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Once or twice he knew that he was visioning the girl in soft brown whom he would "go home to," and who, in a Lazydays suburban residence, would play just such music for him and the friends who lived near by. She would be as clever as Istra, but "oh, more so's you can go regular places with her."... Often he got good ideas about letters South, to be jotted down on envelope backs, from that music.
Carl himself, being anything but bored, was as faithfully devoted as the least enterprising of moral young men, He forgot Gertie, did not write to Istra Nash the artist, and when the VanZile office got a new telephone-girl, a tall, languorous brunette with shadowy eyes and fine cheeks, he did not even smile at her. But was Ruth so bound? She still refused to admit even that she could fall in love.
The third night, as he stood at the window watching two children playing in the dusk, there was a knock. It was Istra. She stood at his door, smart and inconspicuous in a black suit with a small toque that hid the flare of her red hair. "Come," she said, abruptly. "I want you to take me to Olympia's Olympia Johns' flat. I've been reading all the Balzac there is. I want to talk. Can you come?"
Nelly and Miss Proudfoot and Tom Poppins began discussing shoe-stores, all at once and very rapidly, while hot and uncomfortable Mr. Wrenn tried to think of something to say.... Good Lord, suppose Istra "queered" him at Mrs. Arty's!... Then he was angry at himself and all of them for not appreciating her. How exquisite she looked, with her tired white face!
Wrenn was able to understand that she was trying to be a kindly big sister to him, and he said "Good night, Istra," and smiled in a lively way and walked out.
What though he was a bunny-faced man with an innocuous mustache? Istra would be awakening hungry. That was why he bullied you into selling him a stew-pan and a bundle of faggots along with the tea and eggs and a bread loaf and a jar of the marmalade your husband's farm had been making these two hundred years. And you should have had coffee for him, not tea, woman of Essex.
DEAR ISTRA, I am back in New York feeling very well & hope this finds you the same. I have been wanting to write to you for quite a while now but there has not been much news of any kind & so I have not written to you. But now I am back working for the Souvenir Company.
Istra didn't seem so much to mind the fact that the table-cloth was coarse and the water-glasses thick, and that everywhere the elbow ran into a superfluity of greasy pepper and salt castors. But when she raised her head wearily to peer around the room she started, glared at Mr. Wrenn, and accused: "Are you by any chance aware of the fact that this place is crowded with tourists?
He was sulky about it. He saw much trouble ahead. "Why, yes, I suppose there is." "Mouse dear!" Istra plumped down on a trunk in the confused billows of incoming baggage, customs officials, and indignant passengers that surged about them on the rough floor of the vast dock-house. She stared up at him with real sorrow in her fine eyes. "Why, Mouse! I thought you'd be glad to see me.
But they saw Istra and I wanted to be alone and they beat it. This is really dawn but I'll date it May 14, which is yesterday. No sleep for me to-night, I'm afraid. Going to fly around NY in aerial derby this afternoon. Must get plenty sleep now. May 15: Won derby, not much of an event though. Struck rotten currents over Harlem River, machine rolled like a whale-back. Istra out here to-morrow.
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