however uncertain, with much more confidence than he, backed by whatever assurances and accumulations he enjoyed, could face his own. "To be young!" he said. "To be young!" Do you figure Basil Randolph, alongside his portière, as but the observer, the _raisonneur_, in this narrative? If so, you err. What!--you may ask,--a rival, a competitor? That more nearly. It was Medora Phillips herself who, within a moment or two, inducted him into this role. A gap had come in her chat with Cope. He had told her all he had been asked to tell--or all he meant to tell: at any rate he had been given abundant opportunity to expatiate upon a young man's darling subject--himself. Either she now had enough fixed points for securing the periphery of his circle or else she preferred to leave some portion of his area (now ascertained approximately) within a poetic penumbra. Or perhaps she wished some other middle-aged connoisseur to share her admiration and confirm her judgment. At all events---- "Oh, Mr. Randolph," she cried, "come here." Randolph left his doorway and stepped across. "Now you are going to be rewarded," said the lady, broadly generous. "You are going to meet Mr. Cope. You are going to meet Mr.----" She paused. "Do you know,"--turning to the young man,--"I haven't your first name?" "Why, is that necessary?" "You're not ashamed of it? Theodosius? Philander? Hieronymus?" "Stop!--please. My name is Bertram." "Never!" "Bertram. Why not?" "Because that would be too exactly right. I might have guessed and guessed----!" "Right or wrong, Bertram's my name." "You hear, Mr. Randolph? You are to meet Mr. Bertram Cope." Cope, who had risen and had left any embarrassment consequent upon the short delay to Basil Randolph himself, shot out a hand and summoned a ready smile. Within his cuff was a hint for the construction of his fore-arm: it was lean and sinewy, clear-skinned, and with strong power for emphasis on the other's rather short, well-fleshed fingers. And as he gripped, he beamed; beamed just as warmly, or just as coldly--at all events, just as speciously--as he had beamed before: for on a social occasion one must slightly heighten good will,--all the more so if one be somewhat unaccustomed and even somewhat reluctant. Mrs. Phillips caught Cope's glance as it fell in all its glacial geniality. "He looks down on us!" she declared. "How down?" Cope asked. "Well, you're taller than either of us." "I don't consider myself tall," he replied. "Five foot nine and a half," he proceeded ingenuously, "is hardly tall." "It is we who are short," said Randolph. "But really, sir," rejoined Cope kindly, "I shouldn't call you short. What is an inch or two?" "But how about me?" demanded Mrs. Phillips. "Why, a woman may be anything--except too tall," responded Cope candidly. "But if she wants to be stately?" "Well, there was Queen Victoria."