He lay awake to picture her brilliant throat and shining hair. He rebuked himself for the lack of dignity in “thinking of that freak, when she wouldn’t even return a fellow’s bow.” But her shimmering hair was the star of his dreams.
Napping in his room in the afternoon, Mr. Wrenn heard slight active sounds from her, next room. He hurried down to the stoop.
She stood behind him on the door-step, glaring up and down the street, as bored and as ready to spring as the Zoo tiger. Mr. Wrenn heard himself saying to the girl, “Please, miss, do you mind telling me—I’m an American; I’m a stranger in London—I want to go to a good play or something and what would I—what would be good—”
“I don’t know, reahlly,” she said, with much hauteur. “Everything’s rather rotten this season, I fancy.” Her voice ran fluting up and down the scale. Her a’s were very broad.
“Oh—oh—y-you are English, then?”
“Yes!”
“Why—uh—”
“Yes!”
“Oh, I just had a fool idea maybe you might be French.”
“Perhaps I am, y’ know. I’m not reahlly English,” she said, blandly.