Yes, the room was full. Even Joseph Foster had contrived to get himself brought down by Peter: further practice for the day when he should make a still more ambitious flight and dine at Randolph's new table. He sat in a dark corner of the room and tried to get, as best he might, the essential hang of the situation: the soft, insidious insistence of Amy; the momentum and bravado of his sister-in-law; the veiled disparagement of Cope in which George F. Pearson, seated on a sofa between Carolyn and Hortense, indulged for their benefit, or for his own relief; above all, he listened for tones and undertones from Cope himself. He had never seen Cope before (if indeed it could be said that he really saw him now), and he had never heard his speaking voice save at a remove of two floors. Cope had taken his hand vigorously, as that of the only man (among many women) from whom he had much to expect, and had given him a dozen words in a loud tone which seemed to correspond with his pressure. But Cope's voice, in his hearing, had lapsed from resonance to non-resonance, and from that to tonelessness, and from that to quietude.... Was the fellow in process of making a long diminuendo--a possible matter of weeks or of months? As before, when confronted by what had once seemed a paragon of dash and vigor, he scarcely knew whether to be exasperated or appeased. Through this variety of spoken words and unspoken thoughts Hortense sat silent and watchful. Presently the talk lapsed: with the best will in the world a small knot of people cannot go on elaborately embroidering upon a trivial incident forever. There was a shifting of groups, a change in subjects. Yet Hortense continued to glower and to meditate. What had the incident really amounted to? What did the man himself really amount to? She soon found herself at his side, behind the library-table and its spreading lamp-shade. He was silently handling a paper-cutter, with his eyes cast down. "See me!" she said, in a tense, vibratory tone. "Speak to me!"--and she glowered upon him. "I am no kitten, like Amy. I am no tame tabby, like Carolyn, sending out written invitations. Throw a few poor words my way." Cope dropped the paper-cutter. Her address was like a dash of brine in the face, and he welcomed it. "Tell me; did you look absurd--then?" she dashed ahead. A return to fresh water, after all! "Why," he rejoined reluctantly, "no man, dressed in all his clothes, looks any the better for being soaked through." "And Amy,--she must have looked absolutely ridiculous! That wide, flapping hat, and all! I had been telling her for weeks that it was out of style." "She threw it away," said Cope shortly. "And I suppose her hair looked as well as a woman's ever does, when she's in the water." "Well," she observed, "it's one thing to be ridiculous and another to go on being ridiculous. I hope you don't mean to do that?"