1
AND still they found no place to live, and their week at the St. Dunstan
became as second, and a third.
They went together to look at dozens of apartments. Rose-Ann was
observantly critical of their good and bad features, and yet extremely
complaisant; he felt that she would have agreed to anything he wanted.
But he had not forgotten her fierce discontent at “ordinary” apartments,
and he was looking for something that would really please her. He felt
that he had not found it yet....
And no one at the St. Dunstan had objected to the noise of their
typewriter on occasional evenings. They could have breakfast brought up
and set down on a tray at their bedside, a breakfast of cool grapefruit
and elaborately disguised eggs and coffee with cream, and linger over
their last sip of coffee and a final cigarette before dressing lazily;
and Felix could stroll into the office at ten o’clock, like Hawkins—a
free man and not a hurried, anxious slave.
Felix had at first felt a little guilty about these late appearances,
when everybody else had been at work for hours; but it was apparently
expected of him that he would take due advantage of the opportunities
for leisure that the position gave. So long as he did his work, it did
not matter when he came or went; Hawkins himself did not show up every
day—and there was that god-like being, the literary editor, McQuish, he
who had taught the Chicago intelligentsia to speak of their “reactions”
and of being “intrigued”: he fulminated his Wednesday critiques locked
in his office on Tuesday afternoon and except for his Tuesday arrival
and departure was never seen around the place at all!
Felix’s new loose-fitting homespun clothes, with their air of having
been worn in to town from a country-club, helped Felix to feel the
rightful possessor of this leisure, and to assume its proper air. Silk
shirts with soft collars, and Windsor ties, bought by Rose-Ann, and
approved by Clive, helped still more.
After all, if the management liked his work, if he was no longer on
trial, but an accepted person, privileged to do about as he pleased, why
should he maintain his old anxieties and disguises? Why try to look like
an efficient young business man? Nobody wanted him to! Why not be
comfortable, in a soft collar and homespun clothes? Yes, why not?
In this mood, he bought himself a stick, on his own initiative.... He
had always wanted to carry a stick, and had never quite dared. His
clothes had never been quite up to it. Perhaps they were not quite up to
it now. But there was nothing dandified about this stick; it was no
silver-plated confection, just a simple stick of light bamboo, covered
with a shiny black lacquer—a real stick. It suited him; he liked the
smooth firm lacquered surface, he liked the feel of it in his hand,
lightly swinging, or hanging from the crook of his arm. And Rose-Ann
liked it, too. He felt that it gave him the touch of confidence he had
lacked in his new position; with that stick on his arm, he could saunter
into the Chronicle office at ten o’clock in the morning without a qualm.
2
Just after his evening clothes were finished, they were invited casually
to one of Mr. and Mrs. Howard Morgan’s evenings, and Felix was assured
by Rose-Ann that it was an occasion which a dinner coat would
appropriately grace; she also remarked that ordinary clothes would be
all right. That seemed to make it rather a test of his moral courage,
and so he wore his evening clothes....
Howard Morgan was a poet, one of the few in America for whom Felix had
any respect. Felix had been introduced to him once, under rather
inauspicious circumstances—one evening when, deep in kalsomine, he was
painting a back drop for Rose-Ann in the little Community Theatre, which
the great man was being shown, in what was apparently a tour of
inspection of Community House. Rose-Ann had met him then, too, and, less
abashed by her kalsomine-smeared apron and hastily turbaned hair, had
talked with him; and he had remembered her, and sent a message by some
one in Community House to come up to his next “Friday evening” and bring
her husband.
Felix was glad to pay his respects to this distinguished personage, but
he was not prepared for the crowd of people who filled the Morgans’
drawing-room; he hated crowds. But, after Mrs. Morgan had introduced him
to an elderly and talkative spinster, and then, as he felt, basely
deserted him, he was rescued by Rose-Ann; steered through a whirlpool of
encounters—he almost failed to recognize Clive Bangs in his evening
clothes, with that wild lock of hair neatly slicked into its proper
place—and brought into the presence of Howard Morgan himself, who was
standing, a tall and impressive figure, with grey hair, a nose like an
eagle’s beak, and flashing eyes, in the midst of, as it seemed to Felix,
swirling tides of people. Morgan turned from two women, one very old and
the other very young, with whom he was conducting two different
conversations at once—a flirtatious one with the aged dame and a very
earnest and serious one with the young girl.
“The last time I saw you, you were painting scenery,” he said, smilingly
extending his hand.
“Yes,” said Felix, flushing.
“And now I read your dramatic criticisms in the Chronicle,” said Howard
Morgan. “You seem to have a multitude of talents! No wonder you have
captured that lovely prize!—She is lovely, isn’t she?” he added, in a
tone of man-to-manly confidence, looking after Rose-Ann, who had floated
away in that dress which was like moonlit falling water.
“Yes,” said Felix, feeling very stupid.
“Do you know Mrs. Meagham? Mr. Fay....” And the great man, who had
retained Felix’s hand in his, pressed it warmly, smiled with his big
delicately-carven mouth and his cavernous, flashing eyes, and turned
back to resume with instant interest his conversations with the young
woman and the old one, not to speak of a third who came up and was
welcomed heartily in the midst of a sentence; leaving Felix to the
mercies of Mrs. Meagham.
It appeared that Mrs. Meagham had no wish to detain Felix Fay; it was
the great man, Howard Morgan, that she wanted to talk to. And Felix had
no wish to prevent her—none whatever; only he was between her and the
great man and he didn’t know how to get out of the way.
How does one leave a lady whom one does not want to talk to, and who
obviously enough reciprocates that lack of interest? Felix hadn’t the
slightest idea.... He ransacked his memory of books—while saying to Mrs.
Meagham that no, he had not lived in Chicago long—for something to help
him. Surely in all the novels he had read there must be something
bearing upon this situation! But the only thing he could remember was
the desperate device of H. G. Wells’ Mr. Polly, who upon one
embarrassing occasion murmured to the young woman something about a
“little dog,” and ran out of the house. But then, Mr. Polly had a
bicycle, and he was pretending that he heard a little dog gnawing at the
tires. No—that would not do at all. He suddenly felt that H. G. Wells
was but a poor guide and mentor in the thorny ways of real life. Perhaps
if he had forced himself to read more of Henry James—!
At this stage, when he felt his reason going, Rose-Ann appeared, radiant
and cool, to his rescue. He was so grateful that he forgot to note how
she did it.... It had been easy enough, apparently; no such heroic task
as it appeared. But then, things like that _were_ easy, to anybody
except himself!
And he had not told Howard Morgan how much he liked—how devoutly he knew
by heart—the magnificent “Ode in the Valley of Decision.” No, he had
stood there saying, “Yes,” like a fool, while a great poet paid _him_
compliments! He thought a little the less of Howard Morgan for those
compliments; they were so obviously a product of the occasion, a few out
of the hundred he had uttered that night—two or three around to
everybody, share and share alike! They were none the less banal because
he uttered them with such pretended sincerity and real grace. What
madness such a scene was! To think of men and women deliberately
inflicting upon themselves such painful mockery of social intercourse!
But perhaps it was not painful to them. No, they actually appeared to
enjoy it. Well—that proved that they were mad! Bedlam! And a great poet
condemned to go through this rigmarole, so abominable to any person of
decent sensitiveness! But perhaps he enjoyed it, too? In truth, he did
seem to be enjoying it vastly. Then he was no poet, but a sham.... A
line of the great Ode came into Felix’s mind, one of the magnificent
lines: he said it over to himself, testing it—and it did sound rather
tinny. Milton and some base amalgam, not true gold.... An actor, the
fellow was, strutting and smirking and kissing ladies’ hands....
Still—if it were a thing that had to be done (like wearing evening
clothes, for instance) doubtless the more gracefully it was done the
better. And Howard Morgan—it must be conceded—did it superlatively
well!... Would Rose-Ann never be ready to go home?
Rose-Ann, in their room afterward, remarked upon how well Howard Morgan
had “played the host.”
“Yes,” said Felix. “... I felt utterly lost, myself.”
She turned to him fondly. “You were doing very well, darling. I noticed
at the time. It’s just your inexperience that made you feel a trifle ill
at ease. With a little more experience, you will be quite as charming as
Howard Morgan. More so, darling!”
3
Tell one whom you have caused to be waylaid and tortured by cruel
savages, that he has passed through the incident very creditably; tell
him that with a little more practice he will be able to wear the true
martyr’s look of joy! And then kiss him.... Yes, and pretend that you
love him, that you are the wife of his bosom. Ah, serpent! Delilah!
That was the way Felix felt as he lay sleeplessly at Rose-Ann’s side
that night; but he knew perfectly well why he felt that way. He was just
looking for an excuse to get out of taking a little trouble.... Of
course things like that went hard, at first; so was walking hard to a
child who had just begun fearfully to stand upon its two feet; so was
breathing hard at first for the new-born infant—did it not greet the
world with a cry of pain? Yes, life was hard; that was why it was so
interesting. It would be dull if one never did anything one was afraid
to do.... And why, at the age of twenty-two, should he still find it an
agony to meet a roomful of people?... No, confound it, that wasn’t true!
There were roomfuls of people he could meet, with pleasure; it was
_these_ people—they meant nothing to him, he nothing to them.... Or was
it just egotism? Was it because he _was_ nothing to them, that he
resented their presence? Was it just the feeling of mother’s little boy
who goes out to play and finds that instead of being the Young Prince,
he is only one of a crowd? He remembered his first day in school—the
humiliation of suddenly finding himself nobody in particular!... Yes, he
had gone there that evening as if he alone in the world had ever admired
Howard Morgan—and found himself merely one of dozens. He had hoped to
impress the great man by his admiration; and he had found his admiration
not at all needed. That was why he was angry at his hero!... And then,
too, perhaps a little jealous. As if he had thought, “I could get the
same kind of worship if I would condescend to pay for it in the same way
you do!” But could he? Was he, too, in spite of his protestations to
Rose-Ann, secretly dreaming of greatness? Was it because this man dared
admit himself a poet, a creator, a Somebody, that Felix Fay disliked
him?—And what was he doing to realize those dreams? It was all very well
to say, “Some day!” But—no, his destiny wasn’t just writing silly-clever
things for the Chronicle. But what was it? Rose-Ann believed in him. Did
he believe in himself?
And all this was far enough away from the question at issue: which was
very simple—in fact, it resolved itself down to one thing—doing what
Rose-Ann wanted him to do! Not because she was his wife; not at all
because he loved her; but because she understood life better than he
did....
He must never let her know what a baby he was about things like these.
What a silly fuss he had been making about nothing at all! He must do
what was expected of him: yes, confound it, and if she wanted a house
like the Morgans’, and crowds of people ... he could see with
half-dreaming mind her white shoulders, her eyes, her red-gold hair,
gleaming in their midst—why, she should have them!... even if he had to
“play the host,” like Howard Morgan, for her.
... He fell asleep and awoke dreaming that he was a little boy, who was
captured by savages and tortured, and who endured it all with a smile
for the sake of their Queen, a girl with white shoulders and red hair,
who had promised to tell him a secret if he was brave. And he said: “I
know your secret! You are all the women I have ever known; you are the
little girl I was afraid to walk to school with, and you are the girl I
played with in the garret and was afraid to go to meet for a farewell
kiss, and you are Margaret, the girl in the candy-factory that I was
afraid to write to, and you are the girl in Port Royal that I was afraid
to ask to marry me.” And she said, “Yes, but I have one more secret.” “I
know that, too,” he said. “You are Life!”
A very literary dream! He wasn’t sure, when he woke up at dawn, but that
he had made it up like a story. Anyway, he understood it, and he didn’t
want to forget it, and he was writing it down hastily on sheets of hotel
stationery when Rose-Ann opened her eyes sleepily at eight o’clock....
She opened her eyes sleepily, but sleep vanished when she saw what he
was doing, and she sat up eagerly in bed.
“Oh!” she cried, looking as though an expected, long-awaited miracle had
happened at last.
“What?” he asked, startled.
“You’re writing again!—writing, I mean, for yourself....”
“Well, what of it?” he said crossly.
“Nothing,” she said. “Only—I knew you would!”
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