Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/105

 was a possible sub-acid tang in her reference to Hortense's color-notes. Aside from that possibility, there was little indication of the "dexterity" which Randolph had asked him to beware.

"On paper already?" he repeated. "But not all of them? I know you compose. You are not saying that you are about to give composition up?" A forced and awkward "slur," perhaps; but it served.

She gave a little sigh. "Pupils don't want my pieces," she said. "Scales; exercises "

"I know," he returned. "Themes,—clearness, mass, unity It's the same."

They looked at each other and smiled. "We ought not to think of such things to-day," she said.

Mrs. Phillips came along, shepherding her little flock for the return. "But before we do turn back," she adjured them, "just look at those two lovely spreading pines standing together alone on that far hill." The small group gazed obediently—though to many of them the prospect was a familiar one. Yes, there stood two pines, one just a little taller than the other, and just a little inclined across the other's top. "A girl out here in August called them Paolo and Francesca. Do you think," she asked Cope, "that those names are suitable?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replied, looking at the trees thoughtfully. "They seem rather—static; and Dante's lovers, if I recollect, had considerable drive. They were al vento—on the wind—weren't they? It might be less violent and more modern to call your trees Pelleas and Melisande, or——"