“Thank you.”
She glanced back in the half dark hall from her door—some fifteen feet from his. He was scratching at the wall-paper with a diffident finger, hopeful for a talk.
“Won’t you come in?” she said, hesitatingly.
“Oh, thank you, but I guess I hadn’t better.”
Suddenly she flashed out the humanest of smiles, her blue-gray eyes crinkling with cheery friendship. “Come in, come in, child.” As he hesitatingly entered she warbled: “Needn’t both be so lonely all the time, after all, need we? Even if you don’t like poor Istra. You don’t—do you?” Seemingly she didn’t expect an answer to her question, for she was busy lighting a Russian cigarette. It was the first time in his life that he had seen a woman smoke.
With embarrassed politeness he glanced away from her as she threw back her head and inhaled deeply. He blushingly scrutinized the room.
In the farther corner two trunks stood open. One had the tray removed, and out of the lower part hung a confusion of lacey things from which he turned away uncomfortable eyes. He recognized the black-and-gold burnoose, which was tumbled on the bed, with a nightgown of lace insertions and soft wrinkles in the lawn, a green book with a paper label bearing the title Three Plays for Puritans, a red slipper, and an open box of chocolates.
On the plain kitchen-ware table was spread a cloth of Reseda green, like a dull old leaf in color. On it lay a gold-mounted fountain-pen, huge and stub-pointed; a medley of papers and torn envelopes, a bottle of Creme Yvette, and a silver-framed portrait of a lean smiling man with a single eye-glass.
Mr. Wrenn did not really see all these details, but he had an impression of luxury and high artistic success. He considered the Yvette flask the largest bottle of perfume he’d ever seen; and remarked that there was “some guy’s picture on the table.” He had but a moment to reconnoiter, for she was astonishingly saying:
“So you were lonely when I knocked?”