Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man Part 26

The Aengusmere Caravanserai is so unyieldingly cheerful and artistic that it makes the ordinary person long for a dingy old-fashioned room in which he can play solitaire and chew gum without being rebuked with exasperating patience by the wall stencils and clever etchings and polished bra.s.ses. It is adjectiferous. The common room (which is uncommon for hotel parlor) is all in superlatives and chintzes.

Istra had gone up to her room to sleep, bidding Mr. Wrenn do likewise and avoid the wrong bunch at the Caravanserai; for besides the wrong bunch of Interesting People there were, she explained, a right bunch, of working artists. But he wanted to get some new clothes, to replace his rain-wrinkled ready-mades.

He was tottering through the common room, wondering whether he could find a clothing-shop in Aengusmere, when a shrill gurgle from a wing-chair by the rough-brick fireplace halted him.

"Oh-h-h-h, _Mister_ Wrenn; Mr. _Wrenn!_" There sat Mrs. Stettinius, the poet-lady of Olympia's rooms on Great James Street.

"Oh-h-h-h, Mr. Wrenn, you _bad_ man, _do_ come sit down and tell me all _about_ your _wonderful_ trek with Istra Nash. I _just_ met _dear_ Istra in the upper hall. Poor dear, she was _so_ crumpled, but her hair was like a sunset over mountain peaks--you know, as Yeats says:

"A stormy sunset were her lips, A stormy sunset on doomed ships,

only of course this was her _hair_ and not her _lips_--and she told me that you had tramped all the _way_ from London. I've never heard of anything so romantic--or no, I won't say 'romantic'--I _do_ agree with dear Olympia--_isn't_ she a mag_nificent_ woman--_so_ fearless and progressive--didn't you _adore_ meeting her?--she is our modern Joan of Arc--such a _n.o.ble_ figure--I _do_ agree with her that _romantic_ love is _pa.s.se_, that we have entered the era of glorious companionship that regards varietism as _exactly_ as romantic as monogamy.

But--but--where was I?--I think your gipsying down from London was _most_ exciting. Now _do_ tell us all about it, Mr. Wrenn.

First, I want you to meet Miss Saxonby and Mr. Gutch and _dear_ Yilyena Dourschetsky and Mr. Howard Banc.o.c.k Binch--of course you know his poetry."

And then she drew a breath and flopped back into the wing-chair's m.u.f.fling depths.

During all this Mr. Wrenn had stood, frightened and unprotected and rain-wrinkled, before the gathering by the fireless fireplace, wondering how Mrs. Stettinius could get her nose so blue and yet so powdery. Despite her encouragement he gave no fuller account of the "gipsying" than, "Why--uh--we just tramped down," till Russian-Jewish Yilyena rolled her ebony eyes at him and insisted, "Yez, you mus' tale us about it."

Now, Yilyena had a pretty neck, colored like a cigar of mild flavor, and a trick of smiling. She was accustomed to having men obey her. Mr. Wrenn stammered:

"Why--uh--we just walked, and we got caught in the rain. Say, Miss Nash was a wonder. She never peeped when she got soaked through--she just laughed and beat it like everything. And we saw a lot of quaint English places along the road--got away from all them tourists--trippers--you know."

A perfectly strange person, a heavy old man with horn spectacles and a soft shirt, who had joined the group unbidden, cleared his throat and interrupted:

"Is it not a strange paradox that in traveling, the most observant of all pursuits, one should have to encounter the eternal bourgeoisie!"

From the c.o.c.kney Greek chorus about the unlighted fire:

"Yes!"

"Everywhere."

"Uh--" began Mr. Gutch. He apparently had something to say.

But the chorus went on:

"And just as swelteringly monogamic in Port Said as in Brum."

"Yes, that's so."

"Mr. Wr-r-renn," thrilled Mrs. Stettinius, the lady poet, "didn't you notice that they were perfectly oblivious of all economic movements; that their observations never post-dated ruins?"

"I guess they wanted to make sure they were admirin' the right things," ventured Mr. Wrenn, with secret terror.

"Yes, that's so," came so approvingly from the Greek chorus that the personal pupil of Mittyford, Ph.D., made his first epigram:

"It isn't so much what you like as what you don't like that shows if you're wise."

"Yes," they gurgled; and Mr. Wrenn, much pleased with himself, smiled _au prince_ upon his new friends.

Mrs. Stettinius was getting into her stride for a few remarks upon the poetry of industrialism when Mr. Gutch, who had been "Uh--"ing for some moments, trying to get in his remark, winked with sly rudeness at Miss Saxonby and observed:

"I fancy romance isn't quite dead yet, y' know. Our friends here seem to have had quite a ro-mantic little journey." Then he winked again.

"Say, what do you mean?" demanded Bill Wrenn, hot-eyed, fists clenched, but very quiet.

"Oh, I'm not _blaming_ you and Miss Nash--quite the reverse!"

t.i.ttered the Gutch person, wagging his head sagely.

Then Bill Wrenn, with his fist at Mr. Gutch's nose, spoke his mind:

"Say, you white-faced unhealthy dirty-minded lump, I ain't much of a fighter, but I'm going to muss you up so's you can't find your ears if you don't apologize for those insinuations."

"Oh, Mr. Wrenn--"

"He didn't mean--"

"I didn't mean--"

"He was just spoofing--"

"I was just spoofing--"

Bill Wrenn, watching the dramatization of himself as hero, was enjoying the drama. "You apologize, then?"

"Why certainly, Mr. Wrenn. Let me explain--"

"Oh, don't explain," snortled Miss Saxonby.

"Yes!" from Mr. Banc.o.c.k Binch, "explanations are _so_ conventional, old chap."

Do you see them?--Mr. Wrenn, self-conscious and ready to turn into a blind belligerent Bill Wrenn at the first disrespect; the talkers sitting about and a.s.sa.s.sinating all the princes and proprieties and, poor things, taking Mr. Wrenn quite seriously because he had uncovered the great truth that the important thing in sight-seeing is not to see sights. He was most unhappy, Mr. Wrenn was, and wanted to be away from there.

He darted as from a spring when he heard Istra's voice, from the edge of the group, calling, "Come here a sec', Billy."

She was standing with a chair-back for support, tired but smiling.

"I can't get to sleep yet. Don't you want me to show you some of the buildings here?"

"Oh _yes!_"

"If Mrs. Stettinius can spare you!"

This by way of remarking on the fact that the female poet was staring volubly.