"
"It is," said Foster.
"I know that _I_ was that way," continued Randolph, looking studiously
at the nearest candle-shade. "I was beyond the middle twenties before I
quite launched out for myself, and any kindness received was taken without
much question and without much thanks. I presume that he still has some
assistance from home...."
He dropped youthful insouciance over favors received to consider the change
that marriage makes in a young man's status. "I wouldn't go so far as to
assert that a young man married is a man that's marred----"
"This _is_ stiff doctrine," Foster acknowledged.
"But somehow he does seem done for. He is placed; he is cut off from wide
ranges of interesting possibilities; he offers himself less invitingly to
the roving imagination...."
Meanwhile Cope, with Randolph's invitation driven altogether from his mind
by more urgent matters, was pacing the streets, through the first snow-
flurries of the winter, and was wondering, rather distractedly, just where
he stood. Precisely what words, at a very brief yet critical juncture, had
he said, or not said? Exactly how had he phrased--or failed to phrase--the
syllables which constituted, perhaps, a turning-point in his life?
Amy Leffingwell had demanded his attendance for one more walk, that
afternoon, and he had not been dextrous enough, face to face with her, to
refuse.
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