He didn't want to see her; she was intruding;
but he had to go--go at once; and the agony held him all the way
home, while he was mechanically playing the part of stern
reformer and agreeing with Tom Poppins that the horrors of the
recent Triangle shirt-waist-factory fire showed that "something
oughta be done--something sure oughta be."
He trembled on the ferry till Nelly, with a burst of motherly
tenderness in her young voice, suddenly asked: "Why, you're
shivering dreadfully! Did you get a chill?"
Naturally, he wanted the credit of being known as an invalid,
and pitied and nursed, but he reluctantly smiled and said, "Oh
no, it ain't anything at all."
Then Istra called him again, and he fumed over the slowness of
their landing.
And, at home, Istra was out.
He went resolutely down and found Nelly alone, sitting on a
round pale-yellow straw mat on the steps.
He sat by her. He was very quiet; not at all the jovial young
man of the picnic properly following the boarding-house-district
rule that males should be jocular and show their appreciation of
the ladies by "kidding them.
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