"There is no intention of that," replied Cope; "--so far as I know," he added, for ears about or above. Again Amy's tone changed. It took on a tang of anger, and also a curious ring of finality--as if, suddenly, a last resolution had been reached. "Good night," she said abruptly, and the interview was over. Cope forgot Randolph, and Lemoyne, and his themes. Lemoyne, returning within the hour, found him seated at his desk in self-absorbed depression, his work untouched. "Well, they've taken me," he began; "and I shall have a fairly good part." Cope made no effort to respond to the other's glowing self-satisfaction, but sat with thoughtful, downcast eyes at his desk before the untouched themes. "What's the matter?" asked Lemoyne. "Has she been calling up again?" Cope raised his head and gave him a look. Lemoyne saw that his very first guess had been correct. "This is a gay life!" he broke out; "just the life I have come down here to lead. You're making yourself miserable, and you're making me miserable. It's got to end." Cope gave him a second woeful glance. "Write to her, breaking it off," prompted Lemoyne. "Draft a letter tonight." His mind was full of _cliches_ from his reading and his "scripts." He had heard all the necessary things said: in fact, had said them himself--now in evening dress, now in hunting costume, now in the loose habiliments of Pierrot--time and time again. The dissatisfied _fiance_ need but say that he could not feel, after all, that they were as well suited to each other as they ought to be, that he could not bring himself to believe that his feeling for her was what love really should be, and that---- Thus, with a multiplicity of "that's," they accomplished a rough draft which might be restudied and used on the morrow. "There!" said Lemoyne to the weary Cope at eleven o'clock; "it ought to have been written a month ago." Cope languidly slipped the oft-amended sheet under his pile of themes and in a spent voice suggested bed. Over night and through the following forenoon the draft lay on his desk. When he returned to his room at three o'clock a note, which had been delivered by hand, awaited him. It was from Amy Leffingwell. Cope read it, folded his arms on his desk, bowed his head on his arms, and, being alone, gave a half-sob. Then he lifted his head, with face illumined and soul refreshed. Amy had asked for an end to their engagement. "What does she say?" asked Lemoyne, an hour later. "She says what you say!" exclaimed Cope with shining eyes and a trace of half-hysteric bravado. "She does not feel that we are quite so well suited to each other as we ought to be, nor that her feeling toward me is what love really... Can she have been in dramatics too!" "Your letter," returned Lemoyne, with dignity, "would have been understood."