It was the first time he had even peeped into her room in New York.  The old shyness was on him, and he glanced back.

Nelly was just coming up-stairs, staring at him where he stood inside the door, her lips apart with amazement.

Ladies distinctly did not entertain in their rooms at Mrs. Arty’s.

He wanted to rush out, to explain, to invite her in, to—­to—­ He stuttered in his thought, and by now Nelly had hastened past, her face turned from them.

Uneasily he tilted on the front of a cane-seated rocking-chair, glaring at a pile of books before one of Istra’s trunks.  Istra sat on the bedside nursing her knee.  She burst out: 

“O Mouse dear, I’m so bored by everybody—­every sort of everybody....  Of course I don’t mean you; you’re a good pal....  Oh—­Paris is too complex—­especially when you can’t quite get the nasal vowels—­and New York is too youthful and earnest; and Dos Puentes, California, will be plain hell....  And all my little parties—­I start out on them happily, always, as naive as a kiddy going to a birthday party, and then I get there and find I can’t even dance square dances, as the kiddy does, and go home—­Oh damn it, damn it, damn it!  Am I shocking you?  Well, what do I care if I shock everybody!”

Her slim pliant length was flung out along the bed, and she was crying.  Her beautiful hands clutched the corners of a pillow bitterly.

He crept over to the bed, patting her shoulder, slowly and regularly, too frightened of her mood even to want to kiss her.

She looked up, laughing tearfully.  “Please say, `There, there, there; don’t cry.’  It always goes with pats for weepy girls, you know....  O Mouse, you will be good to some woman some day.”

Her long strong arms reached up and drew him down.  It was his head that rested on her shoulder.  It seemed to both of them that it was he who was to be petted, not she.  He pressed his cheek against the comforting hollow of her curving shoulder and rested there, abandoned to a forlorn and growing happiness, the happiness of getting so far outside of his tight world of Wrennishness that he could give comfort and take comfort with no prim worried thoughts of Wrenn.

Istra murmured:  “Perhaps that’s what I need—­some one to need me.  Only—­” She stroked his hair.  “Now you must go, dear.”

“You—­It’s better now?  I’m afraid I ain’t helped you much.  It’s kinda t’ other way round.”

“Oh yes, indeed, it’s all right now!  Just nerves.  Nothing more.  Now, good night.”

“Please, won’t you come to the picnic to-morrow?  It’s—­”

“No.  Sorry, but can’t possibly.”

“Please think it over.”

“No, no, no, no, dear!  You go and forget me and enjoy yourself and be good to your pink-face—­Nelly, isn’t it?  She seems to be terribly nice, and I know you two will have a good party.  You must forget me.  I’m just a teacher of playing games who hasn’t been successful at any game whatever.  Not that it matters.  I don’t care.  I don’t, really.  Now, good night.”