Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/175

 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 coöperation.

"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