Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man Part 20

"Why, yes. Of course. Talking sideways. Don't you see now?"

Gallant gentleman as he was, he let her think she had invented the phrase.

She said many other things; things implying such vast learning that he made gigantic resolves to "read like thunder."

Her great lesson was the art of taking tea. He found, surprisedly, that they weren't really going to endanger their clothes by rolling on park gra.s.s. Instead, she led him to a tea-room behind a candy-shop on Tottenham Court Road, a low room with white wicker chairs, colored tiles set in the wall, and green Sedji-ware jugs with irregular bunches of white roses.

A waitress with wild-rose cheeks and a busy step brought Orange Pekoe and lemon for her, Ceylon and Russian Caravan tea and a jug of clotted cream for him, with a pile of cinnamon buns.

"But--" said Istra. "Isn't this like Alice in Wonderland!

But you must learn the b.u.t.tering of English m.u.f.fins most of all.

If you get to be very good at it the flunkies will let you take tea at the Carleton. They are such hypercritical flunkies, and the one that brings the gold b.u.t.ter-measuring rod to test your skill, why, he always wears knee-breeches of silver gray.

So you can see, Billy, how careful you have to be. And eat them without b.u.t.tering your nose. For if you b.u.t.ter your nose they'll think you're a Greek professor. And you wouldn't like that, would you, honey?" He learned how to pat the b.u.t.ter into the comfortable brown insides of the m.u.f.fins that looked so cold and floury without. But Istra seemed to have lost interest; and he didn't in the least follow her when she observed:

"Doubtless it _was_ the best b.u.t.ter. But where, where, dear dormouse, are the hatter and hare? Especially the sweet bunny rabbit that wriggled his ears and loved Gralice, the _princesse d' outre-mer._

"Where, where are the hatter and hare, And where is the best b.u.t.ter gone?"

Presently: "Come on. Let's beat it down to Soho for dinner.

Or--no! Now you shall lead me. Show me where you'd go for dinner. And you shall take me to a music-hall, and make me enjoy it. Now _you_ teach _me_ to play."

"Gee! I'm afraid I don't know a single thing to teach you."

"Yes, but--See here! We are two lonely Western barbarians in a strange land. We'll play together for a little while. We're not used to each other's sort of play, but that will break up the monotony of life all the more. I don't know how long we'll play or--Shall we?"

"Oh yes!"

"Now show me how you play."

"I don't believe I ever did much, really."

"Well, you shall take me to your kind of a restaurant."

"I don't believe you'd care much for penny meat-pies."

"Little meat-pies?"

"Um-huh."

"Little _crispy_ ones? With flaky covers?"

"Um-huh."

"Why, course I would! And ha'p'ny tea? Lead me to it, O brave knight! And to a vaudeville."

He found that this devoted attendant of theaters had never seen the beautiful Italians who pounce upon protesting zylophones with small clubs, or the side-splitting juggler's a.s.sistant who breaks up piles and piles of plates. And as to the top hat that turns into an accordion and produces much melody, she was ecstatic.

At after-theater supper he talked of Theresa and South Beach, of Charley Carpenter and Morton--Morton--Morton.

They sat, at midnight, on the steps of the house in Tavistock Place.

"I do know you now, "she mused. "It's curious how any two babes in a strange-enough woods get acquainted. You _are_ a lonely child, aren't you?" Her voice was mother-soft. "We will play just a little--"

"I wish I had some games to teach. But you know so much."

"And I'm a perfect beauty, too, aren't I?" she said, gravely.

"Yes, you are!" stoutly.

"You would be loyal.... And I need some one's admiration....

Mostly, Paris and London hold their sides laughing at poor Istra."

He caught her hand. "Oh, don't! They _must_ 'preciate you.

I'd like to kill anybody that didn't!"

"Thanks." She gave his hand a return pressure and hastily withdrew her own. "You'll be good to some sweet pink face....

And I'll go on being discontented. Oh, isn 't life the fiercest proposition!... We seem different, you and I, but maybe it's mostly surface--down deep we're alike in being desperately unhappy because we never know what we're unhappy about. Well--"

He wanted to put his head down on her knees and rest there. But he sat still, and presently their cold hands snuggled together.

After a silence, in which they were talking of themselves, he burst out: "But I don't see how Paris could help 'preciating you. I'll bet you're one of the best artists they ever saw....

The way you made up a picture in your mind about that juggler!"

"Nope. Sorry. Can't paint at all."

"Ah, stuff!" with a rudeness quite masterful. "I'll bet your pictures are corkers."

"Um."

"Please, would you let me see some of them some time. I suppose it would bother--"

"Come up-stairs. I feel inspired. You are about to hear some great though nasty criticisms on the works of the unfortunate Miss Nash."

She led the way, laughing to herself over something. She gave him no time to blush and hesitate over the impropriety of entering a lady's room at midnight, but stalked ahead with a brief "Come in."

She opened a large portfolio covered with green-veined black paper and yanked out a dozen unframed pastels and wash-drawings which she scornfully tossed on the bed, saying, as she pointed to a ma.s.s of Ma.r.s.eilles roofs:

"Do you see this sketch? The only good thing about it is the thing that last art editor, that red-headed youth, probably didn't like. Don't you hate red hair? You see these ridiculous glaring purple shadows under the _clocher?_"

She stared down at the picture interestedly, forgetting him, pinching her chin thoughtfully, while she murmured: "They're rather nice. Rather good. Rather good."

Then, quickly twisting her shoulders about, she poured out:

"But look at this. Consider this arch. It's miserably out of drawing. And see how I've faked this figure? It isn't a real person at all. Don't you notice how I've juggled with this stairway? Why, my dear man, every bit of the drawing in this thing would disgrace a seventh-grade drawing-cla.s.s in Dos Puentes. And regard the bunch of lombardies in this other picture. They look like umbrellas upside down in a silly wash-basin. Uff! It's terrible. _Affreux!_ Don't act as though you liked them. You really needn't, you know. Can't you see now that they're hideously out of drawing?"

Mr. Wrenn's fancy was walking down a green lane of old France toward a white cottage with orange-trees gleaming against its walls. In her pictures he had found the land of all his forsaken dreams.