"Thank Heaven, I
haven't had to send it!" In a moment, "What am I to write now?" he asked
with irony.
"The next will be easier," returned Lemoyne, still with dignity.
"It will," replied Cope.
It was,--so much easier that it became but an elegant literary exercise. A
few touches of nobility, a few more of elegiac regret, and it was ready at
nine that night for the letter-box. Cope dropped it in with an iron clang
and walked back to his quarters a free man.
A few days later Lemoyne, working for his new play, met Amy Leffingwell in
the music-alcove of the University library. She had removed her gloves with
their furry wristlets, and he saw that she had a ring on the third finger
of her left hand. Its scintillations made a stirring address to his eye.
Cope heard about the ring that evening, and about Amy Leffingwell's
engagement to George Pearson the next day.
He had no desire to dramatize the scene of Pearson's advance, assault and
victory, nor to visualize the setting up of the monument by which that
victory was commemorated. Lemoyne did it for him.
Pearson had probably indulged in some disparagement of Cope--a phase on
which Lemoyne, as a faithful friend, did not dwell.
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