Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/287

 to his shoulder. His face caught the glow from the fire.

"Oh, I'm all right, I assure you," he said.

"You do look better," observed Carolyn on her own account. "This air is everything. Only a few hours of it——"

"Another bit of wood on the fire, if you please, Carolyn," said her patroness.

"Let me do it," said Cope. He rose quickly and laid on a stick or two. He remained standing on the edge of the glow. He hoped nobody would say again that he was looking rather thin and pale.

"And what is Mr. Lemoyne doing this evening?" presently asked Mrs. Phillips in a dreamy undertone. Her manner was casual and negligent; her voice was low and leisurely. She seemed to place Lemoyne at a distance of many, many leagues. "Rehearsing, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Cope. "This new play has absorbed him completely."

"He will do well?"

"He always does. He always has."

"Men in girls' parts are so amusing," said Carolyn. "Their walk is so heavy and clumsy, even if their dancing isn't. And when they speak up in those big deep bass and baritone voices !"

"Arthur will speak in a light tenor."

"Will his walk be heavy and clumsy?" asked Mrs. Phillips.

"He is an artist," replied Cope.

"Not too much of one, I trust," she returned. "I