never knew there was such red lips. And an artist--paints
pictures!... Read a lot--Nitchy--German musical comedy. Wonder
if that's that `Merry Widow' thing?... That gray dress of hers
makes me think of fog. Cur'ous."
In her room Istra Nash inspected her nose in a mirror, powdered,
and sat down to write, on thick creamy paper:
Skilly dear, I'm in a fierce Bloomsbury boarding-house--bores
--except for a Phe-nomenon--little man of 35 or 40 with
embryonic imagination & a virgin soul. I'll try to keep from
planting radical thoughts in the virgin soul, but I'm tempted.
Oh Skilly dear I'm lonely as the devil. Would it be too bromid.
to say I wish you were here? I put out my hand in the darkness,
& yours wasn't there. My dear, my dear, how desolate---- Oh you
understand it only too well with your supercilious grin & your
superior eye-glasses & your beatific Oxonian ignorance of poor
eager America.
I suppose I _am_ just a barbarous Californian kiddy. It's just
as Pere Dureon said at the atelier, "You haf a' onderstanding of
the 'igher immorality, but I 'ope you can cook--paint you cannot."
He wins. I can't sell a single thing to the art editors here or
get one single order. One horrid eye-glassed earnest youth who
Sees People at a magazine, he vouchsafed that they "didn't use
any Outsiders." Outsiders! And his hair was nearly as red as my
wretched mop. So I came home & howled & burned Milan tapers
before your picture. I did. Though you don't deserve it.
Oh damn it, am I getting sentimental? You'll read this at Petit
Monsard over your drip & grin at your poor unnietzschean barbarian.
I. N.
CHAPTER VIII
HE TIFFINS
Mr. Wrenn, chewing and chewing and chewing the cud of thought in
his room next evening, after an hour had proved two things; thus:
(a) The only thing he wanted to do was to go back to America at
once, because England was a country where every one--native or
American--was so unfriendly and so vastly wise that he could
never understand them.
(b) The one thing in the world that he wanted to do was to be
right here, for the most miraculous event of which he had ever
heard was meeting Miss Nash. First one, then the other, these
thoughts swashed back and forth like the swinging tides. He got
away from them only long enough to rejoice that somehow--he
didn't know how -- he was going to be her most intimate friend,
because they were both Americans in a strange land and because
they both could make-believe.
Then he was proving that Istra would, and would not, be the
perfect comrade among women when some one knocked at his door.
Electrified, his cramped body shot up from its crouch, and he
darted to the door.
Istra Nash stood there, tapping her foot on the sill with
apologetic haste in her manner. Abruptly she said:
"So sorry to bother you. I just wondered if you could let me
have a match? I'm all out."
"Oh _yes!_ Here's a whole box. Please take 'em. I got plenty
more." [Which was absolutely untrue.]
"Thank you. S' good o' you," she said, hurriedly. "G' night."
She turned away, but he followed her into the hall, bashfully
urging: "Have you been to another show? Gee! I hope you draw
a better one next time 'n the one about the guy with the nephew."
"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.
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?"
"Why, how----"
"Oh, I could see it. We all get lonely, don't we? I do, of
course. Just now I'm getting sorer and sorer on Interesting
People. I think I'll go back to Paris. There even the
Interesting People are--why, they're interesting. Savvy--you
see I _am_ an American--savvy?"
"Why--uh--uh--uh--I d-don't exactly get what you mean. How do
you mean about `Interesting People'?"
"My dear child, of course you don't get me." She went to the
mirror and patted her hair, then curled on the bed, with an
offhand "Won't you sit down?" and smoked elaborately, blowing
the blue tendrils toward the ceiling as she continued: "Of
course you don't get it. You're a nice sensible clerk who've
had enough real work to do to keep you from being afraid that
other people will think you're commonplace. You don't have to
coddle yourself into working enough to earn a living by talking
about temperament.
"Why, these Interesting People---- You find 'em in London and
New York and San Francisco just the same. They're convinced
they're the wisest people on earth. There's a few artists and
a bum novelist or two always, and some social workers. The
particular bunch that it amuses me to hate just now--and that I
apparently can't do without--they gather around Olympia Johns,
who makes a kind of salon out of her rooms on Great James
Street, off Theobald's Road.... They might just as well be in
New York; but they're even stodgier. They don't get sick of the
game of being on intellectual heights as soon as New-Yorkers do.
"I'll have to tak
e you there. It's a cheery sensation, you
know, to find a man who has some imagination, but who has been
unspoiled by Interesting People, and take him to hear them
wamble. They sit around and growl and rush the growler--I hope
you know growler-rushing--and rejoice that they're free spirits.
Being Free, of course, they're not allowed to go and play with
nice people, for when a person is Free, you know, he is never
free to be anything but Free. That may seem confusing, but they
understand it at Olympia's.
"Of course there's different sorts of intellectuals, and each
cult despises all the others. Mostly, each cult consists of one
person, but sometimes there's two--a talker and an audience--or
even three. For instance, you may be a militant and a
vegetarian, but if some one is a militant and has a good figure,
why then--oof!... That's what I mean by `Interesting People.'
I loathe them! So, of course, being one of them, I go from one
bunch to another, and, upon my honor, every single time I think
that the new bunch _is_ interesting!"
Then she smoked in gloomy silence, while Mr. Wrenn remarked,
after some mental labor, "I guess they're like cattlemen--the
cattle-ier they are, the more romantic they look, and then when
you get to know them the chief trouble with them is that they're
cattlemen."
"Yes, that's it. They're-- why, they're---- Oh, poor dear, there,
there, there! It _sha'n't_ have so much intellekchool discussion,
_shall_ it!... I think you're a very nice person, and I'll tell you
what we'll do. We'll have a small fire, shall we? In the fireplace."
"Yes!"
She pulled the old- fashioned bell-cord, and the old-fashioned
North Country landlady came--tall, thin, parchment- faced,
musty- looking as though she had been dressed up in Victorian
garments in 1880 and left to stand in an unaired parlo r ever since.
She glowered silent disapproval at the presence of Mr. Wrenn in
Istra's room, but sent a slavey to make the fire-- "saxpence uxtry."
Mr. Wrenn felt guilty till the coming of the slavey, a perfect
Christmas-story-book slavey, a small and merry lump of soot, who
sang out, "Chilly t'-night, ayn't it?" and made a fire that was
soon singing "Chilly t'- night," like the slavey.
Istra sat on the floor before the fire, Turk-wise, her quick
delicate fingers drumming excitedly on her knees.
"Come sit by me. You, with your sense of the romantic, ought to
appreciate sitting by the fire. You know it's always done."
He slumped down by her, clasping his knees and trying to appear
the dignified American business man in his country- house.
She smiled at him intimately, and quizzed:
"Tell me about the last time you sat with a girl by the fire.
Tell poor Istra the dark secret. Was she the perfect among
pink faces?"
"I've -- never -- sat -- before -- any --fireplace --with
--any--one! Except when I was about nine--one Hallowe'en--at a
party in Parthenon--little town up York State."
"Really? Poor kiddy!"
She reached out her hand and took his. He was terrifically
conscious of the warm smoothness of her fingers playing a soft
tattoo on the back of his ha nd, while she said:
"But you have been in love? Drefful in love?"
"I never have."
"Dear child, you've missed so much of the tea and cakes of life,
haven't you? And you have an interest in life. Do you know,
when I think of the jaded Interesting People I've met---- Why do
I leave you to be spoiled by some shop-girl in a flowered hat?
She'd drag you to moving-picture shows.... Oh! You didn't tell
me that you went to moving pictures, did you?"
"No!" he lied, fervently, then, feeling guilty, "I used to, but
no more."
"It _shall_ go to the nice moving pictures if it wants to! It
shall take me, too. We'll forget there are any syndicalists or
broken-colorists for a while, won't we? We'll let the robins
cover us with leaves."
"You mean like the babes in the woods? But, say, I'm afraid you
ain't just a babe in the woods! You're the first person with
brains I ever met, 'cept, maybe, Dr. Mittyford; and the Doc never
would play games, I don't believe. The very first one, really."
"Thank you!" Her warm pressure on his hand tightened. His heart
was making the maddest gladdest leaps, and timidly, with a
feeling of historic daring, he ventured to explore with his
thumb-tip the fine lines of the side of her hand.... It
actually was he, sitting here with a princess, and he actually
did feel the softness of her hand, he pantingly assured himself.
Suddenly she gave his hand a parting pressure and sprang up.
"Come. We'll have tiffin, and then I'll send you away, and
to-morrow we'll go see the Tate Gallery."
While Istra was sending the slavey for cakes and a pint of light
wine Mr. Wrenn sat in a chair--just sat in it; he wanted to show
that he could be dignified and not take advantage of Miss Nash's
kindness by slouchin' round. Having read much Kipling, he had
an idea that tiffin was some kind of lunch in the afternoon, but
of course if Miss Nash used the word for evening supper, then he
had been wrong.
Istra whisked the writing-table with the Reseda- green cover over
before the fire, chucked its papers on the bed, and placed a
bunch of roses on one end, moving the small blue vase two inches
to the right, then two inches forward.
The wine she poured into a decanter. Wine was distinctly a
problem to him. He was excited over his sudden rise into a
society where one took wine as a matter of course. Mrs. Zapp
wouldn't take it as a matter of course. He rejoiced that he
wasn't narrow-minded, like Mrs. Zapp. He worked so hard at not
being narrow- minded like Mrs. Zapp that he started when he was
called out of his day-dream by a mocking voice:
"But you might look at the cakes. Just once, anyway.
They are very nice cakes."
"Uh----"
"Yes, I know the wine is wine. Beastly of it."
"Say, Miss Nash, I did get you this time."
"Oh, don't tell me that my presiding goddessship is over already."
"Uh--sure! Now I'm going to be a cruel boss."
"Dee- lighted! Are you going to be a caveman?"
"I'm sorry. I don't quite get you on that."
"That's too bad, isn't it. I think I'd rather like to meet a caveman."
"Oh say, I know about that caveman--Jack London's guys. I'm
afraid I ain't one. Still -- on the cattle-boat---- Say, I wish
you could of seen it when the gang were tying up the bulls,
before starting. Dark close place 'tween-decks, with the steers
bellowin' and all parked tight together, and the stiffs gettin'
seasick--so seasick we just kind of staggered around; and we'd
get hold of a head rope and yank and then let go, and the
bosses, d yell, `Pull, or I'll brain you.' And then the
fo'c'sle--men packed in like herrings."
She was leaning over the table, making a labyrinth with the
currants from a cake and li
stening intently. He stopped
politely, feeling that he was talking too much. But, "Go on,
please do," she commanded, and he told simply, seeing it more
and more, of Satan and the Grenadier, of the fairies who had
beckoned to him from the Irish coast hills, and the comradeship
of Morton.
She interrupted only once, murmuring, "My dear, it's a good
thing you're articulate, anyway----" which didn't seem to have
any bearing on hay-bales.
She sent him away with a light "It's been a good party, hasn't
it, caveman? (If you _are_ a caveman.) Call for me tomorrow at
three. We'll go to the Tate Gallery."
She touched his hand in the fleetingest of grasps.
"Yes. Good night, Miss Nash," he quavered.
A morning of planning his conduct so that in accompanying Istra
Nash to the Tate Gallery he might be the faithful shadow and
beautiful transcript of Mittyford, Ph.D. As a result, when he
stood before the large canvases of Mr. Watts at the Tate he was
so heavy and correctly appreciative, so ready not to enjoy the
stories in the pictures of Millais, that Istra suddenly demanded:
"Oh, my dear child, I have taken a great deal on my hands.
You've got to learn to play. You don't know how to play. Come.
I shall teach you. I don't know why I should, either. But--come."
She explained as they left the gallery: "First, the art of
riding on the buses. Oh, it is an art, you know. You must
appreciate the flower-girls and the gr-r-rand young bobbies.
You must learn to watch for the blossoms on the restaurant
terraces and roll on the grass in the parks. You're much too
respectable to roll on the grass, aren't you? I'll try ever so
hard to teach you not to be. And we'll go to tea. How many
kinds of tea are there?"
"Oh, Ceylon and English Breakfast and--oh--Chinese."
"B----"
"And golf tees!" he added, excitedly, as they took a seat in
front atop the bus.
"Puns are a beginning at least," she reflected.
"But how many kinds of tea _are_ there, Istra?... Oh say, I
hadn't ought to----"
"Course; call me Istra or anything else. Only, you mustn't call
my bluff. What do I know about tea? All of us who play are
bluffers, more or less, and we are ever so polite in pretend ing
not to know the others are bluffing.... There's lots of kinds
of tea. In the New York Chinatown I saw once---- Do you know
Chinatown? Being a New-Yorker, I don't suppose you do."