Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/38

 in a silent evaluation of the sincerity of the compliment. Yet one of them—Hortense—formed her black brows into a frown, and might have spoken resentfully, save for a look from their general patroness.

"Meanwhile, how about a drop of tea?" asked Mrs. Phillips suddenly. "Roddy"—to the sophomore—"if you will help clear that table "

The youth hastened to get into action. Cope went on with his letter to "Arthur":

"It was an afternoon in Lesbos—with Sappho and her band of appreciative maidens. Phaon, a poor lad of nineteen, swept some pamphlets and paper-cutters off the center-table, and we all plunged into the ocean of Oolong—the best thing we do on this island "

He was lingering in a smiling abstractedness on his fancy, when——

"Bertram Cope!" a voice suddenly said, "do you do nothing—nothing?"

He suddenly came to. Perhaps he had really deserved his hostess' rebuke. He had not offered to help with the tea-service; he had proffered no appropriate remark, of an individual nature, to any of the three ancillae

"I mean," proceeded Mrs. Phillips, "can you do nothing whatever to entertain?"

Cope gained another stage on the way to self-consciousness and self-control. Entertainment was doubtless the basic curse of this household.

"I sing," he said, with naïf suddenness and simplicity.