Sitting alone, all excited happiness, Mr. Wrenn muttered: “Ain’t she a wonder! Gee! she’s striking-lookin’! Gee whittakers!”
Some hours later he said aloud, tossing about in bed: “I wonder if I was too fresh. I hope I wasn’t. I ought to be careful.”
He was so worried about it that he got up and smoked a cigarette, remembered that he was breaking still another rule by smoking too much, then got angry and snapped defiantly at his suit-case: “Well, what do I care if I am smoking too much? And I’ll be as fresh as I want to.” He threw a newspaper at the censorious suit-case and, much relieved, went to bed to dream that he was a rabbit making enormously amusing jests, at which he laughed rollickingly in half-dream, till he realized that he was being awakened by the sound of long sobs from the room of Istra Nash.
Afternoon; Mr. Wrenn in his room. Miss Nash was back from tea, but there was not a sound to be heard from her room, though he listened with mouth open, bent forward in his chair, his hands clutching the wooden seat, his finger-tips rubbing nervously back and forth over the rough under-surface of the wood. He wanted to help her—the wonderful lady who had been sobbing in the night. He had a plan, in which he really believed, to say to her, “Please let me help you, princess, jus’ like I was a knight.”
At last he heard her moving about. He rushed downstairs and waited on the stoop.
When she came out she glanced down and smiled contentedly. He was flutteringly sure that she expected to see him there. But all his plan of proffering assistance vanished as he saw her impatient eyes and her splendors of dress—another tight-fitting gown, of smoky gray, with faint silvery lights gliding along the fabric.
She sat on the rail above him, immediately, unhesitatingly, and answered his “Evenin’” cheerfully.
He wanted so much to sit beside her, to be friends with her. But, he felt, it took courage to sit beside her. She was likely to stare haughtily at him. However, he did go up to the rail and sit, shyly kicking his feet, beside her, and she did not stare haughtily. Instead she moved over an inch or two, glanced at him almost as though they were sharing a secret, and said, quietly:
“I thought quite a bit about you last evening. I believe you really have an imagination, even though you are a salesman—I mean so many don’t; you know how it is.”
“Oh yes.”