Nelly was coming down-stairs.  He handed her the letter and report, then tried to stick out his jaw.  She read them.  Her hand slipped into his.  He went quickly toward the basement and made himself read the letter—­though not the report—­to the tableful.  He burned the manuscript of his play before going to bed.  The next morning he waded into The Job as he never had before.  He was gloomily certain that he would never get away from The Job.  But he thought of Nelly a hundred times a day and hoped that sometime, some spring night of a burning moon, he might dare the great adventure and kiss her.  Istra—­ Theoretically, he remembered her as a great experience.  But what nebulous bodies these theories are!

That slow but absolutely accurate Five-Hundred player, Mr. William Wrenn, known as Billy, glanced triumphantly at Miss Proudfoot, who was his partner against Mrs. Arty and James T. Duncan, the traveling-man, on that night of late February.  His was the last bid in the crucial hand of the rubber game.  The others waited respectfully.  Confidently, he bid “Nine on no trump.”

“Good Lord, Billl” exclaimed James T. Duncan.

“I’ll make it.”

And he did.  He arose a victor.  There was no uneasiness, but rather all the social polish of Mrs. Arty’s at its best, in his manner, as he crossed to Mrs. Ebbitt’s chair and asked:  “How is Mr. Ebbitt to-night?  Pretty rheumatic?” Miss Proudfoot offered him a lime tablet, and he accepted it judicially.  “I believe these tablets are just about as good as Park & Tilford’s,” he said, cocking his head.  “Say, Dunk, I’ll match you to see who rushes a growler of beer.  Tom’ll be here pretty soon—­store ought to be closed by now.  We’ll have some ready for him.”

“Right, Bill,” agreed James T. Duncan.

Mr. Wrenn lost.  He departed, after secretively obtaining not one, but two pitchers, in one of which he got a “pint of dark” and in the other a surprise.  He bawled upstairs to Nelly, “Come on down, Nelly, can’t you?  Got a growler of ice-cream soda for the ladies!”

It is true that when Tom arrived and fell to conversational blows with James T. Duncan over the merits of a Tom Collins Mr. Wrenn was not brilliant, for the reason that he took Tom Collins to be a man instead of the drink he really is.

Yet, as they went up-stairs Miss Proudfoot said to Nelly:  “Mr. Wrenn is quiet, but I do think in some ways he’s one of the nicest men I’ve seen in the house for years.  And he is so earnest.  And I think he’ll make a good pinochle player, besides Five Hundred.”

“Yes,” said Nelly.

“I think he was a little shy at first.... I was always shy....  But he likes us, and I like folks that like folks.”

“Yes!” said Nelly.

CHAPTER XVII

HE IS BLOWN BY THE WHIRLWIND

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