Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/260

 library, and who had shown a good deal of pallor during the few days that followed. "Take a little more air and exercise," Randolph counselled.

"A good rule always, for everybody," said Lemoyne, with a withholding of all tone and expression.

"I believe," Randolph continued, "that you are losing in both weight and color. That would be no advantage to yourself—and it might complicate Miss Dunton's problem. It's perplexing to an artist when one's subject changes under one's very eye."

"There won't be much time for sitting, from now on," observed Lemoyne concisely.

"I might try to go round once more," said Cope, "—in fairness. If there are to be higher lights on my cheekbones and lower lights for my eyes, an hour or so should serve to settle it."

"I wouldn't introduce many changes into my eyes and cheekbones, if I were you," said Randolph. Lemoyne was displeased; he thought that Randolph was taking advantage of his position as host to make an observation of unwarranted saliency, and he frowned at his plate.

Cope flushed, and looked at his.

The talk drifted toward dramatics, with Winnebago once more the background; but the foreground was occupied by a new musical comedy which one of the clubs might try in another month, and the tone became more cheery. Sing-Lo, who had come in with a maple mousse of his own making, smiled at last; and he smiled still more widely when, at the end of the course, his chief occidental masterpiece was praised.