Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/23

 "Stop!—please. My name is Bertram."

"Never!"

"Bertram. Why not?"

"Because that would be too exactly right. I might have guessed and guessed——!"

"Right or wrong, Bertram's my name."

"You hear, Mr. Randolph?" You are to meet Mr. Bertram Cope."

Cope, who had risen and had left any embarrassment consequent upon the short delay to Basil Randolph himself, shot out a hand and summoned a ready smile. Within his cuff was a hint for the construction of his fore-arm: it was lean and sinewy, clear-skinned, and with strong power for emphasis on the other's rather short, well-fleshed fingers. And as he gripped, he beamed; beamed just as warmly, or just as coldly—at all events, just as speciously—as he had beamed before: for on a social occasion one must slightly heighten good will,—all the more so if one be somewhat unaccustomed and even somewhat reluctant.

Mrs. Phillips caught Cope's glance as it fell in all its glacial geniality.

"He looks down on us!" she declared.

"How down?" Cope asked.

"Well, you're taller than either of us."

"I don't consider myself tall," he replied. "Five foot nine and a half," he proceeded ingenuously, "is hardly tall."

"It is we who are short," said Randolph.

"But really, sir," rejoined Cope kindly, "I shouldn't call you short. What is an inch or two?"