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.
