Yes, the room was full. Even Joseph Foster had contrived to get himself
brought down by Peter: further practice for the day when he should make a
still more ambitious flight and dine at Randolph's new table. He sat in a
dark corner of the room and tried to get, as best he might, the essential
hang of the situation: the soft, insidious insistence of Amy; the momentum
and bravado of his sister-in-law; the veiled disparagement of Cope in which
George F. Pearson, seated on a sofa between Carolyn and Hortense, indulged
for their benefit, or for his own relief; above all, he listened for tones
and undertones from Cope himself. He had never seen Cope before (if indeed
it could be said that he really saw him now), and he had never heard his
speaking voice save at a remove of two floors. Cope had taken his hand
vigorously, as that of the only man (among many women) from whom he had
much to expect, and had given him a dozen words in a loud tone which seemed
to correspond with his pressure. But Cope's voice, in his hearing, had
lapsed from resonance to non-resonance, and from that to tonelessness, and
from that to quietude.
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