Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/228

 "Young Pearson?"

"Yes."

"Clever lad. Confident. But brash. Just what his father used to be."

"He praised her playing. Cope sat dumb. And next morning he hurried away before breakfast. You know what kind of a morning it was. Anything very pressing at the University on a Saturday morning at eight?"

"I hardly know."

"How about this sudden new friend?" Foster twitched in his chair. "Medora," he went on, "seems to have no special fancy for him. She even objects to his calling Cope 'Bert.' Of course he sings. And he seems to be self-possessed and clever. But 'self-possessed'—that doesn't express it. He was so awfully, so publicly, at home; at least that's as I gather it. Always hanging over the other man's chair; always finding a reason to put his hand on his shoulder "

"Body-guard? No wonder Pearson came to the fore."

"I don't know. What I've heard makes me think of——"

And here, Foster, speaking with a keen and complicated acerbity, recalled how, during earlier years of travel, he had had opportunity to observe a young married couple at a Saratoga hotel. They had made their partiality too public, and an elderly lady not far away in the vast "parlor" had audibly complained