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. “Hello.” “Hello.” Both good sound observations, and all they could say for a time, while Mr. Wrenn examined the under side of the iron steps rail minutely. “Billy—was it something serious, the telegram?” “No, it was—Miss Nash, the artist I told you about, asked me to meet her at the boat. I suppose she wants me to help her with her baggage and the customs and all them things. She’s just coming from Paris.” “Oh yes, I see.” So lacking in jealousy was Nelly that Mr. Wrenn was disappointed, though he didn’t know why. It always hurts to have one’s thunderous tragedies turn out realistic dialogues. “I wonder if you would like to meet her. She’s awful well educated, but I dunno—maybe she’d strike you as kind of snobbish. But she dresses I don’t think I ever seen anybody so elegant. In dressing, I mean. Course”—hastily—“she’s got money, and so she can afford to. But she’s—oh, awful nice, some ways. I hope you like—I hope she won’t—”