Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/282

 "——hat theses, then, had never been invented. To speak familiarly, you are almost 'peakèd.'"

Cope, with the first warm days, had gone back to the blue serge suit of the past autumn, and he filled it even less well than before. And his face was thin to correspond.

"Besides," she went on, "we need you. It will be a kind of camping-out for a day or two—merely that. We must have your help to pitch the tent, so to speak, and to pick up firewood, and to fry the bacon And this time," she added, "you shall not have that long tiresome trip by train. There will be room in the car."

She did not attempt to make room for Lemoyne. She was glad to have no need to do so; Lemoyne was deeply engrossed otherwise—"Annabella" and her "antics" were almost ready for the public eye. The first of May would see the performance, and the numerous rehearsals were exacting, whether as regarded the effort demanded or the time. Every spare hour was going into them, as well as many an hour that could hardly be spared. Lemoyne, who had been cast originally for a minor female part, now found himself transferred, through the failure of a principal, to a more important one. For him, then, rehearsals were more exigent than ever. He cut his Psychology once or twice, nor could he succeed, during office hours, in keeping his mind on office-routine. His superiors became impatient and then protestant. The annual spring dislocation of ordered student life was indeed a regular feature of the year's last term; yet to push