(b) That the people were brothers-in-talk to the inmates of the flat on Great James Street, London, only far less, and friendly.

(c) That Mr. Wrenn was now a man of friends, and if the “blooming Bohemians,” as he called them, didn’t like him they were permitted to go to the dickens.

Istra was always across the room from him somehow.  He found himself glad.  It made their parting definite.

He was going back to his own people, he was deciding.

As he rose with elaborate boarding-house apologies to the room at large for going, and a cheerful but not intimate “Good night” to Istra, she followed him to the door and into the dark long hallway without.

“Good night, Mouse dear.  I’m glad you got a chance to talk to the Silver Girl.  But was Mr. Hargis rude to you?  I heard him talking Single Tax—­or was it Matisse?—­and he’s usually rude when he talks about them.”

“No.  He was all right.”

“Then what is worrying you?”

“Oh—­nothing.  Good ni—­”

“You are going off angry. Aren’t you?”

“No, but—­oh, there ain’t any use of our—­of me being—­ Is there?”

“N-no—­”

“Matisse—­the guy you just spoke about—­and these artists here tonight in bobtail dress-suits—­I wouldn’t know when to wear one of them things, and when a swallow-tail—­if I had one, even—­or when a Prince Albert or—­”

“Oh, not a Prince Albert, Mouse dear.  Say, a frock-coat.”

“Sure.  That’s what I mean.  It’s like that Matisse guy.  I don’t know about none of the things you’re interested in.  While you’ve been away from Mrs. Arty’s—­Lord, I’ve missed you so!  But when I try to train with your bunch, or when you spring Matisse” (he seemed peculiarly to resent the unfortunate French artist) “on me I sort of get onto myself—­and now it ain’t like it was in England; I’ve got a bunch of my own I can chase around with.  Anyway, I got onto myself tonight.  I s’pose it’s partly because I been thinking you didn’t care much for my friends.”

“But, Mouse dear, all this isn’t news to me.  Surely you, who’ve gipsied with me, aren’t going to be so obvious, so banal, as to blame me because you’ve cared for me, are you, child?”

“Oh no, no, no!  I didn’t mean to do that.  I just wanted—­oh, gee!  I dunno—­well, I wanted to have things between us definite.”

“I do understand.  You’re quite right.  And now we’re just friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Then good-by.  And sometime when I’m back in New York—­I’m going to California in a few days—­I think I’ll be able to get back here—­I certainly hope so—­though of course I’ll have to keep house for friend father for a while, and maybe I’ll marry myself with a local magnate in desperation—­but, as I was saying, dear, when I get back here we’ll have a good dinner, nicht wahr?”

“Yes, and—­good-by.”