Medora forced these considerations to the back of her mind and saw most of her guests out of the house. Toward the end of it all she found herself relaxing in the library, with Basil Randolph in the opposite chair. Randolph himself had figured in the ceremony. This had been a crude imitation of a time-hallowed form and had allowed for an extemporaneous prayer and for a brief address to the young couple; but it had retained the familiar inquiry, "Who giveth--?" "Who _can_ give?" asked Medora of Amy. Poor Joe was rather out of the question, and Brother Dick was four or five years too young. Was there, then, anyone really available except that kind Mr. Randolph? So Basil Randolph, after remembering Amy with a rich and handsome present, had taken on a paternal air, had stepped forward at the right moment, and was now recovering from his novel experience. The two, as they sat there, said little, though they looked at each other with half-veiled, questioning glances. Medora, indeed, improvised a little stretch of silent dialogue, and it made him take his share. She felt dislocated, almost defeated. Hortense's performance had set her to thinking of Bertram Cope, and she figured the same topic as uppermost in the mind of Basil Randolph. "Well, you have about beaten me," she said. "How so?" she made him ask, with an affectation of simplicity. "You know well enough," she returned. "You have played off the whole University against my poor house, and you have won. Your influence with the president, your brother on the board of trustees ... If Bertram Cope has any gratitude in his composition...." "Oh, well," she let him say, "I don't feel that I did much; and I'm not sure I'm glad for what I did do." "You may regret it, of course. That other man is an uncertain quantity." "Oh, come," he said; "you've had the inside track from the very start: this house and everything in it...." "You have a house of your own, now." "Your dinners and entertainments...." "You have your own dinner-table." "Your limousine, your chauffeur,--running to the opera and heaven knows where else...." "Taxis can always be had. Yes," she went on, "you have held the advantage over a poor woman cooped up in her own house. While I have had to stick here, attending to my housekeeping, you have been careering about everywhere,--you with a lot of partners and clerks in your office, and no compulsion to look in more than two or three times a week. Of _course_ you can run to theatres and clubs. I wonder they don't dispense with you altogether!" "There's the advantage of a business arranged to run itself--so far as _I_ am concerned." "Yes, you have had the world to range through: shows and restaurants; the whole big city; strolls and excursions, and who knows what beside...."