Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/189

 work; she had been buoyed up by Cope's tones, which, with repetition, had gathered assurance if not expressiveness; and she based her estimate of the general effect on the impression which her own inner nature had experienced. And her impression was heightened when Pearson, forging forward, and ignoring both Cope and Carolyn, thanked her richly and emphatically for her part—a part which, to him, seemed the whole.

Hortense, who had kept her place behind the large lamp-shade, twisted her interlocked fingers and said no word. Foster, who had disposed himself on an inconspicuous couch, kept his own counsel. After all, omne ignotum: Cope's singing had sounded better from upstairs. At close range a ringing assertiveness had somehow failed.

Cope had come with no desire to extend his stay beyond the limits of an evening call. He declined to sing on his own account, and soon rose as if to make his general adieux.

"You won't give us one of your own songs, then?" asked Medora Phillips, in a disappointed tone. "And at my dinner——"

No, she could not quite say that, at her dinner, Cope, whatever he had failed to do, had contributed no measure of entertainment for her guests.

"Give us a recitation, then," persisted Medora; "or tell us a story. Or make up"—here she indulged herself in an airily imperious flight—"a story of your own on the spot."

A trifling request, truly. But——