And she told of Carolyn's fateful letter.

"So that's how it stands?" he said thoughtfully.

"I don't say 'how' it stands. I don't say that it 'stands' at all. But he has prospects and she has hopes."

"Prospects and hopes,--a strong working combination."

Medora took the leap. "She will marry him, of course," she said decidedly. "After his having jilted Amy----"

"'Jilted' her? Do you understand it that way?"

"And trampled on Hortense----"

"'Trampled'? Surely you exaggerate."

"And ignored me----You will let me use that mild word, 'ignored'?"

"Its use is granted. He has ignored others too."

"After all that, who is there left in the house but Carolyn? Listen; I'll tell you how it will be. She has answered his letter, of course,--imagine whether or not she was prompt about it!--and he will answer hers----"

"_Will_ answer it?"

"Not at once, perhaps; but soon: in the course of two or three weeks.

Then she will reply,--and there you have a correspondence in full swing. Then, in the fall he will write her from his new post in the East, and say: 'Dear Girl,--At last I can----,' and so on."

"You mean that you destine poor Carolyn for a man who is so apt at jilting and trampling and ignoring?"

"Who else is there?" Medora continued to demand st.u.r.dily. "In October they will be married----"

"Heaven forbid!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Randolph.

"You have something better to suggest?"

"Nothing better. Something different. Listen, as you yourself say. Next October I shall call on you, put my hand in my inside pocket, bring out a letter and read it to you. It will run like this: 'My dear Mr.

Randolph,--You will be pleased, I am sure, to hear that I now have a good position at the university in this pleasant town. Arthur Lemoyne, whom you recall, is studying psychology here, and we are keeping house together. He wishes to be remembered. I thank you for your many kindnesses,'--that is put in as a mere possibility,--'and also send best regards to Mrs. Phillips and the members of her household.

Sincerely yours, Bertram L. Cope.'"

"I won't accept that!" cried Medora. "He will marry Carolyn, and I shall do as much for her as I did for Amy, and as much as I expect to do for Hortense."

"I see. The three matches made and the desolation of the house complete."

"Complete, yes; leaving me alone among the ruins."

"And nothing would rescue you from them but a fourth?"

"Basil, you are not proposing?"

"I scarcely think so," he returned, with slow candor. "I shouldn't care to live in this house; and you----"

"I knew you never liked my furnishings!"

"----and you, I am sure, would never care to live in any other."

"I shall stay where I am," she declared. "Shall you stay where you are?" she asked keenly.

"Perhaps not."

"Confess that housekeeping on your own account is less attractive than it once was."

"I do. Confess that you, with all your outfit and all your goings-on, never quite--never quite--succeeded in..."

Medora shrugged. "The young, at best, only tolerate us. We are but the platform they dance on,--the ladder they climb by."

"After all, he was a 'charming' chap. Your own word, you know."

"Yet scarcely worth the to-do we made over him," said Medora, willing to save her face.

Randolph shrugged in turn, and threw out his hands in a gesture which she had never known him to employ before.

"Worth the to-do? Who is?"