Chapter 18

Foster gave a savage, dragging clutch at his shade and twisted rebelliously in his chair.

Randolph left him to himself and went below.

Downstairs dinner proceeded cautiously. There was no chance for an interchange of thought until the two young women should have been got out of the way. Hortense had her own affair at the back of her head, and Carolyn hers. Neither could sympathize with the other. Hortense's manner to Carolyn was one of half-suppressed insolence. Carolyn, buoyed up interiorly, seemed able to endure it,--perhaps was not fully conscious of it. There was relief when, after dessert, each arose and went her respective way.

Medora and Randolph settled down on a causeuse in the drawing-room. The place was half-lighted, but Randolph made out that his companion was taking on a conscious air of pseudo-melancholy.

Her eyes roved the dim, cluttered room with studied mournfulness, and she said, presently:

"Dear old house! Undergoing depopulation, and soon to be a waste."

"Depopulation?"

"Yes; they're leaving it one by one. First, Amy. You remember Amy?"

"I believe so."

"She married George and went away. You recall the occasion?"

"I think I was present."

"And now it's Hortense."

"Is it, indeed?"

She told him about the gallant young Southerner in Tennessee, and gave a forecast of a probable pairing.

"And next it will be Carolyn."

"Carolyn? Who has cast his eye on her?"

Medora shot it out.

"Bertram Cope!"

"Cope!" Randolph gave himself another twist in that well-twisted sofa.

"Cope," she repeated. If the boy were indeed beyond her own reach, she would report his imminent capture by another with as much effect as she could command.

And she told of Carolyn's fateful letter.

"So that's how it stands?" he said thoughtfully.

"I don't say 'how' it stands. I don't say that it 'stands' at all. But he has prospects and she has hopes."

"Prospects and hopes,--a strong working combination."

Medora took the leap. "She will marry him, of course," she said decidedly. "After his having jilted Amy----"

"'Jilted' her? Do you understand it that way?"

"And trampled on Hortense----"

"'Trampled'? Surely you exaggerate."

"And ignored me----You will let me use that mild word, 'ignored'?"

"Its use is granted. He has ignored others too."

"After all that, who is there left in the house but Carolyn? Listen; I'll tell you how it will be. She has answered his letter, of course,--imagine whether or not she was prompt about it!--and he will answer hers----"

"_Will_ answer it?"

"Not at once, perhaps; but soon: in the course of two or three weeks. Then she will reply,--and there you have a correspondence in full swing. Then, in the fall he will write her from his new post in the East, and say: 'Dear Girl,--At last I can----,' and so on."

"You mean that you destine poor Carolyn for a man who is so apt at jilting and trampling and ignoring?"

"Who else is there?" Medora continued to demand sturdily. "In October they will be married----"

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Randolph.

"You have something better to suggest?"

"Nothing better. Something different. Listen, as you yourself say. Next October I shall call on you, put my hand in my inside pocket, bring out a letter and read it to you. It will run like this: 'My dear Mr. Randolph,--You will be pleased, I am sure, to hear that I now have a good position at the university in this pleasant town. Arthur Lemoyne, whom you recall, is studying psychology here, and we are keeping house together. He wishes to be remembered. I thank you for your many kindnesses,'--that is put in as a mere possibility,--'and also send best regards to Mrs. Phillips and the members of her household. Sincerely yours, Bertram L. Cope.'"

"I won't accept that!" cried Medora. "He will marry Carolyn, and I shall do as much for her as I did for Amy, and as much as I expect to do for Hortense."

"I see. The three matches made and the desolation of the house complete."

"Complete, yes; leaving me alone among the ruins."

"And nothing would rescue you from them but a fourth?"

"Basil, you are not proposing?"

"I scarcely think so," he returned, with slow candor. "I shouldn't care to live in this house; and you----"

"I knew you never liked my furnishings!"

"----and you, I am sure, would never care to live in any other."

"I shall stay where I am," she declared. "Shall you stay where you are?" she asked keenly.

"Perhaps not."

"Confess that housekeeping on your own account is less attractive than it once was."

"I do. Confess that you, with all your outfit and all your goings-on, never quite--never quite--succeeded in..."

Medora shrugged. "The young, at best, only tolerate us. We are but the platform they dance on,--the ladder they climb by."

"After all, he was a 'charming' chap. Your own word, you know."

"Yet scarcely worth the to-do we made over him," said Medora, willing to save her face.

Randolph shrugged in turn, and threw out his hands in a gesture which she had never known him to employ before.

"Worth the to-do? Who is?"