“Oh, I do want some of those chocolates.  Will you let me change my mind?  Please do.”

“Yes ma’am, you sure can!” said broad Tom, all one pleased chuckle, poking out the two bags.

Istra stopped beside the Five-Hundred table to smile in a lordly way down at Mrs. Arty and say, quite humanly: 

“I’m so sorry I can’t play a decent game of cards.  I’m afraid I’m too stupid to learn.  You are very lucky, I think.”

Mr. Wrenn on the couch was horribly agitated....  Wasn’t Istra coming back?

She was.  She detached herself from the hubbub of invitations to learn to play Five Hundred and wandered back to the couch, murmuring:  “Was bad Istra good?  Am I forgiven?  Mouse dear, I didn’t mean to be rude to your friends.”

As the bubbles rise through water in a cooking-pot, as the surface writhes, and then, after the long wait, suddenly the water is aboil, so was the emotion of Mr. Wrenn now that Istra, the lordly, had actually done something he suggested.

“Istra—­” That was all he could say, but from his eyes had gone all reserve.

Her glance back was as frank as his—­only it had more of the mother in it; it was like a kindly pat on the head; and she was the mother as she mused: 

“So you have missed me, then?”

“Missed you—­”

“Did you think of me after you came here?  Oh, I know—­I was forgotten; poor Istra abdicates to the pretty pink-face.”

“Oh, Istra, don’t.  I—­can’t we just go out for a little walk so—­so we can talk?”

“Why, we can talk here.”

“Oh, gee!—­there’s so many people around....  Golly! when I came back to America—­gee!—­I couldn’t hardly sleep nights—­”

From across the room came the boisterous, somewhat coarse-timbred voice of Tom, speaking to Nelly: 

“Oh yes, of course you think you’re the only girl that ever seen a vodville show. We ain’t never seen a vodville show.  Oh no!”

Nelly and Miss Proudfoot dissolved in giggles at the wit.

Mr. Wrenn gazed at them, detached; these were not his people, and with startled pride he glanced at Istra’s face, delicately carven by thought, as he stumbled hotly on.

“—­just couldn’t sleep nights at all....  Then I got on the job....”

“Let’s see, you’re still with that same company?”

“Yes.  Souvenir and Art Novelty Company.  And I got awfully on the job there, and so I managed to forget for a little while and—­”

“So you really do like me even after I was so beastly to you in England.”

“Oh, that wasn’t nothing....  But I was always thinking of you, even when I was on the job—­”

“It’s gratifying to have some one continue taking me seriously....  Really, dear, I do appreciate it.  But you mustn’t—­you mustn’t—­”

“Oh, gee!  I just can’t get over it—­you here by me—­ain’t it curious!...  “Then he persisted with the tale of his longing, which she had so carefully interrupted:  “The people here are awful kind and good, and you can bank on ’em.  But—­oh—­”