Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/263

 "That won't amount to much."

"It won't? She's out in the open, finally. She took that place for a month with one express object—to get him there, paint or no paint. She's fretful and cantankerous over every day of delay, and soon she'll be in an undisguised rage."

"What does her aunt say to it?"

"She's beginning to be vexed. She's losing patience. She thinks it's a mistake—and an immodest one. She wants to send her away for a visit. To think of it!—as soon as one girl lets go another takes hold,—and a third person holds on through all!"

"Joe! Joe!"

But Foster was not to be stayed.

"And that poetry of Carolyn's! Medora herself came up and read it to me. It was a 'tribute,' she thought!"

"That won't amount to anything at all."

"It won't? With Hortense scornfully ridiculing it, and Carolyn bursting into tears before she can make her bolt from the room, and Amy wondering whether, after all ! If things are as bad as they are for me up here, how much worse must they be for the rest of them below! And that confounded engagement has made it still worse all round!"

Randolph ran his palms over his perplexed temples. "Whose?"

"Whose? No wonder you ask! Engagements, then."

"When are they going to be married?"

"The first week in May, I hear. But Pearson is