a close imitation of professional procedure was held to give the advantage of strict vraisemblance. This "tribute" Lemoyne took in character, with certain graces, pirouettes and smiles. His success so mounted to his head (for he was the one person in the case who approximated a professional effect) that after he had retired he could not quiet down and leave his part. He continued to act off-stage; and in his general state of ebulliency he endeavored to bestow a measure of upwelling femininity upon another performer who was in the dress of his own s.e.x. This downright fellow, in cutaway and silk hat, did not understand,--or at least had no patience with a role carried too far. He brusquely cleared himself of Lemoyne's arm with a good vigorous push. This effort not only propelled Lemoyne against some scenery and left him, despite the voluminous blond wig, with a bruise on his forehead; it immediately pushed him out of his part, and it ended by pus.h.i.+ng him out of the organization and even out of the University.

"Keep off, will you!" said the young _elegant_ crudely.

Lemoyne's "atmosphere" dissipated suddenly. His art-structure collapsed. As he looked about he saw plainly that the other man's act was approved. He had carried things too far. Well, such are the risks run by the sincere, self-revealing artist.

When all this reached Cope, he felt a personal chagrin. Truly, the art of human intercourse was an art that called for some care. Lemoyne's slight wound left no trace after forty-eight hours--perhaps his "notices" in "The Index" and "The Campus" had acted as a salve; but certain sections of opinion remained unfriendly, and there was arising a new atmosphere of distaste and disapproval.

The college authorities had not been satisfied, for some time, with his clerical labors, and some of them thought that his stage performance--an "exhibition" one of them termed it--called for reproof, or more. They laid their heads together and Lemoyne and Cope were not long in learning their decision. Lemoyne was p.r.o.nounced a useless element in one field, a discrepant element in another, a detriment in both. His essentially slight connection with the real life of the University came to be more fully recognized. Alma Mater, in fine, could do without him, and meant to. Censure was the lot of the indignant boys who officered the society, and who asked Lemoyne to withdraw; and complete scission from the nouris.h.i.+ng vine of Knowledge was his final fate.

No occupation; no source of income. Winnebago was cold; nor was it to be warmed into ardor by press-notices. It had seen too many already and was tired of them.

The two young men conferred. Again Basil Randolph was their hope.

"He ought to be able to do something for me in the city," said Lemoyne.

"He's acquainted in business circles, isn't he?"

Cope bent over him--paler, thinner, more solicitous. "I'll try it," he said.

Cope once more approached Randolph, but Randolph shook his head. He had no faith in Lemoyne, and he had done enough already against his own interests and desires.

Lemoyne fluttered about to little effect for a few weeks, while Cope was finis.h.i.+ng up his thesis. Beyond an accustomed and desired companions.h.i.+p, Lemoyne contributed nothing--was a drag, in truth. He returned to Winnebago a fortnight before the convocation and the conferring of degrees; and it was the understanding that, somehow, he and Cope should share together a summer divided between Winnebago and Freeford. Randolph was left to claim Cope's interest, if he could.

32

_COPE TAKES HIS DEGREE_

Lemoyne's departure but a fortnight before Cope's small share in the convocation seemed to hint at mutual dissatisfaction; it might even stand for a disagreement, or possibly a quarrel. "It's just as well that he went," said Randolph to himself. "His presence here was no advantage to Bertram--nor to anybody else." And with another fortnight Cope himself would be gone; and who knew in what distant quarter he might take up his autumn work? His ambitions, as Randolph knew, pointed to some important university in the East. Meanwhile, make the most of the flying days.

Medora Phillips took the same view. She let Carolyn Thorpe loose for a week's spring vacation, and sent Cope word that she was alone in a darkened, depopulated home. Amy married. Hortense banished. Carolyn waved aside. With all such varying devotions removed, why should he not look in on her loneliness, during these final days, for dinner or tea?

He was still "charming"--however difficult, however recalcitrant. And he was soon to depart. And who could believe that the fall term would bring his equal or his like?

Randolph, still taking his business easily, had suggestions for walks and lunches; he had also free time to make his suggestions operative.

But Cope, though frequently seen in active movement on the campus and through the town, gave little heed to either of his elderly friends. He met them both, in High Street, on different occasions, and thanked and smiled and promised--and kept away. He was doubtless absorbed in his special work, in the details of the closing year. He may have thought (as young men have been known to think) that, in accepting their invitations, he had done enough for them already. He had shown his good will on several occasions; let that suffice. Or he may have thought (as young men have been found capable of thinking) not at all: other concerns, more pressing and more contemporaneous, may have crowded them out of his mind altogether.

"I wonder if it's sensitiveness?" asked Randolph of Foster. "His chum didn't go away in the best of good odor...."

"Settle it for yourself," returned Foster brusquely. "And recall that you have an office--and might have office-hours. Still, if you insist on asking me----"

"I don't. But you may speak, if you like."

"And if you will consent to be fobbed off with a short-measure answer----"

"That's right. Don't say all you think."

"Then I would put it somewhere between indifference and ingrat.i.tude.

Nearer the latter. We know the young."

"I don't feel that I've done so very much for him," said Randolph, rather colorlessly.

"You were inclined to."

"H'm, yes. I could have opened up avenues that would have made his year here a very different thing. Perhaps he didn't realize what I could do.

And perhaps he found me too old."

"Shall you attend the convocation?"

"I go usually. I'll push him off from sh.o.r.e and waft him good-bye."

"Good-bye? Good riddance!"

"You never liked him."

"I never did. If he leaves town without showing up here, no loss."

"Medora expects him here?"

"I think so."

Randolph descended to the lower floor. Mrs. Phillips was alone, seated behind a tea-service that steamed with expectation.

"Going?" she asked.

"Going. Joe is grouchy and violent today. And he keeps on reminding me that I have an office."

Medora glanced at the clock. Expectation seemed to be simmering down.

"Stay a few moments if you like. Forget the office a little longer.

I'll make some fresh."

"Not all these preparations for me?"

"Well, they're here. Take advantage."

"You're all alone?"

"Alone. The house is empty."

Medora tried to look as if at the heart of a tremendous vacuum.

"I can't fill it."