A similar satisfaction came to prevail in University circles, and in the lesser circle which Cope had formed outside. His own classroom, after a week, became a different place. There had been some disposition to take a facetious view of Cope's adventure. His class had felt him as cool and rather stiff, and comment would not be stayed. One bright girl thought he had spoiled a good suit of clothes for nothing. The boys, who knew how much clothes cost, and how much every suit counted, put their comment on a different basis. The more serious among them went no further, indeed, than to say that if a man had found himself making a mistake, the sooner he got out of it the better. For weeks this affair of Cope's had hung over the blackboard like a dim tapestry. Now it was gone; and when he tabulated in chalk the Elizabethan dramatists or the Victorian novelists there was nothing to prevent his students from seeing them. Medora Phillips became sympathetic and tender. She let him understand that she thought he had been unfairly treated. This did not prevent her from being much kinder to Amy Leffingwell. Amy, earlier, had been so affected by the general change of tone that, more than once, she had felt prompted to take herself and her belongings out of the house. But she still lingered on, as she was likely to do, during a short engagement; and Mrs. Phillips was now amiability itself to George and Amy both. Her method of soothing Cope was to take him to the theatre and the opera in town: he could scarcely come to the house. It was now late in January and the opera season was near its end. People were tiring of their boxes, or had started South: it had become almost a work of merit to fill a friend's box for her. During the last week of the season, Mrs. Phillips was put in position to do this. She invited Cope, and took along Hortense, and found in the city itself a married pair who could get to the place and home again without her help. Lemoyne would have made six, and the third man; but he was not bidden. Why pack the box? A better effect was made by presenting, negligently, one empty seat. Lemoyne dressed Cope, however. He had brought to Churchton the outgrown evening clothes; and Cope, in his exuberance, bought a new pair of light shoes and white gloves. He looked well as he sat on the back seat of the limousine with Medora Phillips, during the long drive in; and he looked well--strikingly, handsomely well--in the box itself. Indeed, thought Medora, he made other young men in nearby boxes--young men of "means" and "position"--look almost plebian. "He is charming," she said to herself, over and over again.