Our Mr. Wrenn

"He was blown by the whirlwind and followed a wandering flame through perilous seas to a happy shore."--Quoth Francois.

On an April Monday evening, when a small moon passed shyly over the city and the streets were filled with the sound of hurdy-gurdies and the spring cries of dancing children, Mr. Wrenn pranced down to the basement dining-room early, for Nelly Croubel would be down there talking to Mrs. Arty, and he gaily wanted to make plans for a picnic to occur the coming Sunday. He had a shy unacknowledged hope that he might kiss Nelly after such a picnic; he even had the notion that he might some day--well, other fellows had been married; why not?

Miss Mary Proudfoot was mending a rent in the current table-cloth with delicate swift motions of her silvery-skinned hands. She informed him: "Mr. Duncan will be back from his Southern trip in five days. We'll have to have a grand closing progressive Five Hundred tournament." Mr. Wrenn was too much absorbed in wondering whether Miss Proudfoot would make some of her celebrated--and justly celebrated--minced-ham sandwiches for the picnic to be much interested. He was not much more interested when she said, "Mrs. Ferrard's got a letter or something for you."

Then, as dinner began, Mrs. Ferrard rushed in dramatically and said, "There's a telegram for you, Mr. Wrenn!"

Was it death? Whose death? The table panted, Mr. Wrenn with them.... That's what a telegram meant to them.

Their eyes were like a circle of charging bayonets as he opened and read the message--a ship's wireless.

Meet me Hesperida.--ISTRA.

"It's just--a--a business message," he managed to say, and splashed his soup. This was not the place to take the feelings out of his thumping heart and examine them.

Dinner was begun. Picnics were conversationally considered in all their more important phases--historical, dietetical, and social. Mr. Wrenn talked much and a little wildly. After dinner he galloped out to buy a paper. The S.S. Hesperiida was due at ten next morning.

It was an evening of frightened confusion. He tottered along Lexington Avenue on a furtive walk. He knew only that he was very fond of Nelly, yet pantingly eager to see Istra. He damned himself--"damned" is literal--every other minute for a cad, a double-faced traitor, and all the other horrifying things a man is likely to declare himself to be for making the discovery that two women may be different and yet equally likable. And every other minute he reveled in an adventurous gladness that he was going to see Istra--actually, incredibly going to see her, just the next day! He returned to find Nelly sitting on the steps of Mrs. Arty's.