Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/264

 trying for the middle of April. His flat is taken." Foster writhed in his chair.

"Why do they care for him?" he burst out. "He's nothing in himself. And he cares nothing for them. And he cares nothing for you," Foster added boldly. "All he has thought for is that fellow from up north."

"Don't ask me why they care," replied Randolph, with studied sobriety. "Why does anybody care? And for what? For the thing that is just out of reach. He's cool; he's selfish; he's indifferent. Yet, somehow, frost and fire join end to end and make the circle complete." He fell into reflection. "It's all like children straining upward for an icicle, and presently slipping, with cracked pates, on the ice below."

"Well, my pate isn't cracked."

"Unless it's the worst cracked of all."

Foster tore off his shade and threw it on the floor. "Mine?" he cried. "Look to your own!"

"Joe!" said Randolph, rising. "That won't quite do!"

"Be a fool along with the others, if you will!" retorted Foster. "Oh!" he went on, "haven't I seen it all? Haven't I felt it all? You, Basil Randolph, mind your own ways too!"

Randolph thought of words, but held his tongue. Words led to other words, and he might soon find himself involved in what would seem like a defense—an attitude which he did not relish, a course of which he did not acknowledge the need. "Poor Joe!" he thought; "sitting too much by himself and following