"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 take 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 parlor 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 hand, 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."