1
ROSE-ANN had suddenly become a problem. In spite of everything he was
falling in love with her. He criticized her to himself, harshly. She was
a daughter of the bourgeoisie—a sort of madcap and runaway daughter, it
was true, adventuring by herself in Chicago for a while, but destined,
he told himself, after the flare of this rebellion had burned itself
out, to return to the bourgeois fold. What else could she do? She was
not an artist—or not enough of an artist—to face the world alone. She
wrote a little, cleverly, but with no sustained strength; and what she
wrote was inferior to what she thought and felt. She was one of those
people who might have been, and never would be, writers; and the reason
was, as Felix saw it, in her bringing up. Some softness had intervened
between her and reality; she could see reality truly, far more truly
than he could; but its sharp edges had never hurt her, it seemed; her
mind had never been rowelled by the spur of painful experience. That was
it. She had never been hurt enough; and one who has not been hurt has no
need of the artist’s revenge—the act of re-creation by which he triumphs
over pain. She had disliked her world; not profoundly, but a little; and
she had changed it sufficiently by the mere act of coming to Chicago and
living in a settlement house and playing with costumes and scenery. That
would content her—would more than satisfy her rebellious impulses. She
talked of herself as one of the “queer” people of the settlement; but
she wasn’t. She would go back, and this period of her life would provide
her a fund of humorous reminiscence at bourgeois dinner parties in
Springfield, Illinois, where she would be, no doubt, quite a figure.
Paul, with his “pewter-platter” manner, Dick, the boy who had fled from
Community House and died of pneumonia in the slums, and himself, would
quaintly adorn her reminiscences.... So Felix argued against her to
himself; and it was easy enough to say all these things about her when
she was not there to deny them by her every word and gesture.
In her presence he could not think these things. She was a seeker like
himself—imperfect like himself, but utterly sincere—a comrade in the
very simple and obvious adventure of making the most out of life.... Why
was he so suspicious of her? Was it because he had vaguely heard that
her people were well-to-do? She was not to blame for that! She was
herself. There seemed no reason to distrust her.
But these arguments sufficed to discourage any tendency to romanticize
her. She was less a wonderful person to him now than a dangerous person.
Dangerous only in the sense that she might make a fool of him. Her
friendliness was almost more than mere friendliness, and it took an
effort to adjust himself to it. If he had been less susceptible, he
might have taken the relationship more easily for what it was. If, for
example, he could only have put his arm around her shoulder with an
authentic brotherliness! But he was afraid to. No, there was the
possibility of his making a romantic damned fool of himself about her,
and being laughed at—or perhaps gently chided, it was hard to tell which
would be worse. He could run the risk of that; or he could stiffly keep
his distance, and suffer an occasional sisterly caress without returning
it. He preferred to keep his distance.
Yet there were times when all this seemed an absurd affectation. They
would be sitting, he sprawled on her couch and she rather primly upright
in her chair, discussing something, when suddenly it would occur to him
that they were only pretending to be adults, only making-believe at this
intellectual game—that they were really only boy and girl, with the
ancient and traditional interest of boy and girl in each other. He would
watch her as she bent forward, with her curious little eager frown,
intent upon making herself clear; and then he would note his own
attitude, tense with apparent interest in what was being said.
“Hypocrites!” he would address himself and her in his mind. “I want to
kiss you—and you want to, too. And we don’t. Isn’t it absurd!” And
meantime he answered her arguments aloud. “Little liar!” he would be
saying to her in his mind, “If I came over and put my arms about you—!”
But he remained where he was.... And then, as suddenly, that tender and
humorous insight into the situation would vanish, and she would appear
to him an alien—an interesting young woman, but a complete stranger—and
he would be glad he had not done anything silly.
2
Then, in the midst of the preparations for the Christmas performance of
“The Prince and the Pauper,” when everything was being rushed to its
conclusion, and everybody interested in the play was sitting up all
night to work on costumes or scenery, and the children were forgetting
their lines or getting them mixed with lines rashly learned from Felix’s
Pied Piper play, there came an interruption.
One evening Rose-Ann did not come down to dinner, and he heard one of
the residents say something about somebody in Springfield being ill, and
Rose-Ann’s being called home.
Knocking at her door, he found Rose-Ann packing and dressing for the
journey. Her mother was ill. She was taking the train for Springfield in
half an hour.
“Can I help you?”
“You can see me to the train if you want to. Come back in about ten
minutes and I’ll be ready.”
He had the feeling that this was the last he would see of her....
She explained the situation as they taxied in to the station. Her
mother’s illness, she was sure, was nothing serious. She was annoyed at
being telegraphed for. It would upset the plans for the Christmas play.
Miss Clark would be put in charge of her group, and spoil everything.
The telegram was just a trick to get her back home for the holidays. And
yet—“Curious!” she said, “I never get along with my mother, and I don’t
believe there’s anything the matter with her, and yet I’m as worried
over this telegram as if I were the most dutiful daughter in the
world.... The worst of going back home is, I shall be with the whole
family—especially my brothers. They’ll want me to stay there. They don’t
approve of my being alone in Chicago. They’re just using mother as a
means of getting me into their clutches. They’ve tried it before. And
when I find that it’s simply mother’s annual ‘spell,’ I’ll tell them all
what I think of them and Springfield and the furniture business—and come
back. I’ve made these flying trips three times now.... And yet I _am_
worried.”
Felix reflected that she would never get free from these family
claims—that whatever she tried to do, she would be always called back to
Springfield, and would obey the call. She would spend her whole life in
a vain attempt to be something besides a daughter and sister of people
who were inimical to all her wishes; until finally she surrendered to
them.... He had the sense of hiding these hostile feelings from the
swift friendly glance with which she looked to him for sympathy.
They had just time to catch the train. Felix gave her suitcase to the
porter, and she took his hand. “Be good while I’m gone, Felix,” she
said. “Don’t do anything awfully foolish. Good-bye.” She leaned to him
and kissed him—a timid little kiss. And then they were clinging to each
other in a stunned and breathless embrace, as if they had been flung
violently into each other’s arms; they kissed, with a rude, strong,
almost painful passion,—a kiss that hurt and could not hurt enough to
satisfy them, and then become infinitely tender. It was a kiss that
sought to annihilate time and space, to make them remember it and what
it meant forever.
“’Bo-o-o-ard!” said the conductor, and took Rose-Ann’s elbow and put her
firmly on the step. She turned and smiled back at Felix, and the train
started.
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Book Two
Canal Street
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