Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/308

 "You can fill fifteen minutes."

"Oh, if you're going to confound time and space !"

He sat down receptively.

Medora rang a bell and harried Helga a little.

She glanced at Randolph. He sat there as if less to fill than to be filled.

"Say something," she said.

"Are you going to the convocation?"

"No."

He sat silent.

"Does that exhaust the subjects of interest?" she asked.

"Pretty nearly. Doesn't it?"

Medora fell silent in turn,—let the light clatter of the tea things speak for her.

"Are you going to the convocation?" he presently asked again.

"Such variety!" she mocked.

"Are you?"

She hesitated.

"Yes," she said.

"That's better. Let's go together—as friends."

"Who would imagine us going as enemies?"

"Who, indeed?" Yet if they went together they went as reconciled competitors,—they went as the result of a truce.

"I should like to see Bertram Cope in cap and gown," he said.

"He has worn them before, he tells me."

"As a——?"