Randolph shrugged: he must wait to see which of the three
interests would be held the most important.
27
_COPE ESCAPES A SNARE_
Lemoyne's first week in his new berth held him rather close, and Cope was
able to move about with less need of accounting for his every hour. One of
his first concerns was to get over his sitting with Hortense Dunton. His
"sitting," he said: it was to be the first, the only and the last.
He came into her place with a show of confidence, a kind of blustery
bonhomie. "I give you an hour from my treadmill," he declared brightly. "So
many books, and such dry ones!"
Hortense, who had been moping, brightened too. "I thought you had forgotten
me," she said chidingly. Yet her tone had less acerbity than that which she
had employed, but a few moments before, to address him in his absence. For
she often had in mind, at intervals longer or shorter, Cope's improvisation
about the Sassafras--too truly that dense-minded shrub had failed to
understand the "young ladies" and their "needs."
"My thesis," he said. "From now on, it must take a lot of my thought and
every moment of my spare time.
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