On a couch of glossy red leather with glossy black buttons and stiff fringes also of glossy red leather, Mr. William Wrenn sat upright and was very confiding to Miss Nelly Croubel, who was curled among the satin pillows with her skirts drawn carefully about her ankles. He had been at Mrs. Arty's for two weeks now. He wore a new light-blue tie, and his trousers were pressed like sheet steel.
"Yes, I suppose you're engaged to some one, Miss Nelly, and you'll go off and leave us--go off to that blamed Upton's Grove or some place."
"I am not engaged. I've told you so. Who would want to marry me? You stop teasing me--you're mean as can be; I'll just have to get Tom to protect me!"
"Course you're engaged."
"Ain't."
"Are."
"Ain't. Who would want to marry poor little me?"
"Why, anybody, of course."
"You stop teasing me.... Besides, probably you're in love with twenty girls."
"I am not. Why, I've never hardly known but just two girls in my life. One was just a girl I went to theaters with once or twice--she was the daughter of the landlady I used to have before I came here."
"If you don't make love to the landlady's daughter You won't get a second piece of pie!"
quoted Nelly, out of the treasure-house of literature.
"Sure. That's it. But I bet you--"
"Who was the other girl?"
"Oh! She.... She was a--an artist. I liked her--a lot. But she was--oh, awful highbrow. Gee! if--But--"
A sympathetic silence, which Nelly broke with: "Yes, they're funny people. Artists.... Do you have your lesson in Five Hundred tonight? Your very first one?"
"I think so. Say, is it much like this here bridge-whist? Oh say, Miss Nelly, why do they call it Five Hundred?"
"That's what you have to make to go out. No, I guess it isn't very much like bridge; though, to tell the truth, I haven't ever played bridge. . My! it must be a nice game, though."
"Oh, I thought prob'ly you could play it. You can do 'most everything. Honest, I've never seen nothing like it."
"Now you stop, Mr. Wrenn. I know I'm a--what was it Mr. Teddem used to call me? A minx. But--"
"Miss Nelly! You aren't a minx!"
"Well--"
"Or a mink, either. You're a--let's see--an antelope."
"I am not! Even if I can wriggle my nose like a rabbit. Besides, it sounds like a muskmelon. But, anyway, the head buyer said I was crazy to-day."
"If I heard him say you were crazy--"
"Would you beat him for me?" She cuddled a cushion and smiled gratefully. Her big eyes seemed to fill with light.