I'm sort of stiff, and my feet hurt most unromantically. You
won't mind, will you?"
Of course he did mind, and of course he said he didn't.
He artfully skirted the field of conversation by very West
Sixteenth Street observations on a town through which they
passed, while she merely smiled wearily, and at best remarked
"Yes, that's so," whether it was so or not.
He was reflecting: "Istra's terrible tired. I ought to take
care of her." He stopped at the wood-pillared entrance of a
temperance inn and commanded: "Come! We'll have something to
eat here." To the astonishment of both of them, she meekly
obeyed with "If you wish."
It cannot be truthfully said that Mr. Wrenn proved himself a
person of _savoir faire_ in choosing a temperance hotel for their
dinner. Istra didn't seem so much to mind the fact that the
table-cloth was coarse and the water-glasses thick, and that
everywhere the elbow ran into a superfluity of greasy pepper and
salt castors. But when she raised her head wearily to peer
around the room she started, glared at Mr.
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