Chapter X: Book SIX: Wilson Avenue (6)

“But you _do_ own me,” Rose-Ann whispered, pressing his hand against her bosom, “I am yours, all of me. Do you know it? Do you realize how much I am yours, Felix? I—it isn’t enough, what I give you. I want to suffer for you, for us. Do you understand that, Felix?”

No, Felix did not really understand that cry from the depths below Rose-Ann’s conscious thoughts of life and love; but then, neither did Rose-Ann.

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Book Four
Fifty-seventh Street

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XXI. Advancement

1

WHEN they took the train to town on Monday morning, the question of where they were to live was still undecided. Rose-Ann had put the matter unreservedly in Felix’s hands; she had told him in detail and without prejudice the merits and demerits of the various apartments she had seen. But he felt incompetent to arrive at a decision in such a matter; and after all, he did not want to do anything which would not have Rose-Ann’s real approval. He distrusted this mood of utter surrender to his will, and he sought to make her reassume the burden of judgment.

He suggested again the possibility of having a house in the country; and she discussed that possibility in a practical spirit. They could rent some small house in Woods Point for the summer; it would cost only a hundred dollars or so for the season—or they might find something they liked that was for sale.

It was easier to buy a house, it appeared, than Felix had thought; there was usually a mortgage to be taken over, and one needed only keep up the interest on that; the actual cash need be only a little, five hundred dollars, or at most a thousand. To Felix this seemed a great deal, but Rose-Ann explained casually that she could borrow it from her brothers in Springfield, and if need be give a second mortgage; so that only the interest would have to be paid for the time being. And the interest on both debts would be less than the rent they would pay in town.

Felix had never understood these things very well, and buying a house seemed amazingly simple—one need not work and save for years, one bought the house first, even though one had no money! Of course, there were the mortgages, of which Felix retained a somewhat sinister notion from his childhood fiction-reading; but Rose-Ann seemed to regard them as a commonplace....

If he only knew what she really wanted!

It ended by his suggesting, half-jestingly, that they go and live in a hotel until they could decide what to do; and she agreed, saying that she knew of a good family hotel, in Hyde Park, not expensive—the St. Dunstan. So it was at the St. Dunstan that they engaged, by telephone from Woods Point, a room for the following week. During that week Rose-Ann could settle up her affairs at Community House, Felix could get reacquainted with his job, and they could decide on a place to live.

2

They parted at the station, and Felix went to the office. It was strange to take his place at his desk again. It seemed as though he had been away a thousand years; he had the feeling of a truant who has returned to school and wonders if he will ever catch up with his lessons.... Mr. Devoe had said to come in and see him when he got back. But Harris sent him out on an interview the first thing, and when he had finished writing it, Mr. Devoe was out in the composing room overseeing some change in the editorial page. Felix did not like to bother him. Doubtless he had spoken lightly, and had already forgotten what he had said to Felix.

As Felix sat idly before his typewriter, Hawkins came up. “Glad to see you back,” he said, and shook hands. And then: “Come in my office, will you?”

One of the last things Felix had done before falling ill was to “do” a play for Hawkins, on a night when there were two openings. His way of doing plays was so unlike Hawkins’s serious method of assigning praise and blame that he had been afraid Hawkins would never ask him to do another; but he had been encouraged by Willie’s laughter at his piece of foolery, and Clive’s only half-ironical remark: “When Willie Smith enjoys a piece of writing, you can figure on ten thousand other people liking it, too!” The idea of those ten thousand other people liking his whimsical criticism had offset the supposedly unfavorable judgment of the serious Hawkins.

“Sit down,” Said Hawkins. “I suppose”—with an embarrassed air—“you’ve heard I’m writing a play.” Then, more cheerfully, “Well, I want to get as much time away from the office as possible, so I’ve persuaded Devoe to let me have an assistant. Would you like the job?”

Felix flushed with incredulous pleasure. “All right,” Hawkins went on. “There’s a certain amount of detail to be attended to—making up the Saturday dramatic page, selecting the pictures and arranging the layout, seeing publicity people or letting them see you, once a week—that sort of thing. You can take all that off my hands, besides doing some of the shows for me. There’s two opening tonight, and I’d like to have you do one of them.” He felt in his pocket, and took out two envelopes. A little apologetically, he said, “I’m sending you to the one I don’t want to do myself—but you’ll get a chance at the real shows a little later. All right?”

“I’m—everlastingly grateful to you,” said Felix. “Is this all settled with—with Mr. Devoe?”

“Oh, yes. You made quite a hit with the Old Man, you know—something you wrote in that thing you did for me—something about the fatted laugh and the prodigal joke—I forget, but he went around the shop all morning that day repeating it to everybody. Yes, the Old Man thinks you’re all right. You’d better go in and see him; not now—I want to tell you some more about this job. Have a cigarette?”

It appeared that Felix was to commence his duties at once, taking a desk in Hawkins’ office and the title of assistant dramatic editor. He would be relieved of his regular work as a reporter, but he would be expected to help along a little with the editorial page, especially in the summer, when there would be hardly any theatrical stuff to take care of. And there was to be a small raise in salary; he would get thirty dollars a week—to begin with, as Hawkins put it.

These happy prospects were confirmed by a brief interview with Mr. Devoe, who seemed to beam on Felix with paternal benevolence. “I think we’ve found the right place for you,” he said. And then his eyes narrowed and his lips straightened. “You can prove whether we are right or not,” he said sternly, and held out his hand in a formal gesture.

“Yes, sir—thank you!” said Felix, a little frightened, and went out.

3

Felix went to Canal street that afternoon to remove his things and give up the room. He told the news of his marriage and advancement to Roger and Don with something of the feeling of revisiting the scenes of childhood and finding one’s old friends still playing at marbles, astonishingly not grown up. But Roger and Don did not sense his secret scorn; at least they maintained their customary imperturbable air.

“Rose-Ann Prentiss? Who is she? What does she do?” they asked, and when they learned that she was not an artist, not a writer, not even an interior decorator, they raised their eyebrows and went back to their Flaubert.

Rose-Ann herself, that night, took his news calmly enough. It seemed that there was no surprising her with any such good fortune; it was as if she had expected it all along!

She dressed with particular care for dinner and the theatre that evening, considering and rejecting half a dozen frocks before she decided upon a quite simple tight-bodiced black velvet thing that made her seem very pale and her hair a flaming red. This was the first time that Felix had seen her wardrobe, and he was much impressed. “I’ve never seen you in anything but your working clothes, have I!” he laughed. “I like you, dressed up!”

“Oh, these are all old things,” she said; and Felix wondered why women always said that, when one praised anything they wore. “But,” she said, “I do look rather nice in this evening dress,” and she held up a shimmering fluid thing of blue and silver that did not seem to Felix like a dress at all, but like a moonlit fountain dripping silver spray. “I’d wear this if you’d get some evening clothes yourself.”

“What do I want of evening clothes?” he protested, his pleasure in the sight of that lovely garment gone with the threatening onset of sartorial obligations of his own.

“I should think a dramatic critic might very well have evening clothes,” said Rose-Ann mildly.

“I’m only half a dramatic critic,” objected Felix.

“Well,” said Rose-Ann, “that being the case, I wouldn’t insist on full-dress. I’ll be content if you come half way. I mean, dinner clothes. It’s the silly long-tailed coat that you object to, isn’t it? I don’t like it myself. Dinner clothes would be very becoming to you, though.”

“But I haven’t any money—” he began.

“Felix,” she said, “how many times must we argue that out? If you haven’t any money, I have—not much, but enough to get ourselves started on. And do you want me to let it lie in the bank at Springfield while we do without things we need? You want me to look nice, don’t you? And if I didn’t have a decent dress to go to the theatre with you in, and you could help me get one, you’d want to, wouldn’t you?”

“Do I look so bad as all that?” he asked, looking down at his rather worn blue serge suit.

“You look very nice, Felix,” she said, coming over and kissing him. “But you do need some new clothes, that’s a fact. And really, if you’re going to be a dramatic critic—. As long as we bought our own seats, in the balcony, it was all right to go in our ‘working clothes.’ But I think—”

“Oh, all right!” he said gloomily.

4

Nevertheless, the prospect of evening clothes did not spoil his enjoyment of the play and Rose-Ann. It was a rather silly play, and they bubbled over with amused comments upon it on their way back to the St. Dunstan. “I must remember all these things, and put them into my criticism,” he remarked.

“Why don’t you write it tonight,” she said.

“At the hotel? I haven’t a typewriter, for one thing.”

“But I have mine. Why don’t you say it off to me, and I’ll take it down. Then you’ll have it over with, and we can mail it tonight, and then we can talk as late as we want to, without having to think of getting-up-time in the morning. Now that you’re a dramatic critic, you don’t have to keep such regular working hours.”

Really, it seemed an admirable plan. “But won’t the other people in the hotel object to a typewriter being pounded at this hour of the night?”

“Let them! If they complain, we’ll say we’re sorry, and promise not to do it again! And by the next time, we’ll be in some place of our own where we can pound a typewriter all night if we want to—I hope!”

Felix stored that away in his memory as one of Rose-Ann’s specifications for a place to live—a place where one could run a typewriter all night.... It was going to be hard to find such a place!

Rose-Ann exchanged her black velvet frock for a flame-coloured kimono—which, as he noted, matched her hair when the light shone through its stray curls—and sat down at the typewriter.

“Ready!”

Felix dictated for half an hour, only occasionally thinking of their neighbours on the other side of these thin hotel partitions. Still, it was not yet midnight. “I guess that’s enough,” he said at last.

“A good line to end on,” she agreed, finishing the sentence and typing his name underneath. “There are stamps in my pocketbook, Felix—and here’s your envelope, all addressed. It will make the one o’clock collection, and we can breakfast at leisure.”

“But,” he said, pausing at the door, “suppose it got lost in the mails or something!”

“I made a carbon,” said Rose-Ann, “and you can take that with you when you go to the office, in case of emergencies.”

“You _are_ an efficient little manageress!” he said.

5

Obediently the next day he went to a tailor—recommended by Clive, who seemed heartily to approve of this particular surrender to convention—and was measured for a dinner coat, and a new loose-fitting suit of brown homespun selected by Rose-Ann.

He found he did not mind the idea of wearing evening clothes after all. He only wished that—well, that he was going to pay for them himself!

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XXII. Mainly About Clothes

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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XXIII. A Bargain in Utopias

1

BUT, even though life was much easier than he had ever dreamed it to be, though one could acquire a lovely wife without deserving her, an easy job without asking for it, and a house in the country, if one wished, without money—still, the fact remained that he was only a young newspaper man getting thirty dollars a week. And thirty dollars a week meant that he could afford to pay only thirty dollars a month for rent: he had read that in a book, and it seemed like good sound economics. And thirty dollars a month would cover only the poorest and most cramped of the apartments that Rose-Ann had viewed so judicially and, he felt, with secret disdain. By no stretch even of an imagination keyed to the marvellous by recent events, could he see himself getting a place to live in that Rose-Ann would really approve.... And meanwhile they were living above their means—above _his_ means, anyway—at the St. Dunstan. It was their fourth week there, and they were no nearer to finding a place to live in than they had been when they came. Something had to happen pretty soon.

He reminded himself that when he came to Chicago he had not expected such hospitality, such friendship, such help as he had actually received; he had never dreamed of getting a job on the Chronicle, nor of being made assistant dramatic critic ... and least of all had he dreamed of having Rose-Ann for a wife! Such things happened, it seemed—happened to one in spite of one’s stupidities and suspicions and fears. Perhaps Rose-Ann’s grand house would drop from the sky in the same way; perhaps!—but to one whose mind was trained sternly in old-fashioned nineteenth century realism, it seemed merely silly ... and a little worse than that. He would give one more day to the deities that presided over his fantastic fortunes, and then he would take the next thirty-dollar-a-month apartment they looked at.... So much for that!

They were going to look at some apartments on the south side, near Jackson Park, and they had planned to meet on the steps of the Field Museum.... He was a little early when he left the elevated at Fifty-fifth street, and he strolled slowly over toward Jackson Park looking thoughtfully at all the apartment buildings he passed.... One, which looked like a place where Rose-Ann might care to live, was quite obviously beyond their means.

He turned into Fifty-seventh street, and went under the Illinois Central viaduct, passing a row of dingy brown one-story shops—at least, there was a photographer’s shop among them, though the others were apparently lived in, the big plate-glass windows in front being covered with curtains. Felix wondered what kind of people lived there. As he reached the corner, just across from the green stretch of Jackson Park, it seemed that he had a chance to find out, for there stood a young woman in the doorway directing the operations of a moving man who was carrying things to a van in the street.

“Don’t you _dare_ drop those,” the young woman was saying. “The frames are valuable anyway!”

It was an armful of large paintings that was being carried out. The young woman, a rather impressive little person, with a sturdy, plump figure, and short curly black hair, held a cigarette in her hand. A painter? Did artists live in these places?

Felix glanced past the girl into the room beyond. “May I look in?” he asked the girl.

“Sure,” she said indifferently.

Felix stepped inside. It was a large room—a huge room, unpartitioned except by a flimsy screen about eight feet high which cut off the rear portion. Evidently the occupant had slept back there, and used the front part for a studio.

“You’re leaving?” he asked the girl.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Looks like it,” she said.

“Is it for rent?”

Of course, Rose-Ann would not want to live in a place like that, but—it interested him.

“Yes, it’s for rent, if anybody wants it,” she said lazily.

“What’s the matter with it?” asked Felix.

She seemed to become a little more aware of him. “Are _you_ thinking of taking it?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Felix.

“If you do, maybe I could persuade you to take a few things off my hands.”

“What’s wrong with the place?” he countered.

“Nothing’s wrong with it,” she said.

“Then why are you leaving?”

“Because,” she said. “I don’t want to build my own fires. I can’t paint and look after a stove, too. Want to see my stove? It’s a good stove. I’m moving to a steam-heated studio-apartment, and I shan’t want it any more. There it is—”

“Oh, a Franklin stove!” he said.

“Yes, a darn nice little stove. Do you paint?”

“No.”

“Write?”

“Yes.”

“You’d like this place.... And it’s dirt cheap.”

“How much?”

“You wouldn’t believe it. Twelve dollars.”

“Twelve dollars a what?”

“A month!”

“Twelve dollars a month?” Why, his hall bedroom over on Canal street had cost more than that....

“Yes, and look at the space. It’s really a find. If you don’t mind living in a kind of bohemian way. I’m bohemian enough, God knows, but when I get to painting I let my fire go out.”

“I didn’t know,” said Felix, “that there were such places as this in Chicago.”

“There aren’t. There’s just these. Here and around the corner. They were put up for shops at the time of the World’s Fair—just temporary structures—and they’ve never bothered to tear ’em down. There’s been a bunch of artists living here ever since; a place like this for twelve dollars is a godsend to an artist. If this was spring, it wouldn’t be for rent—there’d be a dozen after it. You’re in luck.” She resumed her neglected cigarette to keep it from going out. “Well, what do you say? Want my stove?”

“I’ll—have to see my wife about it,” said Felix. “She’s waiting for me over in the Park.” No, Rose-Ann would not like it, but—

“Your wife? Then, good-_night_! No Christian female would live in these diggings for a week—unless she was an artist’s wife and couldn’t help herself.”

“Why not?” Felix demanded. Though this was just what he himself had been conjecturing about Rose-Ann’s feelings, he found himself resenting this girl’s scornful imputation to her of those same feelings.

“Well, you’ve seen the place,” she said. “Have you noticed any bath-tub? No—the people who live in these places take their baths standing up in that iron sink there in the back. Cold water, fresh from a very cold lake! It’s healthy—Spartan and all that—but no regular wife would stand for it. You’ll see. Bring her over here—I’d like to watch her face when you show her around. I haven’t had a good smile for a long time. Bring her over!”

“I’ll do that,” Felix said grimly. “You wait.”

“Oh, I’ll wait. Here—” to the moving man—“leave that stove alone and take a rest for about five minutes.”

2

Felix had felt in the attitude of this girl artist a challenge to Rose-Ann which he was somehow anxious for her to meet. She might not like this place—but it would not be because she was a bourgeois doll, afraid to bathe standing up in an iron sink. Rose-Ann would see in this place what he saw in it, even if she did want something different....

“I’ve been to one place already,” said Rose-Ann, rising from the steps and coming down to meet him. “It’s—just like all the others.”

“Well,” said Felix, his voice unconsciously defiant, “I’ve found you a place that’s different!”

“Have you really? Where is it?”

“Just over here. Right on the edge of the Park.”

“I’d like that!”

“Would you like to bathe in ice-cold water, standing up in a cast iron sink?”

“Oo! I can feel the water now, oozing out of a sponge at the back of my neck! What makes you think I’m afraid of cold water? You remember my snow-baths at Woods Point? The primitive life has no terrors for me—so far as that’s concerned. So there’s no bathroom?”

“No.”

“M-m. Well, I’ll see.”

“Here it is, then.”

“Oh, this? An unpromising exterior....”

“Here,” said Felix, indicating the girl, who came to the door, “is the lady who’s just leaving. And this,” he said to the girl, “is my wife.”

She stood aside and waved them in with a flourish of her cigarette. “Well, here it is, without one plea. See for yourself!”

“Oh!” cried Rose-Ann. “What a lovely big room!”

“It _is_ big,” said Felix.

“It’s splendid! A real room....” She drew a deep breath. “I could live in a place like this, Felix.”

The girl regarded her with respectful interest, and then turned to Felix. “Did you tell her about the sink?”

“Yes,” said Rose-Ann. “I know about the sink. But I think I’ll inspect the sanitary details right now, before I get any more enthusiastic.”

The two girls went back of the screen, talking excitedly. “Does the screen stay here?” Rose-Ann was asking. “Good! We’ll sleep back here—or make it a kitchen, and sleep out in front, I don’t know which....”

Felix lighted a cigarette, and laughed softly to himself at his own folly. So _this_ was what Rose-Ann had wanted! This was the reality of that supposedly grandiose dream of hers, which had frightened him so much to think of making come true for her! This—twelve dollars a month—an iron sink—a Franklin stove!

So the destinies that presided over his fantastic fortunes had made good again.

How simple life was, after all!

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XXIV. Studio

1

THE girls came back from inspecting the mysteries behind the screen, Rose-Ann’s enthusiasm undiminished. “Where is the agent?” she demanded. “We must get this place right away, before somebody else does.... You want it, don’t you, Felix?”

“Oh, I wanted it all along,” said Felix. “Only—”

“You didn’t think I would? Oh, Felix! It’s just our kind of place. And twelve dollars a month! And that lovely stove!”

“How much do you want for the stove?” Felix asked the girl.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the girl. “Your wife and I have settled that between us.”

“She’s given us the stove for a wedding-present!” said Rose-Ann. “I tried to buy it, but she wouldn’t let me.”

“It’s no good to me any more,” said the girl defensively. “And do you mind if I leave behind that old model stand? You can knock it to pieces and make kindling of it. And speaking of kindling, there’s a little left there in that box, and about one shovelful of coal. I’m sorry there isn’t more to start you off with.”

“You’re a dear to be so generous,” said Rose-Ann. “And you _will_ come to see us?” She turned to Felix. “Her name is Dorothy Sheridan. She rather likes us, I think, Felix. And I like her very much!”

Felix and the girl shook hands rather awkwardly. “I take back all I said about your wife,” said Dorothy. “Hey, you!”—to the moving man who was lounging at the door—“that’s all. The stove and the other things stay here. You’ve got the address. I’ll be there to take in the stuff when it comes.” She held out her hand to Rose-Ann. “Good-bye. I’ll drop in some evening when you’ve got more or less settled. Good-bye!”

2

Felix and Rose-Ann went to the landlord and were confirmed in their possession of the studio. They put up the Franklin stove again, and built a fire with the remains of Dorothy’s kindling and coal, and sat there till twilight, on the low model-stand, furnishing the room in imagination.

Felix was feeling a curious emotion which was at once an immense relief and a dim perturbation. He felt now that he had never wanted to live in an ordinary apartment. He could sympathize now with all the indignant things Rose-Ann had been saying about such places. It would have meant a kind of surrender—a giving up to outward form of the special quality of their lives.... But he had been willing to surrender. It was strange now to realize, but it was true—he had felt that very surrender to be a part of marriage, of adjusting himself to the world of actuality. Yes, he had thought that he and Rose-Ann had to live cooped up together in a little domestic cage like other married people.

And instead they were to remain free!

For that was what living in a studio meant. They would not subordinate their individual lives to a domestic arrangement. On the contrary, all their domestic arrangements were pushed into the background. This was first of all a place for them to do their work in.

They planned for their work-tables first of all—two enormous tables that one could fill with papers and books to one’s heart’s content, and that never were to be disturbed, no matter how messy they looked: these, one on either side of the room, up by the front windows. And then, books—all the books they would ever want, ranged on two long shelves along the side-walls. And then two large beds, at the back of the studio, behind the screen—two, so that they could work as late at night as they wished and go to bed without disturbing each other. And a settle in front of the fire, and chairs—ordinary kitchen chairs that they would paint in bright colours—for rest and talk and friends. And a gate-legged table that could be pushed out of the way after dinner, if they dined at home. And a tiny gas-range, and a cupboard for dishes. Coloured dishes they would be—no two alike. “I hate sets of dishes as much as I hate sets of books,” said Rose-Ann.... And a tiny gas-range.

That gas-range was to be their least and last possession, not they its slaves!

No, they would be two artists who lived together because they loved each other, who ate when they were hungry, slept when a chapter was finished, and cooked when they thought it would be fun to eat at home!

“For instance,” said Rose-Ann, “it would be fun to get dinner here tonight, but we can’t. But I’ll tell you—let’s early in the morning go and buy beds and dishes and things, so we can move right in.”

“Why not have dinner here tonight?” said Felix. “We can get it at a delicatessen and eat it with our fingers!”

“The electricity has been turned off—we can’t eat in the dark,” she said wistfully.

“We’ll buy some candles!”

“Of course!” said Rose-Ann.

They bought candles, and bread and butter, which Felix cut and spread with his pocket-knife, and a variety of delicatessen. They made a table-cloth out of a newspaper spread on the model-stand, and sat on the floor and ate with their fingers, laughing. It made this all the more their home, thus to pioneer in it the first night.... They put on the last of Dorothy’s coal, and then sat side by side on the bare comfortless model-stand, and, still unable to go away, talked for hours of what they would buy tomorrow, and where they would put it, while the grate cast flickering and changing lights on the ceiling. Then the fire died down, and the room became cold, and they could hear the wind roaring outside, and still they sat there, huddled together for warmth. Rose-Ann fell asleep at last with her head on Felix’s shoulder and a strand of her red hair against his lips. She slept, and shivered ... and he awoke her with kisses. And only then, and reluctantly, they went back to their hotel.

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XXV. St. George of the Minute

1

WITHIN less than two weeks the studio was furnished, according to their desire; and not only furnished, but painted and kalsomined, in a light creamy yellow with a bright green-blue trim—a most cheerful and, as they felt, out-door effect! And old Mrs. Perk had been brought from Community House to sew the tall orange silk window-curtains.... “It’s like painting the scenery and setting the stage for a play,” said Rose-Ann. “Only this play is to run for—for as long as we like.”

When it was all finished, “Now let’s ask Clive out to see it!” she said.

“Oh—all right,” said Felix.

“You haven’t liked Clive ever since the wedding, have you?” observed Rose-Ann.

“He behaved so queerly!” said Felix. “But he does seem to have become rather human again.”

“People do behave queerly at weddings,” said Rose-Ann. “Always. If it isn’t one way, it’s another. They cry, or get drunk, or something. There’ve been four weddings in my family—five, with mine—and I can assure you this one was the sanest of the lot. And they always make the same jokes, too. You remember, when Clive offered to marry me himself—I’ve heard that one every time. I know you were bothered; but it’s the regular thing. People can’t help it. And it’s the regular thing, too, for the groom to be frightfully angry at his best man.”

“And it’s the regular thing for the young people to be perfectly crazy about their new house, too, I suppose,” Felix said thoughtfully. “Well—I’m glad if other people have as much fun about it all as we do!”

“Oh, but they don’t!” Rose-Ann said confidently.

2

Clive came, and saw, and approved. And after dinner, when the gate-legged table had been pushed back against the wall, and they were comfortably disposed about the fire, Rose-Ann said:

“Do you remember, Clive, you promised to tell us a story?”

“A story? Yes, so I did. Well, I will tell you a story about St. George and the Village Dragon.”

He lighted a cigarette. “This particular village is situated, as the story-books say, not a thousand miles from Chicago. It has a Dragon there, which—. But let me drop the epic style. The fact is, that in this village there are three classes of people, each of which strictly avoids the others—though they maintain casually friendly relations, and say ‘Good Morning’ when they meet in the post-office. The three classes are, first, the villagers proper, the original inhabitants of the place; second, the summer people; and third, a few artists and writers.

“The village people live in the village, and keep themselves to themselves; the summer people live in boarding houses and in nice new bungalows on the edge of town, and associate with each other; and the artists and writers live out in the more inaccessible regions, perched on the edges of ravines, and turn up their noses at everybody else.

“The fact is that they are afraid of some sort of social infection or contamination from each other’s manners and morals. They all secretly despise each other; the writers and artists despise the summer bourgeoisie, and the villagers sell them groceries and taxi them home from the station and despise them both.

“And yet once in a while some young person of one group happens not to despise some young person from one of the other groups. Then everybody else becomes very much alarmed.... Two years ago, it was a young man in the summer colony and a village girl. Everybody—in the summer colony and the village—was afraid something terrible would happen. The villagers have a story about a girl who was betrayed and deserted by a gilded youth who owned an automobile—and she drowned herself in the Lake. And the summer colony has an even more heart-rending legend about a foolish boy who married a pretty village girl and took her to the city, and she couldn’t speak grammatically, and so on: a dreadful story! Well, the young man in the summer colony and the village girl, two years ago, hadn’t heard these stories, it seems; at any rate, they went to dances together—and the whole community waited, fluttering with horror—until the young man and the girl, finding themselves the objects of universal anxiety, became frightened of each other, and stopped seeing one another at all. They realized in time that they were violating a social taboo.... That’s the introduction to my story.

“Well, the taboo operates even more powerfully to prevent any friendships between the villagers and us ravine-folk. Our young men haven’t got any money or automobiles, and the village girls don’t know how to talk about art. I don’t know why that should make such a difference, but it seems to. Besides, we hardly ever meet them. We don’t go to the local dances; and when we go in swimming, we go up the Lake to some place where we don’t have to wear bathing suits. The only young woman in the village with whom we are likely to exchange a dozen words in as many weeks is the daughter of the man who owns one of the cars that meet people at the station, and who occasionally drives us home herself.

“But, after all,”—he paused, and blew a cloud of smoke up toward the ceiling, “even Woods Point is part of the modern world. Anything can happen there. It’s not impossible that a girl should be born in Woods Point who went to the public library and got hold of Shaw and Galsworthy and H. G. Wells, and dreamed of going to Chicago and getting a job and living her own life—and yet who, being a girl, stayed on in Woods Point.”

“Yes,” said Felix, “I can understand that.”

“I can’t,” said Rose-Ann. “How old was she?”

“Nineteen.”

“Well—go on,” said Rose-Ann. “Perhaps I’m wrong.”

“That girl,” said Clive, “wouldn’t be particularly interested in the summer boarders. But she would be interested in the writers and artists out on the edge of the ravines. She would hear the gossip about their ‘queer doin’s’”—he smiled, and looked at Rose-Ann—“about how they run around in the snow without a stitch of clothes on! for instance....”

“Goodness!” said Rose-Ann, “who could have seen me?”

“Us village folks hears about everything that’s goin’ on!” said Clive. “Well—this girl would hear about these crazy artists, and their crazy talk, and their crazy parties—and she would feel that she understood these people, that she belonged among them. But she would never have talked to a living soul about the things that interested her. She would be inarticulate. And if any of these artists or writers had talked to her for a passing moment, they would never have guessed that she was anything but what she seemed—a village girl.

“She might see a good deal of these people, first and last. She might be the girl who drove them home from the station in her father’s car, who came for them after midnight at the end of one of their crazy parties. And none of them would ever guess—why should he?—that the girl who honked the horn impatiently for them out in the road, would go home and read ‘Man and Superman’ in bed, and then cry herself to sleep.

“Unless, perhaps, one of the ravine-folk happened to be a man of a very curious and inquiring disposition, who never took anything at its face-value—who doubted everything—even the villageness of village girls.... He might ask her one day—and wouldn’t it be absurd? can you imagine anything more ridiculous to ask a village girl, out of a clear sky—‘Did you ever read Bernard Shaw?’ And she might reply very quietly, ‘Yes, every play I could get hold of.’”

“Well!” said Rose-Ann.

“You can see what might happen.... Those people would want to see more of each other. And you can imagine some of the difficulties. Why, they might as well have belonged to the Montagues and the Capulets! You can imagine the talk—about two people who only wanted a chance for a little literary conversation!”

“Only, Clive?” asked Rose-Ann.

“At first, anyway. But with that atmosphere of intrigue and suspicion, their meetings would assume a romantic colouring—inevitably.... To such a man, that girl with her need for ideas, for talk, for companionship, might be very appealing. And to her, in her isolation and ignorance, he might appear as a very superior, a very wonderful person indeed.... He would lend her books, and talk with her, and urge her to go to Chicago and get some kind of a job. He would talk to her about love—”

“In short,” said Felix, “he would fall in love with her!”

Clive shook his head. “He would know better than that. He would know that what she really needed was Chicago, and friends, and work, and adventure....”

Felix reflected that Clive could have offered her all these things....

“And what happened?” asked Rose-Ann.

“He couldn’t persuade her to take the plunge into life in Chicago without some kind of preparation.... She’s terribly afraid of Chicago.... So she’s worked out a solution of her own. She’s gone off to a normal school, to learn to be a school-teacher; and get a job in Chicago that way.... Worse than that—she’s going to teach somewhere else first, for some damned reason, and later go to Chicago. I tell her, yes, when she’s forty, she’ll be ready to begin life!”