"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--
"Mouse dear," she said, hesitatingly, "the reason why I wanted to have you come out here, why I couldn"t sleep, I wanted to tell you how ashamed I am for having been peevish, being petulant, last night. I"m so sorry, because you were very patient with me, you were very good to me. I don"t want you to think of me just as a crochety woman who didn"t appreciate you.
You are very kind, and when I hear that you"re married to some nice girl I"ll be as happy as can be."
"Oh, Istra," he cried, grasping her arm, "I don"t want any girl in the world--I mean--oh, I just want to be let go "round with you when you"ll let me--"
"No, no, dear. You must have seen last night; that"s impossible.
Please don"t argue about it now; I"m too tired. I just wanted to tell you I appreciated--And when you get back to America you won"t be any the worse for playing around with poor Istra because she told you about different things from what you"ve played with, about rearing children as individuals and painting in _tempera_ and all those things? And--and I don"t want you to get too fond of me, because we"re--different....
But we have had an adventure, even if it was a little moist."
She paused; then, cheerily: "Well, I"m going to beat it back and try to sleep again. Good-by, Mouse dear. No, don"t come back to the Cara-advanced-serai. Play around and see the animiles. G"-by."
He watched her straight swaying figure swing across the lawn and up the steps of the half-timbered inn. He watched her enter the door before he hastened to the shops which cl.u.s.tered about the railway- station, outside of the poetic preserves of the colony proper.
He noticed, as he went, that the men crossing the green were mostly clad in Norfolk jackets and knickers, so he purchased the first pair of unrespectable un-ankle-concealing trousers he had owned since small boyhood, and a jacket of rough serge, with a gaudy buckle on the belt. Also, he actually dared an orange tie!
He wanted something for Istra at dinner--"a s"prise," he whispered under his breath, with fond babying. For the first time in his life he entered a florist"s shop.... Normally, you know, the poor of the city cannot afford flowers till they are dead, and then for but one day.... He came out with a bunch of orchids, and remembered the days when he had envied the people he had seen in florists" shops actually buying flowers. When he was almost at the Caravanserai he wanted to go back and change the orchids for simpler flowers, roses or carnations, but he got himself not to.
The linen and gla.s.sware and silver of the Caravanserai were almost as coa.r.s.e as those of a temperance hotel, for all the raftered ceiling and the etchings in the dining-room. Hunting up the stewardess of the inn, a bustling young woman who was reading Keats energetically at an office-like desk, Mr. Wrenn begged: "I wonder could I get some special cups and plates and stuff for high tea tonight. I got a kind of party--"
"How many?" The stewardess issued the words as though he had put a penny in the slot.
"Just two. Kind of a birthday party." Mendacious Mr. Wrenn!
"Certainly. Of course there"s a small extra charge. I have a Royal Satsuma tea-service--practically Royal Satsuma, at least--and some special Limoges."
"I think Royal Sats"ma would be nice. And some silverware?"
"Surely."
"And could we get some special stuff to eat?"
"What would you like?"
"Why--"
Mendacious Mr. Wrenn! as we have commented. He put his head on one side, rubbed his chin with nice consideration, and condescended, "What would you suggest?"
"For a party high tea? Why, perhaps consomme and omelet Bergerac and a salad and a sweet and _cafe diable_. We have a chef who does French eggs rather remarkably. That would be simple, but--"
"Yes, that would be very good," gravely granted the patron of cuisine. "At six; for two."
As he walked away he grinned within. "Gee! I talked to that omelet Berg" rac like I"d known it all my life!"
Other s"prises for Istra"s party he sought. Let"s see; suppose it really were her birthday, wouldn"t she like to have a letter from some important guy? he queried of himself. He"d write her a make-b"lieve letter from a duke. Which he did.
Purchasing a stamp, he humped over a desk in the common room and with infinite pains he inked the stamp in imitation of a postmark and addressed the letter to "Lady Istra Nash, Mouse Castle, Suffolk."
Some one sat down at the desk opposite him, and he jealously carried the task upstairs to his room. He rang for pen and ink as regally as though he had never sat at the wrong end of a buzzer. After half an hour of trying to visualize a duke writing a letter he produced this:
LADY ISTRA NASH, Mouse Castle.
DEAR MADAM,--We hear from our friend Sir William Wrenn that some folks are saying that to-day is not your birthday & want to stop your celebration, so if you should need somebody to make them believe to-day is your birthday we have sent our secretary, Sir Percival Montague. Sir William Wrenn will hide him behind his chair, and if they bother you just call for Sir Percival and he will tell them. Permit us, dear Lady Nash, to wish you all the greetings of the season, and in close we beg to remain, as ever, Yours sincerely, DUKE VERE DE VERE.
He was very tired. When he lay down for a minute, with a pillow tucked over his head, he was almost asleep in ten seconds. But he sprang up, washed his p.r.i.c.kly eyes with cold water, and began to dress. He was shy of the knickers and golf-stockings, but it was the orange tie that gave him real alarm. He dared it, though, and went downstairs to make sure they were setting the table with glory befitting the party.
As he went through the common room he watched the three or four groups scattered through it. They seemed to take his clothes as a matter of course. He was glad. He wanted so much to be a credit to Istra.
Returning from the dining-room to the common room, he pa.s.sed a group standing in a window recess and looking away from him.
He overheard:
"Who is the remarkable new person with the orange tie and the rococo buckle on his jacket belt--the one that just went through? Did you ever _see_ anything so funny! His collar didn"t come within an inch and a half of fitting his neck. He must be a poet. I wonder if his verses are as jerry-built as his garments!"
Mr. Wrenn stopped.
Another voice:
"And the beautiful lack of development of his legs! It"s like the good old cycling days, when every draper"s a.s.sistant went bank-holidaying.... I don"t know him, but I suppose he"s some tuppeny-ha"p"ny ill.u.s.trator."
"Or perhaps he has convictions about fried bananas, and dines on a bean saute. O Aengusmere! Shades of Aengus!"
"Not at all. When they look as gentle as he they always hate the capitalists as a militant hates a cabinet minister. He probably dines on the left ear of a South-African millionaire every evening before exercise at the barricades.... I say, look over there; there"s a real artist going across the green. You can tell he"s a real artist because he"s dressed like a navvy and--"
Mr. Wrenn was walking away, across the common room, quite sure that every one was eying him with amus.e.m.e.nt. And it was too late to change his clothes. It was six already.
He stuck out his jaw, and remembered that he had planned to hide the "letter from the duke" in Istra"s napkin that it might be the greater surprise. He sat down at their table. He tucked the letter into the napkin folds. He moved the vase of orchids nearer the center of the table, and the table nearer the open window giving on the green. He rebuked himself for not being able to think of something else to change. He forgot his clothes, and was happy.
At six-fifteen he summoned a boy and sent him up with a message that Mr. Wrenn was waiting and high tea ready.
The boy came back muttering, "Miss Nash left this note for you, sir, the stewardess says."
Mr. Wrenn opened the green-and-white Caravanserai letter excitedly. Perhaps Istra, too, was dressing for the party!
He loved all s"prises just then. He read:
Mouse dear, I"m sorrier than I can tell you, but you know I warrned you that bad Istra was a creature of moods, and just now my mood orders me to beat it for Paris, which I"m doing, on the 5.17 train. I won"t say good-by--I hate good-bys, they"re so stupid, don"t you think? Write me some time, better make it care Amer. Express Co., Paris, because I don"t know yet just where I"ll be. And please don"t look me up in Paris, because it"s always better to end up an affair without explanations, don"t you think? You have been wonderfully kind to me, and I"ll send you some good thought-forms, shall I?
I. N.