Much relieved that the storm-center had passed over him, Mr. Wrenn sat on the front edge of a cane-seated chair, with the magazines between his hands, and his hands pressed between his forward-cocked knees.  Always, in the hundreds of times he went over the scene in that room afterward, he remembered how cool and smooth the magazine covers felt to the palms of his flattened hands.  For he associated the papery surfaces with the apprehension he then had that Istra might give him up to the jag-toothed grin of Carson Haggerty, who would laugh him out of the room and out of Istra’s world.

He hated the poetic youth, and would gladly have broken all of Carson’s teeth short off.  Yet the dread of having to try the feat himself made him admire the manner in which Carson tossed about long creepy-sounding words, like a bush-ape playing with scarlet spiders.  He talked insultingly of Yeats and the commutation of sex-energy and Isadora Duncan and the poetry of Carson Haggerty.

Istra yawned openly on the bed, kicking a pillow, but she was surprised into energetic discussion now and then, till Haggerty intentionally called her Izzy again, when she sat up and remarked to Mr. Wrenn:  “Oh, don’t go yet.  You can tell me about the article when Carson goes.  Dear Carson said he was only going to stay till ten.”

Mr. Wrenn hadn’t had any intention of going, so he merely smiled and bobbed his head to the room in general, and stammered “Y-yes,” while he tried to remember what he had told her about some article.  Article.  Perhaps it was a Souvenir Company novelty article.  Great idea!  Perhaps she wanted to design a motto for them.  He decidedly hoped that he could fix it up for her—­he’d sure do his best.  He’d be glad to write over to Mr. Guilfogle about it.  Anyway, she seemed willing to have him stick here.

Yet when dear Carson had jauntily departed, leaving the room still loud with the smack of his grin, Istra seemed to have forgotten that Mr. Wrenn was alive.  She was scowling at a book on the bed as though it had said things to her.  So he sat quiet and crushed the magazine covers more closely till the silence choked him, and he dared, “Mr. Carson is an awful well-educated man.”

“He’s a bounder,” she snapped.  She softened her voice as she continued:  “He was in the art school in California when I was there, and he presumes on that....  It was good of you to stay and help me get rid of him....  I’m getting—­I’m sorry I’m so dull to-night.  I suppose I’ll get sent off to bed right now, if I can’t be more entertaining.  It was sweet of you to come in, Mouse....  You don’t mind my calling you `Mouse,’ do you?  I won’t, if you do mind.”

He awkwardly walked over and laid the magazines on the bed.  “Why, it’s all right....  What was it about some novelty—­some article?  If there’s anything I could do—­anything—­”

“Article?”

“Why, yes.  That you wanted to see me about.”