Mr. Wrenn fled back to Tom Poppins’s store.  On the way he was shocked to find himself relieved at having parted with Morton.  The cigar-store was closed.

At home Mrs. Zapp waylaid him for his rent (a day overdue), and he was very curt.  That was to keep back the “O God, how rotten I feel!” with which, in his room, he voiced the desolation of loneliness.

The ghost of Morton, dead and forgotten, was with him all next day, till he got home and unbelievably found on the staid black-walnut Zapp hat-rack a letter from Paris, in a gray foreign-appearing envelope with Istra’s intensely black scrawl on it.

He put off the luxury of opening the letter till after the rites of brushing his teeth, putting on his slippers, pounding his rocking-chair cushion into softness.  Panting with the joy to come, he stared out of the window at a giant and glorious figure of Istra—­the laughing Istra of breakfast camp-fire—­which towered from the street below.  He sighed joyously and read: 

Mouse dear, just a word to let you know I haven’t forgotten you and am very glad indeed to get your letters.  Not much to write about.  Frightfully busy with work and fool parties.  You are a dear good soul and I hope you’ll keep on writing me.  In haste,
                                                       I. N.
Longer letter next time.

He came to the end so soon.  Istra was gone again.

CHAPTER XIV

HE ENTERS SOCIETY

England, in all its Istra-ness, scarce gave Mr. Wrenn a better thrill for his collection than the thrill he received on the November evening when he saw the white doorway of Mrs. R. T. Ferrard, in a decorous row of houses on Thirtieth Street near Lexington Avenue.

It is a block where the citizens have civic pride.  A newspaper has not the least chance of lying about on the asphalt—­some householder with a frequently barbered mustache will indignantly pounce upon it inside of an hour.  No awe. is caused by the sight of vestibules floored with marble in alternate black and white tiles, scrubbed not by landladies, but by maids.  There are dotted Swiss curtains at the basement windows and Irish point curtains on the first floors.  There are two polished brass doorplates in a stretch of less than eight houses.  Distinctly, it is not a quarter where children fill the street with shouting and little sticks.

Occasionally a taxicab drives up to some door without a crowd of small boys gathering; and young men in evening clothes are not infrequently seen to take out young ladies wearing tight-fitting gowns of black, and light scarfs over their heads.  A Middle Western college fraternity has a club-house in the block, and four of the houses are private—­one of them belonging to a police inspector and one to a school principal who wears spats.

It is a block that is satisfied with itself; as different from the Zapp district, where landladies in gingham run out to squabble with berry-venders, as the Zapp district is from the Ghetto.