Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man Part 44

"And you did mind it, didn't you?"

"Why, I didn't think you were so very nice about it--when I'd tried so hard to have you have a good time--"

"Oh, Nelly, I'm so sorry--"

There was tragedy in his voice. His shoulders, which he always tried to keep as straight as though they were in a vise when he walked with her, were drooping.

She touched his glove. "Oh don't, Billy; it's all right now.

I understand. Let's forget--"

"Oh, you're too good to me!"

Silence.

As they crossed Twenty-third on Fifth Avenue she took his arm.

He squeezed her hand. Suddenly the world was all young and beautiful and wonderful. It was the first time in his life that he had ever walked thus, with the arm of a girl for whom he cared cuddled in his. He glanced down at her cheap white furs.

Snowflakes, tremulous on the fur, were turned into diamond dust in the light from a street-lamp which showed as well a tiny place where her collar had been torn and mended ever so carefully. Then, in a millionth of a second, he who had been a wanderer in the lonely gray regions of a detached man's heart knew the pity of love, all its emotion, and the infinite care for the beloved that makes a man of a rusty sales-clerk.

He lifted a face of adoration to the misty wonder of the bare trees, whose tracery of twigs filled Madison Square; to the Metropolitan Tower, with its vast upward stretch toward the ruddy sky of the city's winter night. All these mysteries he knew and sang. What he _said_ was:

"Gee, those trees look like a reg'lar picture!... The Tower just kind of fades away. Don't it?"

"Yes, it is pretty," she said, doubtfully, but with a pressure of his arm.

Then they talked like a summer-time brook, planning that he was to buy a Christmas bough of evergreen, which she would smuggle to breakfast in the morning. Through their chatter persisted the new intimacy which had been born in the pain of their misunderstanding.

On January 10th the ma.n.u.script of "The Millionaire's Daughter"

was returned by play-brokers Wendelbaum & Schirtz with this letter:

DEAR SIR,--We regret to say that we do not find play available.

We inclose our reader's report on the same. Also inclose bill for ten dollars for reading-fee, which kindly remit at early convenience.

He stood in the hall at Mrs. Arty's just before dinner.

He reread the letter and slowly opened the reader's report, which announced:

"Millionaire's Daughter." One-act vlle. Utterly impos.

Amateurish to the limit. Dialogue sounds like burlesque of Laura Jean Libbey. Can it.

Nelly was coming down-stairs. He handed her the letter and report, then tried to stick out his jaw. She read them. Her hand slipped into his. He went quickly toward the bas.e.m.e.nt and made himself read the letter--though not the report--to the tableful. He burned the ma.n.u.script of his play before going to bed. The next morning he waded into The Job as he never had before. He was gloomily certain that he would never get away from The Job. But he thought of Nelly a hundred times a day and hoped that sometime, some spring night of a burning moon, he might dare the great adventure and kiss her. Istra-- Theoretically, he remembered her as a great experience.

But what nebulous bodies these theories are!

That slow but absolutely accurate Five-Hundred player, Mr.

William Wrenn, known as Billy, glanced triumphantly at Miss Proudfoot, who was his partner against Mrs. Arty and James T. Duncan, the traveling-man, on that night of late February.

His was the last bid in the crucial hand of the rubber game.

The others waited respectfully. Confidently, he bid "Nine on no trump."

"Good Lord, Billl" exclaimed James T. Duncan.

"I'll make it."

And he did. He arose a victor. There was no uneasiness, but rather all the social polish of Mrs. Arty's at its best, in his manner, as he crossed to Mrs. Ebbitt's chair and asked: "How is Mr. Ebbitt to-night? Pretty rheumatic?" Miss Proudfoot offered him a lime tablet, and he accepted it judicially. "I believe these tablets are just about as good as Park & Tilford's," he said, c.o.c.king his head. "Say, Dunk, I'll match you to see who rushes a growler of beer. Tom'll be here pretty soon--store ought to be closed by now. We'll have some ready for him."

"Right, Bill," agreed James T. Duncan.

Mr. Wrenn lost. He departed, after secretively obtaining not one, but two pitchers, in one of which he got a "pint of dark"

and in the other a surprise. He bawled upstairs to Nelly, "Come on down, Nelly, can't you? Got a growler of ice-cream soda for the ladies!"

It is true that when Tom arrived and fell to conversational blows with James T. Duncan over the merits of a Tom Collins Mr.

Wrenn was not brilliant, for the reason that he took Tom Collins to be a man instead of the drink he really is.

Yet, as they went up-stairs Miss Proudfoot said to Nelly: "Mr. Wrenn is quiet, but I do think in some ways he's one of the nicest men I've seen in the house for years. And he is so earnest.

And I think he'll make a good pinochle player, besides Five Hundred."

"Yes," said Nelly.

"I think he was a little shy at first.... _I_ was always shy.... But he likes us, and I like folks that like folks."

"_Yes!_" said Nelly.

CHAPTER XVII

HE IS BLOWN BY THE WHIRLWIND

"He was blown by the whirlwind and followed a wandering flame through perilous seas to a happy sh.o.r.e."--_Quoth Francois._

On an April Monday evening, when a small moon pa.s.sed shyly over the city and the streets were filled with the sound of hurdy-gurdies and the spring cries of dancing children, Mr.

Wrenn pranced down to the bas.e.m.e.nt dining-room early, for Nelly Croubel would be down there talking to Mrs. Arty, and he gaily wanted to make plans for a picnic to occur the coming Sunday.

He had a shy unacknowledged hope that he might kiss Nelly after such a picnic; he even had the notion that he might some day--well, other fellows had been married; why not?

Miss Mary Proudfoot was mending a rent in the current table-cloth with delicate swift motions of her silvery-skinned hands. She informed him: "Mr. Duncan will be back from his Southern trip in five days. We'll have to have a grand closing progressive Five Hundred tournament." Mr. Wrenn was too much absorbed in wondering whether Miss Proudfoot would make some of her celebrated--and justly celebrated--minced-ham sandwiches for the picnic to be much interested. He was not much more interested when she said, "Mrs. Ferrard's got a letter or something for you."

Then, as dinner began, Mrs. Ferrard rushed in dramatically and said, "There's a telegram for you, Mr. Wrenn!"

Was it death? Whose death? The table panted, Mr. Wrenn with them.... That's what a telegram meant to them.