"Oh. I see. Novelties? Nice little ash-trays with `Love from the Erie Station'? And woggly pin-cushions?"
"Yes! And fat pug-dogs with black eyes."
"Oh no-o-o! Please not black! Pale sympathetic blue eyes--nice honest blue eyes!"
"Nope. Black. Awful black.... Say, gee, I ain't talking too nutty, am I?"
"`Nutty'? You mean `idiotically'? The slang's changed since--Oh yes, of course; you've succeeded in talking quite nice and `idiotic.'"
"Oh, say, gee, I didn't mean to--When you been so nice and all to me--"
"Don't apologize!" Istra Nash demanded, savagely. "Haven't they taught you that?"
"Yes'm," he mumbled, apologetically.
She sat silent again, apparently not at all satisfied with the architecture of the opposite side of Tavistock Place. Diffidently he edged into speech: "Honest, I did think you was English. You came from California? Oh, say, I wonder if you've ever heard of Dr. Mittyford. He's some kind of school-teacher. I think he teaches in Leland Stamford College."
"Leland Stanford? You know him?" She dropped into interested familiarity.
"I met him at Oxford."
"Really?... My brother was at Stanford. I think I've heard him speak of--Oh yes. He said that Mittyford was a cultural climber, if you know what I mean; rather--oh, how shall I express it?--oh, shall we put it, finicky about things people have just told him to be finicky about."
"Yes!" glowed Mr. Wrenn.
To the luxury of feeling that he knew the unusual Miss Istra Nash he sacrificed Dr. Mittyford, scholarship and eye-glasses and Shelley and all, without mercy.
"Yes, he was awfully funny. Gee! I didn't care much for him."
"Of course you know he's a great man, however?" Istra was as bland as though she had meant that all along, which left Mr. Wrenn nowhere at all when it came to deciding what she meant.
Without warning she rose from the steps, flung at him "G' night," and was off down the street.
Sitting alone, all excited happiness, Mr. Wrenn muttered: "Ain't she a wonder! Gee! she's striking-lookin'! Gee whittakers!"
Some hours later he said aloud, tossing about in bed: "I wonder if I was too fresh. I hope I wasn't. I ought to be careful."
He was so worried about it that he got up and smoked a cigarette, remembered that he was breaking still another rule by smoking too much, then got angry and snapped defiantly at his suit-case: "Well, what do I care if I am smoking too much? And I'll be as fresh as I want to." He threw a newspaper at the censorious suit-case and, much relieved, went to bed to dream that he was a rabbit making enormously amusing jests, at which he laughed rollickingly in half-dream, till he realized that he was being awakened by the sound of long sobs from the room of Istra Nash.