“Oh, dear boy, you mustn’t! We will be good friends. I do appreciate having some one care whether I’m alive or not. But I thought it was all understood that we weren’t to take playing together seriously; that it was to be merely playing—nothing more.”
“But, anyway, you will let me play with you here in New York as much as I can? Oh, come on, let’s go for a walk—let’s—let’s go to a show.”
“I’m awf’ly sorry, but I promised—a man’s going to call for me, and we’re going to a stupid studio party on Bryant Park. Bore, isn’t it, the day of landing? And poor Istra dreadfully landsick.”
“Oh, then,” hopefully, “don’t go. Let’s—”
“I’m sorry, Mouse dear, but I’m afraid I can’t break the date…. Fact, I must go up and primp now—”
“Don’t you care a bit?” he said, sulkily.
“Why, yes, of course. But you wouldn’t have Istra disappoint a nice Johnny after he’s bought him a cunnin’ new weskit, would you?… Good night, dear.” She smiled—the mother smile—and was gone with a lively good night to the room in general.
Nelly went up to bed early. She was tired, she said. He had no chance for a word with her. He sat on the steps outside alone a long time. Sometimes he yearned for a sight of Istra’s ivory face. Sometimes, with a fierce compassion that longed to take the burden from her, he pictured Nelly working all day in the rushing department store on which the fetid city summer would soon descend.
They did have their walk the next night, Istra and Mr. Wrenn, but Istra kept the talk to laughing burlesques of their tramp in England. Somehow—he couldn’t tell exactly why—he couldn’t seem to get in all the remarks he had inside him about how much he had missed her.
Wednesday—Thursday—Friday; he saw her only at one dinner, or on the stairs, departing volubly with clever-looking men in evening clothes to taxis waiting before the house.