"Isn't he the dear, comical chap!" exclaimed Mrs. Phillips, with unction, glancing upward and backward at the girls. They smiled discreetly, as if indulging in a silent evaluation of the sincerity of the compliment. Yet one of them--Hortense--formed her black brows into a frown, and might have spoken resentfully, save for a look from their general patroness. "Meanwhile, how about a drop of tea?" asked Mrs. Phillips suddenly. "Roddy"--to the sophomore--"if you will help clear that table...." The youth hastened to get into action. Cope went on with his letter to "Arthur": "It was an afternoon in Lesbos--with Sappho and her band of appreciative maidens. Phaon, a poor lad of nineteen, swept some pamphlets and paper-cutters off the center-table, and we all plunged into the ocean of Oolong--the best thing we do on this island...." He was lingering in a smiling abstractedness on his fancy, when-- "Bertram Cope!" a voice suddenly said, "do you do nothing--nothing?" He suddenly came to. Perhaps he had really deserved his hostess' rebuke. He had not offered to help with the tea-service; he had proferred no appropriate remark, of an individual nature, to any of the three _ancillae_.... "I mean," proceeded Mrs. Phillips, "can you do nothing whatever to entertain?" Cope gained another stage on the way to self-consciousness and self-control. Entertainment was doubtless the basic curse of this household. "I sing," he said, with naïf suddenness and simplicity. "Then, sing--do. There's the open piano. Can you play your own accompaniments?" "Some of the simpler ones." "Some of the simpler ones! Do you hear that, girls? He is quite prepared to wipe us all out. Shall we let him?" "That's unfair," Cope protested. "Is it my fault if composers _will_ write hard accompaniments to easy airs?" "Will you sing before your tea, or after it?" "I'm ready to sing this instant,--during it, or before it." "Very well." The room was now in dusk, save for the bulbs which made the portrait shine forth like a wayside shrine. Roddy, the possible sophomore, helped a maid find places for the cups and saucers; and the three girls, still formed in a careful group about the sofa, silently waited. "Of course you realize that this is not such a very large room," said Mrs. Phillips. "Meaning....?" "Well, your speaking voice _is_ resonant, you know." "Meaning, then, that I am not to raise the roof nor jar the china. I'll try not to."