She was standing with a chair-back for support, tired but smiling.
“I can’t get to sleep yet. Don’t you want me to show you some of the buildings here?”
“Oh yes!”
“If Mrs. Stettinius can spare you!”
This by way of remarking on the fact that the female poet was staring volubly.
“G-g-g-g-g-g—” said Mrs. Stettinius, which seemed to imply perfect consent.
Istra took him to the belvedere on a little slope overlooking the lawns of Aengusmere, scattered with low bungalows and rose-gardens.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it? Perhaps one could be happy here—if one could kill all the people except the architect,” she mused.
“Oh, it is,” he glowed.
Standing there beside her, happiness enveloping them, looking across the marvelous sward, Bill Wrenn was at the climax of his comedy of triumph. Admitted to a world of lawns and bungalows and big studio windows, standing in a belvedere beside Istra Nash as her friend—