Full text of "The briary-bush, a novel"

See other formats

Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http : //books . google . com/|

/\L/\ /ni^.S^o

k:xii_j ■■■■■. v.a.iLEm:a ra ■ ru

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY ,

H^^''?3

^^^ IN MU-IORY OF

PERMEUA E.CHENLY MERSLY

■"■cga"" ... •

THt CIFT \^=r HtR SON

:ir, RwiNK Wilson CHWEYHERSty *,

CU^DflS99

• THE

BRIARY-BUSH

A Novel

Floyd Dell

New York

Alfred * A * Knopf
1921

u-A\1l'k2r

Published, October 31 , 1921
Second Printiog, November 1921

J>f«JU^ 'j-"

t„.^

S. A. TANNENBAUM, M.D.,

EXPLORER OF THE DARK
CONTINENT OF THE MIND

"Oh, Iki Worj-tiu'i

That t^ki «y hiarl so so"'

If I «/«r set o»< oi thi briarytmh

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE: COMMUNITY HOUSE

Felix Decides to Change His Chakacter 3

"Bon Voyage!" 9

Plans 22

Surprises 28

The Struggle for Existence 37

A Guide to Chicago 47

Work and Play 52

Rose-Ann Goes Away 62

III

VII

VIII

BOOK TWO : CANAL STREET

IX How TO Spend One's Evenings 69
X The Detached Attitude 75
XI An Adventure in Philosophy 83
XII Bachelor's Hall 89

XIII In Hospital 99

BOOK THREE: WOODS POINT

XIV Heart and Hand 105
XV Pre-Nuptial 108

XVI Clive's Assistance 114

XVII Charivari 121

XVIII The Authority of the State of Illinois 131

XIX Together 134

XX "The Nest-Building Instinct" 143

BOOK FOUR: FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET
XXI Advancement 155

Mainly About Clothes 162

A Bargain in Utopias 170

Studio 176

St. George of the Minute 180

What Rose-Ann Wanted 187

Parties 197

A Father-in-Law 201

Interlude at Midnight 207

Fathers and Daughters 210

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

CONTENTS

CBAPTU

XXXI More or Less Theatrical 215

XXXII Duty 224

XXXIII A Parable 231

XXXIV Journeys 235
XXXV Civilization 244

XXXVI "We needs must know that in the days to

come" 247

XXXVII Symbols 249

XXXVIII The Portrait of Feux Fay 254

XXXIX A Date on the Calendar 259

XL Celebration 264

BOOK FIVE: GARFIELD BOULEVARD

XL! Changes 271

XLII An Apparition 275

XLIII Nocturne 280

XLIV AuBAOE 292

XLV Foursome 297

XLVI The Rehearsal 307

XLVII The Forti-nate Yodth 313

XLVIII Dream-Tryst 317

XLVIX A Matter of Convention 322

L Babes in the Wood 330

LI "BlENFAITS DE LA LuNE" 334

LII Sleepless Nights 341

LIII Two Letters 34S

LIV The God and the Pedestal 3S3

BOOK SIX: WILSON AVENUE

LV The Consolations op Philosophy 363

LVI Eulenspiegel 371

LVII Three Days 380

LVIII Rendezvous 385

LIX Unanswered Questions 394

LX A Leave-taking 397

LXI Two Men Discuss a Girl 401

LXII Theory and Practice 408

LXIII In Play 416

LXIV In Earnest 422

Book One
Community House

I. Felix Decides to Change His Character

HICAGO!

Felix Fay saw with his mind's eye die map on the
wall of the railway station — ^the map with a picture
of iron roads from all over die middle west centering in a
dark blotch in the comer.

He was sitting at a desk in the office of the Port Royal
Daily Record, writing heading on sheaves of items sent
in by country correspondents.

John Hoffman has finished his new barn.

Bom to Mr. and Mrs. Elbert Hayes last Wednesday
a fine ten pound boy.

Miss Edythe Brush has returned to the State Normal
for the fall term.

And so on.

Felix wrote at the top of the page, IV heat on Whittlings.
A rotten heading — but it would have to do. He yawned,
and then stared unseeingly at the next page.

He was not thinking about those news-items. He was
thinking about Qiicago. . . .

A year ago, he had determined to leave Port Royal forever
— and go to Qiicago.

But here he was, still !

He had hoped, a year ago, to find, in the excitement of a
new life in Chicago, healing for the desperate hurts of love.
If only he had gone then ! . . .

But he hadn't had the money to buy a railway ticket.

He had taken this job on the Record, and settled down to
life in Port Royal again as a reporter.

His twenty-first year had gone by.

The hurts of love, so intolerably hard to bear, had healed.

After all, Joyce Tennant had loved him; nothing could

4 The Briary-Bush

ever take away his memories of those starlit evenings on
the river, and in the little cahin on their lonely island. She
had loved him. she had been his. There was comfort in
that thought. . . . The hurts of love had healed.

But the hurts of pride remained. Loving him, she had
chosen to marry another. That wound still ached. . . .

She had seen him all along for what he was — a moon-
struck dreamer! She had thoughl him the fit companion
of a reckless love-adventure — that was all.

Her scorn, or what seemed to him her scorn, mirrored
and magnified by the secret consciousness of his own weak-
ness, came to assume in his mind the proportions of a
Gnat and universal judgment.

A dreamer? Ajid a dreamer only? His ^otism could
not endure the thought.

The shadow-world of ideas, of theories, of poetic fancies,
amidst which he had moved all his life, was not enough.
He must live in the real world,

Giicago became for him the symbol of that real world.
It was no longer a place of refuge — it was a test, a challenge.
He would go there not as a moonstruck dreamer, but as a
realist, able to face the hard facts of life.

■ He would become a different person.
He was tired of being Felix Fay the fool, the poet, the
theorist. He would rather be anybody else in the world
than that Felix Fay whose ridiculous blunderings he knew
by heart. J

He could imagine himself in Chicago, a changed person— «
a young man of action, practical, alert, ruthlessly cora-^
^^^ petitive. . . .

^^1 Dreaming of success in Chicago, he sat idly at his desk
^H >n Port Royal.

^|but

n
G

^" Ti

^It was laie in the afternoon. No one was left in the office
but himself and Hastings, the city editor.
"Fay!"

He looked up. The dty editor beckoned him over,
"X-ook at titis" '

He Decides to Change His Character 5

Hastings held in his hand the sheaf of items from
Wheaton» over which Felix had casually written a heading
half an hour before. Felix held out his hand and took
them. Something was wrong. He looked anxiously at the
items, written in grey pencil on coarse paper in a straggling
hand. The page uppermost was numbered ''3." He had
hardly glanced at it. Evidently he had overlooked
something.

It caught his eye instantly — the second item from the top :

A $Han named Cyrus Jenks, known as Old Cy, committed sui-
cide last night by hanging himself in the barn. He was a well-
known village character, chiefly noted for his intemperate hab-
its. The inquest will be held today. His one good trait was
his devotion to his old mother, who died recently. He was her
illegitimate child. She was one of the Bensons, who until her
disgrace were one of the principal families in the county. Her

father uas Judge Benson. The family moved to North Dakota
years ago, and left her here in the old family home, where she
lived alone with her son until she died. Before hanging himself
Old Cy set fire to the house, and it was partly burned. Since
the old lady's death he had received several offers for the place,
but refused to sell, and said that no one should ever set foot in
his mqther^s house. The incident is causing much local com-
ment.

Felix drew a long breath. He certainly had overlooked
something! He could see that story, with its headlines, on
the front page of the Record — rewritten by himself. It was
just the kind of story that he could handle in a way to
bring out all its values. And he had had it in his hands —
and had let it pass through them, buried in a collection of
worthless country items !

"The postmistress at Wheaton,'^ Hastings was saying
gently, "is not supposed to know a front-page story. You
are supposed to know — that is the theory on which you are
hired."

Felix did not reply. There was nothing to be said.

Hastings was looking at him thoughtfully. "I don't know

6 The Briary-Bush

what's got into you, Felix," he said. "I thought you were
going to make a good newspaper man. And sometimes 1
think so still. But mostly — you aren't worth a damn."

"Yes, sir," said FeUx. " — I mean, no, I don't think I
am, either."

He was going to be fired. . . . Well, he deserved it. He
ought to have been fired long ago. And he was rather glad
that it was happening.

Hastings was rather taken aback. "Well," he said,
"frankly, I was going to let you go. But — well, there's nof
harm done this time; we'd already gone to press when that
stuff came in. Of course. I don't say that your — your
letting it get by was excusable- In fact, I simply can't
understand it. But — if you realize — "

So he was not going to be fired after alll Felix was
unaccountably sorry,

"H you think you can pull yourself together — " said
Hastings. "I'd hate to have you leave the Record. I've
always — "

Felix felt desperate. He knew now why he wanted to be
fired. It would give him the necessary push into his Chicago
adventure. He would never have the courage to leave this
job, and venture into the unknown, upon his own initiative.
He didn't have any initiative.

"I don't tliink it's any use, Mr. Hastings," he said,
"keeping me on the Record."

Hastings stared at him incredulously.

"I mean," Felix went on hastily, "I've got in a rut. I
go through my work mechanically. I don't use my brains.
I'm dull. And it's getting worse. I simply can't take any
interest in my work."

"You mean you want to be fired?" Hastings asked
severely.

It was absurd. In fact, it was preposterous. This was
not the way to do it at all. But it was too late now.

"Yes, sir." he said.

"Weil, then, you are." Hastings looked coldly at the
ungrateful and rather sheepish-looking youth standing

He Decides to Change His Character 7

before him. "Have you got another job?" he asked
so^idously.
' "No — I'm going to Chicago to look for one."
. As soon as he said that, he wished he hadn't. It
r committed him to going. He couldn't back out now. He
\ had to go.

I "And I haven't any money except my pay-check for this
week."

He hadn't thought of that before. How could he go with-
out money?
' "Will you lend me fifty dollars?"

It had slipped out without his intending it. Felix blushed.
He was certainly behaving like a fool. After proving him-
* self to Hastings an utter incompetent, to ask him for
money. ... He would go on a freight train. . . .

"Fifty — what are you talking about ? Chicago !" Hastings
was embarrassed, too. "Why — why — yes, I can lend you
some money, if you really want it. . . . Chicago — I don't
know but what you're right, after all. . . . When are you
going?"

Felix was trying to think now before he spoke. He just

managed to check himself on the point of saying, "Tonight !"

All this was happening too swiftly. He needed time to

consider everything, to make his plans. A month would be

none too much.

"Next m — Monday," he said.

When Felix left the office he went home by a round-
about way which took him up through one of the quiet
residential streets of the town. He turned a comer, and
walked slowly down past a row of cheerful little houses
set back within well-kept lawns. There was nothing
magnificent or showy about these houses — they did not
betoken any vast prosperty or leis^ure, but only a moderate
comfort and security. They might perhaps suggest a
certain middle-class smugness; but even that was no reason
why Felix should have looked at them from utwkx Vv\s»

3b '"

^H hat as
^^H he hai

The Briary-Bush

slouching hat-brim with such a grimace o( hostility. As
he neared a particular one of these houses, he walked
faster and bent his head, casting a furtive glance at its
windows. But there was no one to be seen at those
windows, and so Felix looked again and slowed his step
a little. In front of the house he paused momentarily and
looked at it with an apparently casual glance.

He had gone past that house, in this manner, a dozen
times in the past year, savoring painfully each time the
hard, unmistakable, disciplinary fact that there, contentedly
under that roof, the wife of its owner, hved Joyce — his
Joyce of only a year ago. He had come, now, to read that
lesson in realism for the last time.

He did not want to see the girl who had taught him
that lesson. He only wanted to look at this house in which
she lived as another man's wife.

But, as he walked on past, he did see her. She was
standing on the bttle side verandah. And in the vivid
picture of her which Felix's eyes caught before he looked
hastily away, he saw that she had a baby in her arms.

She was looking down at the baby, shakii^ her head
teasingly above it so that stray locks of her yellow hair
touched its face. It uttered a faint cry, and she shook
her curly head again, and looked up, smiling.

But she did not see Felix, She was looking down the
street past him. She was waiting for someone — for the _
owner of this house, her husband; waiting for the i
who was the father of her child.

This Felix saw and felt with a bewildered and hurt mim
in the moment before lie turned his eyes away to starej
the sidewalk in front of him. He walked on, and in i
other moment he must perforce enter the field of her visJl
as he passed along the street in which her eyes wer!
searching for another man. He braced himself, threw his
head back, and commenced to whistle a careless tune.

H she saw him. if she noted the familiar slouch of his
hat as he passed out of her sight, she would never know that
he had seen — or cared.

n. "Bon Voyage!"

THE family were apparently not at all suqjrised when,
at the supper-table, Felix announced his sudden

decision.

''Well^ knew you'd be going one of these days," his
brother Ed remarked.

That seemed strange to Felix, who had kept his Chicago
intentions carefully to himself all that year. . . .

And his brother Jim, who was working again in spite of
ius lameness, was quite converted from his supper-table
quemlousofi^ by the announcement. "When I was in
Chicago — " he said, and told stories of the Chicago of ten
years ago, where he had tried briefly to gain a foothold.
It remained in his mind, it seemed, not as a failure, but as
a glorious excursion. . . .

Alice, Ed's wife, was enchanted. Her cheeks glowed,
and she asked endless questions. It appeared that none of
them had the slightest doubt of Felix's ultimate, and
splendid, success. It really seemed as if they envied him!

And all the while, Felix was thinking what an ironic
spectacle he would present if he -returned home in a month
or two. He clenched his fists under the table-edge, and
swore to himself that he would never — never — make that
confession of failure. . . .

•'You must write to your mother and tell her all about
it, Felix," said Alice.

His mother and father were down on the farm in Illinois
where Mrs. Fay had lived as a little girl. She had never
adjusted herself to town life; nor had her husband. They
were best content in the country, where she could g^ow
flowers in the front yard and he could fatten and butcher
and salt down a couple of hogs for the winter. . . . Their

10 The Briary-Bush

only grievance was that iheir children found so lifte time to
come and visit them. Ed usually came once a year, in the
slack season, and Jim when he needed a rest; but Felix,
it seemed, was always too busy. . . .

"Why bother her about my going to Chicago?" Felix
grumbled.

I "Why, Felix !" Alice reproached him. She could never
understand why it was so hard for him to write to his
mother.
"I don't want her worrying about me," Felix explained
uncomfortably.
"She won't worry about you," Alice insisted. "She'll
be proud of you!"
Felix wondered if people always had to lie to themselves
about their prospects before they could do anything. . . .
Perhaps he ought to lie to himself : but he preferred to face
the facts as they were. He would have to embellish them
a little, however, in writing to his mother. . . ,
When supper was cleared away, and Jim had gone out
to sit on the front steps, and Ed and Alice were in the front
room playing one of the newest records on the phonograph,
Felix wrote briefly and shyly to his mother — e.Kplaining

rthat he was fairly certain to get something to do in Chicago
very quickly. . . . And then, by way of savouring in ad-
vance the grim realities of his adventure, he wrote a long
letter to Helen Raymond in New York — a letter in which
he made clear the wild recklessness of his plans. He felt that
the woman who had befriended him when she was the
librarian at Port Royal and he a queer boy who worked
in a factory and wrote poetry, would understand this nev?<
B| folly of his.
' But what a waste of time, writing letters, when he

only six days left in which to prepare for going to Chicago
. , , He determined to use those remaining days very
carefully and sensibly.

He bought a street map the next morning, and went home

to study it. But it was hard to give it due attention at

_home. His s'ster-in-Iaw was mending and pressing his

■kcd
hafi

"Bon Voyage!" ii

dcdies, and collecting and inspecting his shirts, and talking
excitedly about his trip. "If you run short of money,
Fdix, you just write to us for it. Ed and I will see that
you get it somehow. " Felix was fiercely resolved not to
be a burden to them after he went to Chicago, and these of-

I fers made him uncomfortable. Why should Alice be so in-
terested in this expedition of his anyway? She was as con-
cerned about it as though it were she herself who was going.
She wanted to know his plans ; and when he did not seem to
have any, she persisted in trying to make them for him.

I He was not going to get any opportunity to study that
s tree t map at home. He decided that he would go and
spend a few days at his friend Tom Alden's little place in

' the cbuntry, where he would find a more congenial atmos-
phere.

Too congenial! Tom was the same perfect companion
of an idle hour — instinctively expert in gilding that idle-
ness with delightful talk until it ceased to seem mere idleness
— the same old Tom that Felix had loafed away long
evenings with last summer, when they were supposed to be
writing novels. Tom was still desultorily working upon his

\ novd; bat he put it aside to walk in the woods and talk
with Felix about Chicago. It was not, however, of the
grim Chicago which loomed in Felix's mind, that Tom talked.
Tom, as Felix now realized, was a romantic soul. Chicago
had been to him a series of brilliant vacation-trips, a place
of happy occasional sanctuary from the dull realities of
mid'lle-class life in Port Royal: an opportunity for brief,
stimulating human contacts, not at all a place to earn a
living in.

Lyin^ in the cool grass beside the creek where he and
Felix had spent so many illusioned hours a summer ago,
he talked with dreamy enthusiasm of genial drunken poets

^ and philosophers and friends met at the Pen aul>---and
of their girl companions, charming and sophisticated, whose
loves were frank and %ht-hearted.

12 The Briary-Bush

Felix walked up and down impatiently. A year ago 1
too had dreamed of Tom's Chicago —

"Midnights of revel
And noondays of song!"

But he knew better now. He could imagine the Pen'
Club, with its boon-companionship of whiskey and mutual
praise. These, he told himself, were the consolations of
failure. He might, he reflected grimly, have to fall back
on these things at forty. But in the meantime he would
try to learn to face reality.

And those light Chicago loves — he suspected that the
romantic temperament had thrown a glamour over these
also. He was not going to Chicago for Pen Club friend-
ship nor the solace of complaisant femininity. . . .
While Tom Alden reminisced of glorious nights of talk and
drink and kisses, Felix was brooding over a scene inside his
mind which he called Chicago — a scene in which the insane
clamour of the wheat-pit was mingled with stockyards brutal-
ity and filth. This was what he must deal with,

"What's on your mind?" Tom asked.

"Nothing. Except — I came here to study my street ma]
and I haven't looked inside it."

"Never mind your street map just now," Tom
"We're going to the station to meet Gloria and Madge.

Madge was a cousin of Tom's, and Gloria her especial-
and beautiful — friend. They were just back from a trip
abroad, and Tom had asked tfiem out to dinner to hear what
they had to tell.

"You mustn't be prejudiced against Gloria because of her
eyelashes," Tom urged, "She has rather a mind, I think."

So Felix, reluctantly, went along to the station,

Tom jested at his reluctance. "Why, are you afraid of
becoming entangled in Gloria's celebrated eyelashes?"

"No, I'm not afraid of that," Felix said,

Tom laughed and put his hand on Felix's shoulder.

"Think, they bring us news of the great world
^aris! Doesn't that stir you?"

■utal-
maps^

)ulder. U

Id: Londooifl

€€^

'Bon Voyage!'* 13

•T^fo." Fdix rctoited, "for I don't believe it. They bring
back what tfiey took with them. "

"^ait and see f I hear rumours that Gloria has become
fearfully cosmopolitan. **

When Gloria and Madge stepped from the train, it was
evident, even to so careless an observer as Felix, that they
had been at least outwardly transformed. Every woman in
Port Royal was wearing the wide-flaring "Merry Widow"
hat; and the^ girls wore small close-fitting hats — Gloria's
being a jaunty little flower-confection, and Madge's a tiny
straw turban set off by a perky feather.

"Dear old Tom," said Gloria, embracing him affectionately.
•Too busy to come to town to see old friends, so old
friends have to come see him. Busy writing great novel?'*

*'More or less," Tom answered, and they started back up
the road. "How's Europe?"

•*We tore ourselves from the arms of doting relatives to
come and tell you — When one's been all over the world,
what's a few miles more? . • . even when it means getting
one's new Paris shoes all dusty! Have you noticed them,
Tom?" She paused on one toe and looked down sidewise
admiringly at her foot.

'I noticed a generally exotic effect," Tom admitted.

Tan suede !" Gloria explained. "And then, our blouses.
Something quite new. And — but mustn't talk to great
philosopher about such frivolous things. Must talk about
art and socialism. There are lots of socialists over there,
in France and Germany — ^and even in England!"

"So you found that out," Tom -observed. "Now I sup-
pose you regard socialism as quite respectable."

"Oh, most respectable. But just as hard to understand as
ever ! Though I was able, when I talked to some of them at
the Countess of Berwick's tea, to appear quite intelligent on
the subject, on account of having listened to you. I used
'proletarian' and 'proletariat' without once getting them
mixed."

"The Countess of Berwick 1 Our little Gloria flew high,
didn't she?*'

14 The Briary-Bush

"Oh, all sorts of people go to the Countess of Berwick's
teas. You've only to be reputed 'interesting,' and yon get
invited everywhere. And how do you suppose I got into the
'interesting' class? Not by my gifts of intellect. Tommy.
But — you know, they expect Americans to behave queerly.
They're disappointed if we don't. There was an American
poet over there, a tame professor poet, and ihey were dis-
appointed because he didn't oome to dinner in boots and
spurs and a red shirt or something. So I bethought myself
—and got invited. You know my baby-talk? I brought it
out and polished it up for the occasion. You should have
heard me ! Baby-talking to England's brightest and best.
And they fell for it. They consider it oh, so American! I
■ nearly set a fashion in London, Tommy. Me, having been
brought up in Miss Pettit's most exclusive school, and taught
act like a lady, and then making a hit in London with bad
manners. The baby-talk wasn't all. Daughter of American
Plough Magnate Puts Feet on Table and Tells Naughty
Stories — that sort of thing. They like it."

"You mustn't believe her, Tom," Madge interrupted.
"She didn't do any such thing."

"Tom understands me," Gloria laughed. "Exaggeration
for effect. Just like in a novel. If you put my London visit
in a novel, Tom, you'd have me putting my feet on the table,
wouldn't you ? "

"But my imagination," said Tom, "would balk at tha ■
picture of you telling naughty stories. '*- J

"Oh, but Tom, I've been to Paris since you used to knoi^|
me, and I've become very, very wicked. Don't contradicw
me, Madge. I've got to persuade Tom that I got some
benefit out of my year abroad. Yes, Tom, you've no idea
how broad-minded Paris has made me. Why, if somebody
should mention a man's 'mistress' to me now, I wouldn't
shudder and turn pale. I would probably say, 'Dear me, '
has he only one?' That's what Paris has made of me. I'm
brazen, Tom — brazen."

They reached the house, and there they chattered on till
dinner, and through dinner, and after dinner in Tom's living

"Bon Voyage!" 15

foom— Felix playing a silent part, and inwardly contemptu-
ous of Gloria's assumed sophistication. Gloria made a few
a t te mpts to draw him into the conversation, but these being
resisted^ she devoted herself to Tom. Growing confidential,
she told him the newest fashions in French lingerie — Madge
p ro test i ng only slightly, for after all, wasn't Tom her cousin?
and Felix didn't count. "They're still wearing muslin over
Iwe," said Gloria, "while we, Tom dear, come from Paris
intiiiiately attired in georgette and chiffon — ^if you know what
tfiat means. All the difference in the world, I can assure
yoa f One's Puritanism goes when one puts on chiffon next
to one's skin. And think, Tom, I never dreamed, all my
poor wasted life in Iowa, that nigh^owns could be anything
bat white muslin. Well, you should see the lovely nighties
that Madge and I brought home. You'd never guess the
colour. . . . Lavender! Why, the social circles of Port
Royal are rocking with it ! A blow, Tom, at the very foun-
dations of middle-class morality. Lavender nighties!"

"I do think," Tom said, "that what people wear makes a
difference in their attitude toward life."

**Oh, I can feel the difference already. My Presbyterian
conscience shrivelled up and perished at the touch of that
pagan garment. My whole attitude toward life has
(nanged.

Felix shrugged his shoulders by way of expressing his
unbelief in the paganism of lavender nightgowns.

••What are they writing in Paris now ?" Tom asked.

'•Well, Tom, I admit I was surprised at first. I never
dreamed that even the French could be so-^French. But
I got used to it. I like it now. Even Madge likes it. She
makes me translate the wickedest passages for her. "

*1 don't any such thing," Madge objected.

•*What is there so wicked in those passages?" asked Felix,
speaking for almost the first time.

Gloria considered him for a moment before replying.
"Nothing really wicked at all," she said. "Wicked only
according to our stupid Anglo-Saxon notions. Simply
frank, that's all. "

igain

i6 The Briary-Bush

"I wonder," said Felix, "if they are really more frank than
English novels — the best of them. Defoe and Fielding
were rather frank, you know."

Gloria shrugged her pretty shoulders. "If there was any-
thing like that in Defoe and Fielding, it escaped my inno-
cent young mind when I read them. " She turned :^ain
to Tom, "They omit nothing — Nothing I"

"You excite my curiosity," Tom said sceptically. "Pli
describe more specifically the Nothing which they omit,'

Gloria laughed, and sketched lightly and brightly the plot
of one of the most outrageous new French novels — ex-
treme, she admitted, even for France. "Every other chap-
ter." she said, "is one which the boldest English novelist
would leave to your imagination. In this story, here it is,
with. I assure you, a wealth of detail."

"A wealth of words, rather, I suspect," said Tom. "The
same words that have done duty in the same French novels
for a generation : volitpti — exquise — baiscr — baiser. . . .
The same old thing, so far as I gather from your descrip-
tion, Gloria. That kind of eloquent rhetoric isn't fn
ness, — at least not the kind of literary frankness that F(
and I are interested in."

"Forgive me, Tom !" said Gloria, with mock humility!
"My mistake! Here I have been going across the ocean in
search of sensation, and all the while the real shock was
waiting for me right here at home. In your novel you have
doubtless outdone the pimy efforts of these mere foreigners.
What do they know about frankness? I abase myself, and
repent in dust and ashes !"

"I really do think." said Tom, "that you imagine the
truth can be told only in French. "

"1 suppose I was guilty of that foolish error. But I
pine for enlightenment. Give me the truth — the Truth I-
tn my own native tongue ! "

Tom shook his head, "I didn't say I had tried to tell it.^

"Oh, don't disappoint me that way. Tom. Surely
are not going to let these Frenchmen put it over on yi
Don't say tftalf"

cnp-

'"Bon Voyage!*' 17

'Wdl,'* Tom said gravely, "Felix has a chapter in his
oovd here — I found the manuscript in my desk and was
just reading it again the other day — ^that I think goes a
little beyond anything I have ever seen in any French novel. "

Gk>ria turned to Felix and stared. "Well!" she cried.
'America is saved! Will you read it to us, Mr Fay?"

••No," he said.

••Oh, why not!"

••Don't want to."

•'I tfiink you show a lack of confidence in us, Mr Fay.
Here we put ourselves in your hand. We open our hearts to
foo. We conceal nothing. And you sit there with a master-
piece of literary frankness up your sleeve, and refuse to read
it I don't think it's fair."

Felix was silent. He really wanted to read that chapter.
He was proud of it. But he must not become interested in
Dovel-writing again. It would distract his mind too much
from the Chicago adventure. That unfinished novel ought
to remain in that drawer in Tom's desk until he had made
good in Chicago.

"I don't believe it's so frank, after all," said Gloria, return-
ing to the attack. "That^s why you're afraid to read it.
You're afraid of disappointing our expectations."

Felix looked at her defiantly.

"AU right, I will," he said.

••Oh, this is worth coming back for."

He rose and went to Tom's room. He returned, a little
doubtfully, with the manuscript. "I want to say first
3f all that there is nothing intentionally shocking about this
diapter. It simply aims to tell how people really behave un-
ler circumstances usually glossed over with romantic
phrases."

At any rate, Gloria would understand ; so why should he
besitate ?

He began to read. From the first page, he was aware of
I transformation in the atmosphere of the occasion. Gloria,
irho had been leaning forward with dramatic eagerness, be-
rigid in her attitude, and her humorous smile seemed to

' i8

The Briary-Bush

f have become tensely frozen in its place. Madge had picked
up a magazine, opened it to a picture, and continued to look
at the picture while listening alertly, with an air of being at
a key-hole, Tom continued gravely smoking his pipe, ap-
parently oblivious of any constraint upon the others. After
a little, Gloria carefully relaxed her attitude, and leaned
back, looking above Felix's head, with an impassive face and
arms straight at her sides. Felix defiantly read on.

He knew there was nothing really shocking about the
chapter — at least, to an enlightened and adult mind such as
r Gloria's. It did not occur to him that in its local colour and
middle- western psychology, there was something — not present
in the most highly flavoured French romance — to disturb
the pretences and awake the painful and ashamed memories
of a middle-western mind : something sufficiently near to the
unromantic truth of Gloria's own secret life, perhaps, to
evoke in her an hysterical disgust. . . . He only knew that
the situation was becoming uncomfortable, and that he was
sorry he had ever got into it.

He finished the chapter. There ensued a painful silence. J

"Very remarkable writing indeed, Mr, Fay." was ail tbcn
comment the young woman back from abroad had to o(fer.4
Evidently what was delightfully daring in Paris was some-
thing else in Port Royal on the Mississippi. . . .

Felix, not knowing quite what to think, went to put his
manuscript away. Surely Gloria could not have been really
shocked! . . . When he returned, they were all talking with
animation about something else. . . . Presently it was time
for the girls to leave. "I hear you're going to Chicago
soon." Gloria said sweetly to Felix. "Bon voyage!

"I have made a fool of myself again," Felix said to t
self bitterly.

The next day, and the next, Felix and Tom talked e _

about Chicago; but not in the realistic vein Felix wouJd^l

have preferred. Tonight he must go back to town ; he had

already staytA too long — he was falling into his old habit

"hicago
o hiiU'^l

wouidf^"

«1

'Bon YoyageV* 19

of day-dreaming about the future. . . . That chapter had
att him off. Gloria bad been — ^well, startled and impressed,
to say the least That chapter tvos good. Perhaps he was
destined to hflp bring back to English fiction its lost candour,
the candour of the Elizabethans and Defoe and Fielding.

But no, he must not think about such things now. He
would have no time for writii^, for a long while, in Chicago.
He would be too much immersed in the struggle for existence.
If he were to write novels, he ought to stay in Port Royal.
Yes, he might take the civil service examination and get a
quiet job in the post-office that would give him time to think
and dream and write. . . .

He sprang up. He knew quite well what this meant.
G)wardicel If he got into the post-office, he would stay
diere forever. . . . He started abruptly toward the house,
leaving Tom in the midst of an anecdote of old Chicago
days.

He had left the map on Tom's desk. His novel was in
that same desk. If he started reading that novel again,
he might decide to stay in Port Royal and finish it. He
wondered whether the map or the novel would claim him
when he sat down at that desk. Five minutes at that desk
mig^t decide his whole future for him. . . .

He went into Tom's room, went over to the desk — and
from a letter lying open beside the pen-tray there flashed up
to him his own name, Felix Fay . . . with a fringe of
words about it

Those words startled him, and he bent over the letter to
make sure that they w^^ really there; he read them, and
turned to see the signa^re — ^it was that of Madge Alden;
and then he sat down in Tom's chair and read slowly that
paragraph of three sentences.

"Is thai nasty yowng man Felix Fay really a friend of yours f
I think he'd better leave Port Royal quick. The.story of that
horrible cliapter is all over town and — well, if you knew the
things Gloria is saying about him!"

So Gloria had betrayed him to Port Royal.

The Briary-Biish

He sank back in his chair, amazed at his sensations. He
had never thought any written words could affect him like
that. He had never cared what people thought. , . .

It was absurd. He felt as though a cannon-ball had gone
through his abdomen. He sat there, weak, stunned, gasp-
ing for breath^with a mind curiously detached, floating
somewhere above that stumicd body, wondering. ... It
was curious that anything in the world could hurt so much.
Then, in a rush, all his energy seemed to come back, flood-
ing and filling his body — as if to provide him the strength
with which to return blow for blow. And that superfluity of
strength was worse than the weakness had been — for there
was no one, nothing to fight. Words out of the air had
hurt him, and he could not fight back.

The emotion which flooded him ebbed at last, leaving
him in a curious mood of utter coldness. The thought came
into his mind: "Nothing that ever happens to me can hurt
me after this — nothing."

He opened the drawer. He wanted to see that unfinished
novel. He wanled to know what it was really like. He
felt capable of judging it calmly.

He turned the pages here and there, reading at random,
now with affection and now with contempt, making up his
mind. . . . He suddenly realized that he was feeling ashamed
of it all. He did not realize that this new humiliation, at
the hands of a girl, had awakened painful memories of the
love-affair which he had celebrated in this novel, and which
had ended so differently in real life from the way it was
to end in this book ; he only knew that he was ashamed.
The style, he said to himself, was bad — very bad.
He forced himself to read again the chapter which had
caused all the trouble. It made him smile painfully. Why,
this bald and painstaking frankness of his was not
courageous, it was merely comic 1 ... He turned the pages
again. This stuff was not a novel.
He had been an idler, a dreamer, a fool. . , .
And suddenly he remembered something — s scene from

''Bon Voyage!" 21

a long time ago: it was in school, and fhe principal was
loolds^ over a boy's shoulder at a piece of paper upon which,
day-dreaming of his future, the boy had written: ^' Felix
Fay, the great novelist. . . /'

He heard the principal telling that boy to write those
words on the blackboard, to show the class what he had been
doing instead of attending to his lessons. He saw the boy,
pale and trembling, rise and face a hundred curious, staring

Felix had not recalled that scene for years; it had hurt
too much. But now it was no longer painful. He saw the
scene for the first time impersonally; and he felt that the
principal had been right. . . .

Gazing down at the manuscript in his hand, he pronounced
sentence upon it in the words in which the principal had once
condemned that boy. "This is what is known as egotism,"
he whispered.

He rose, stuffed the pages into Tom's fireplace and set
fire to them with a match. Then, while the record of all
his futile dreaming went up in smoky flame, he turned back
to the desk, sat down, and bent over the microscopic squares
and confused lettering of the street-map of Chicago.

III. Plans

OMING home, Felix found a letter from Helen
mond, congratulating him on his decision to go to
^ta^ Chicago, and enclosing two letters of introduction,
one of them to an editorial writer on an afternoon paper,
the other to some one at a settlement house.

ilelen was, he perceived, like Tom, a romanticist. She
would be quite capable of believing that these little pieces of
paper assured him a welcome in Chicago! . , , She had.
with a kind of pathetic maternal fussiness, talten his
destinies in charge; and Felix rather wished she hadn't.
She had even directed him as to which train he should take
on Monday — apparently confident that some one, in respi
to her suggestion, would be at the station to meet him.
if people in Chicago had time for such amenities!

It was in the mood of one who goes alone against the
enemy, that Felix took the train to Chicago. And armed
with a paper sword 1 For so it was that he thought cf his
letters of introduction. Of what use were letters of introduc-
tion in Chicago? Well he knew how unconscious Chicago
would remain of the arrival of one more poor struggler.
His coming might mean everything to him, but it meant
nothing at all to Chicago. That was the obvious truth, and
why not face it ?

On the train he took out his money and counted it agi
I though he knew quite definitely how much he had,
it was reassuring to feel the crisp bills in his hand. '
he would not starve for three or four weeks anyway.
l^considered the advisability of putting away separately enoi

Plans 23

to pay his fare back home, but decided against it. ''I am not
going back home," he said to himself.

He went over his plans once more. From the station
he would go to a certain cheap hotel that Tom had suggested.
Tom had stayed there once when he was nearly bcoke. Then
be would look about for a cheap room. ThSLt secured, he
would spend a day wandering about the city asid familiar-
izing himself with its streets. The third day he would go
to look for a job. And the fourth day — and all the other
datys — he would continue to look for a job : until he got one.

There was no use in going over his plans any more. He
took a book from his suitcase to read.

He had taken along only one book. ... He had smiled
ironically when choosing it, remembering the old literary
discussions as to what book one would choose to have along
when cast away on a desert island. Here was a more
practical probletti: what book one should choose for solace
when cast alone into the midst of a complex and difficult
civilization. On a desert island one would want something
to remind one of people, of civilization — ^perhaps Henry
James; or more likely the Arabian Nights. But for his
Chicago campaign he had chosen H. G. Wells' "First and
Last Things."

He opened the book and b^an to read. ... He discovered
after a while that he had been reading the same sentence
over and over:

"Ji seems to me one of the heedless errors of those who deal
m philosophy, to suppose all things that have simple names or
mni/ied efFects are in their nature simple and may be discovered
omd isolated as a sort of essence by analysis."

Under ordinary circumstances that sentence was doubt-
less perfectly clear; but on the train to Chicago it was
strangely hard to understand. And when he recalled his
wandering thoughts, put aside his emotions of expectation
and fear, and looked at the sentence again, its meaning was
singularly comfortless. That simple things are not so
le after all — ^yes, that was just die trouble !

24 The Briary-Bush

Going to Chicago, for instance. Thousands of young
men did it every year; his journey was merely one of the
items of those broad sociological generalizations which the
university extension lecturers were fond of uttering. From
the outside it was simple enough. It had apparently been
taken for granted by his family and friends for the last two
or three years that Felix would go to Chicago. Certain
people, it seemed, inevitably went. Being one of those
people, he had gone.

But tvhyf

He restlessly put aside the book and stared out the window.
Why? He hadn't the least idea, and he rather wished he
were back in Port Royal, with time and leisure to work out ■
the answer to that question satisfactorily. . ,

"Going to Chicago ?"

It was a genial elderly man in the seat opposite asking 3
the question — a plump man with a little pointed beard
sprinkled with grey, and laughing wrinkles about his eyes-
He leaned forward in a friendly manner.

"Yes," Felix answered.

"First time?" the man asked shrewdly.

"Yes," — and Felix wondered why it should be the I
time. Why, living only five hours away from Chicago,
had he never gone there to reconnoitre, to learn to find his
way about, to get the lay of things? It had been stupid
of him not to.

"I came to Chicago for the first time forty years ago,"
the elderly man was saying. "And I was just about as
scared as you are." He laughed kindly, and tapped Felix's
knee. "But I needn't have been. Chicago's a fine town.
No place better for a young man to go. You don't need to
worry, my boy. Chicago's on the lookout for bright young
people."

Yes — but that was just what was bothering Felix Fay.
He was afraid he was not a bright young person in the
ordinary meaning of the term.

The man entered upon a lively account of his early
struggles and successes in the hides and leather busitiess.

lUt ■

rd
a.

{

Plans 25

' •What's your Imc?' he suddenly asked, smiling.

* **! — ^write," Felix said, embarrassed. "I want to get a
job on a newspaper." How remote that seemed from the
hides and leather business I

•Well, we've got some fine newspapers in Chicago. I read
the Tribune myself. I always turn first thing to the
/ fnnoy column. I miss it when I'm out of town— doesn't
\ seem like breakfast is complete without it." He paused,
with a reminiscent air. ''But none of them are as good as
'Gene Field used to be I My, how I did enjoy the things
be wrote. I know a man who used to know him right well,
too; tells stories about him. 'Gene was a great old boy."
He sighed.

Felix was startled. He had not suspected that in the hides
and leather business there was room for this quaint literary
sentimentalism. . . .

•'What's your name?" Felix told him. ''Mine's Ander-
son — ^John Anderson. I'm getting off here at Elgin. You
might come and see me at my oflke in Chicago some time,
and tell me how you're getting along. I'll give you my

• card. . . . Well, Mr. Fay, you drop in any time — or ring
. me up— -and well go out to lunch. I'll take you to a nice

chop-house. Maybe," he grinned, "you'll need a good meal,
I now and then, before you get started. You just ring me up I"
f He shook hands warmly, took down his big suitcase, and left

the train.

Fdix irowned. It was pleasant, of course, to be so
genially treated by a stranger. But he must not get any false
ideas of Chicago from this incident. He would think twice
about accepting Mr. John Anderson's invitation to come
and see him; and he would certainly not come if he were
m need of a meal; probably Mr. Anderson would have
forgotten all about him by the next day, anyway. He put
away Mr. Anderson's card in the pocket in which his letters
of introduction were stored. Again he frowned, took out his
letters of introduction, looked at them, and put them baidiL.

munity
"What

26 The Briary-Bush

He could forget Mr. Anderson's card, but what could he
do with those letiers of introduction?

They were in a way a serious embarrassment, Helen
would expect him to make use of them. . . . He could see
himself presenting his letter to Mr. Blake at the Community
House, and being regarded with puzzled surprise. "What
does he want of us?" Mr. Blake would be
himself. . . .

Well, what did he want of them? Nothing.

He had a great notion to tear those letters up and thl
them away before he had made a fool of himself '
them, . . .

Chicago I Endless blocks of dwellings, a glimpse of g
buildings, and then the dusky gloom of a huge station,
seized his suitcase, descended from the train, and heard
his name called queslioningly.

He turned to meet a smiling, straw-haired youth, who
shook his hand, and relieved him of his suitcase, "I'm
right? Helen gave me a good description, and 1 was sure
it was you! My name is Blake— Will Blake. Well, how's
Port Royal? And my friend Hastings of the Record? ,^nd
Judge Beecher and Rabbi Nathan. Dr. Truesdate and the
rest of 'em? I know Port Royal quite well, I've lectured
there so much. And Helen tells me you're the reporter
that gave our series such good slories,"

Felix bewilderedly recognized this affable youth as the
university instructor whose lectures in the exten-ion series
on sociolc^ral problems he had attended and reported : and
he realized that between Port Royal and Chicago, so remote
in his imagination, there were at least some few human links.
Even so. this struck him as being in the nature of a remark-
abli. coincidence.

Meanwhile, Felix had been escorted to a street-car. It
was dusk, and the slreets were crowded, Bui Blake's
friendly questioning served to distract hi.s attention from the
bewildering hugeness of the city. With but the slightest

Plans 27

opportunity for feeling his individual insignificance against
this new background of rushing, roaring life, he was talked
half way across Chicago to a place where, at an intersection
of busy and dirty little streets, rose a gracious and homelike
building. "This is Community House," said Blake. "I'll
take you right up to your room, and you can meet the Head
and the residents at dinner.'^

Left alone in the room — ^where, as his escort had casually
assured him, he was to stay until he had made other plans
— Felix strove to r^;ain his sense of the verities.

He knew already of the existence, and the purposes, of
Community House. It was one of those institutions which
be had discussed, knowingly and scornfully, in the Socialist
k)cal back in Port Royal— it was one of the "bourgeois-
idealistic*' attempts to dbscure, by means of a futile benevo-
lence, the class-struggle between the rich and the poor. . . .

His actual feeling, however, was one of gratitude toward
the cheerful shelter of this little room. He went to the
window. It was strangely exhilarating to look out over the
smoke and grime of this tumble of roofs, from the window
of a room so instantly and pleasantly his own.

He had a curious feeling of ease and security — ^a feeling
which he strove to repress. . . .

Secure, and at ease — ^that seemed indeed a foolish way for
one to feel who was about to commence the grim battle of life
I

IV. Surprises

DURING those first days Felix was trying hard —
too hard I — to adjust himself to the world of reahty;
which after all has its kindly aspects.
The second day, Felix set out to explore Chicago, He
had conned on the map and fixed in his mind the location of
various streets; but as the points of the compass seemed,
when once he had left Community House, to have got

k strangely twisted, these preliminary lessons were confusing
rather than otherwise. After a brief survey of the loop
district, he found himself looking from the steps of the
public library, at Michigan Avenue, and beyond that the
lake.

Summer had Just turned into autumn ; it was a cool day.

and there was a light wind glancing over the surface of the

water. Felix drew a long breath, and looked down the

Avenue. Only a few people were on the sidewalk at that

hour, but those few. with their air of infinite leisure,

gave it the quality of a boulevard. Along the smooth

roadway, slill wet from a rain which had fallen during the

night, a few motor cars skimmed by ; and the people in them

seemed to have that sama air of careless light-hearted

enjoyment of life. To the south, great clouds of white steam

arose from beside a black shed which Felix guessed to be an

Illinois Central station, and floated airily across to blur

the outlines of the buildings that faced the Avenue. Felix

stood still, wondering at himself. There was something odd

about this: Chicago seemed beautiful I But doubtless that

^^ notion merely proved him to be what he was, a boy from tl^^

^K country. J^|

^^B Halt ashamed of the thrill which he got out of tfa^|

Surprises 29

sight, he crossed to the building on the lake front which
must be the Art Institute. But he found its pictures dull
m comparison with the one he had left outside. He went
bade to the street, and sniffed eagerly at the wind from off
the lake. He was experiencing a curious emotional release
in the presence of its vastness. Not only himself, but
Chicago, , suddenly seemed small at its side. A city
perched on the edge of a huge inland sea !

And then, convinced that his mood was an unrealistic
one, he took the south side elevated to the stockyards. . . .
In its gruesome realities he would find an antidote to this
romanticism.

He was one of a long queue of visitors who were led from
one building to another and lectured at and shown the sights.
After an hour he had seen nothing sufficiently gruesome to
be exciting, and he was becoming annoyed with his fellow-
visitors. They stared at the workers with a kind of dull
unimaginative pity. Felix resented those stares. He felt
that he understood these workers; had he not been one of
them himself in factory days at Port Royal! There was
something indecent in this gaping and pointing. He dropped
out of line and went away.

He had missed the great scene, still to come — the cattle-
kiDing. But he reflected that he was a butcher's son.
This was merely a slaughter-house on a grand scale. He had
nothing new to learn from the stockyards. . . .

But he was inevitably depressed by his day of confused
sight-seeing; the hugeness of the city had in the end made
him feel useless and helpless. It was a relief to meet again
at diimer the pleasant men and women residents of Com-
munity House who had been so gracious to him the evening
before.

His shyness had lifted sufficiently the previous evening to
let him engage in a lively ailment. There had been some-
thing very gratifying to him in the way they listened to
what he said — without agreement, to be sure, but otv Xftixa^

I
I
I

30 The Briary-Bush

of interested equality. It had made him feel at home;
and it was only afterward, in his room, that he had realized
the duly of guarding himself against these easy reassurances.
He told himself that these people were all engaged in
trying to obscure the grim realities of life. But he must not
let himself be deceived. Their friendliness was well-meant ;
but it had to be discounted. ... It was all too well calculated
to soothe a bruised egotism, to relax a mood of stem self-
abasement — to make an impressionable young man forget
that he was a mere unconsidered atom in a cruel chaos.
This easy hospitality could not be the truth about Chicago.
It was a mask, behind which the real Chicago hid its terrible,
grim face. . . .

The argument last night had been about literature and the
way it was taught in the schools. Concerning school methods
of dealing with poetry Felix had been particularly scornful.
Tonight Blake took up the argument again, and Felix
explained himself vigorously. Only those who could do a
thing, he insisted, were capable of really understanding it ;
and it did not matter that they did it badly — so long as
they thereby came to understand it creatively.

A red-haired young woman at the further end of the long
table was the only one who appeared to take his arguments
with any seriousness ; at least he thought he saw approval
in her eyes. The others, or so it seemed to him, were only
politely amused at the intensity of his feelings on the sub-
ject. But when he had concluded his argument, the mother-
ly-looking woman at the head of the table said, "Perhaps if
Mr. Fay feels like that, he will be willing to undertake a
class in English literature twice a week for us. Mr. Hays,
who has had the class, is leaving town. You'll have a chance,
Mr. Fay, to try out your theories on twenty very interested
young people — who I'm sure would be glad to learn to pro-
duce literature as well as to appreciate it. I think, myself,
there's something to your theory — though I don't hold much
by theories any more. I think a great deal depends on the
enthusiasm with which they are carried out, I'm sure you
rvi'JJ make an enthusiastic teacher — I only hope you won't

Surprises 31

become too quickly discouraged. Do you think you'd like
to try it?*'

Gracious and even flattering a<« this offer was, yet the chal-
lenge in it rather staggered Felix. He had not expected to be
ailed upon to prove the correctness of his theory in actual
pcactice ; he had never supposed that he would ever have the
Dpportunity. Teaching was a province sacred to those who
themselves had been elaborately taught— certainly not to be
intnided upon by a youth who had never finished high school I
Ytt, if he believed in his own theory, he ought to be willing
x> ptit it to the test. He ought to take up this challenge.
But did he dare risk a humiliating failure? And then his
gres met those of the red-haired girl down at the other end
>f the table; and he knew that she expected him to do it.

••Thank you for the chance," he said. "I'll be glad to."

The talk swept on to other things, leaving him a little
iazed. He had been quite casually accepted as one whose
abilities might be of value; he had astonishingly become a
part of this institution ; and upon no false pretences — for in
liis argument he had candidly exposed the deficiencies of his
formal schooling. These people were willing to try him out.
^nd they went on talking as though nothing strange had oc-
mrred. . . . The loneliness and helplessness in which he had
been submerged by his day of sight-seeing, ebbed away.

••Won't you tell me something more about your idea? It's
rery interesting to me, because I'm in charge of a group of
diiklren who are doing plays."

The red-haired girl was speaking to him as they drifted out
>f the dining-room. She was a slender young person, of
ibout twenty-five years, with an interestedly impersonal man-
ler. She turned to a young man at her other side, an affec-
ed-looking young man, with a wide black ribbon depending .
from his nose-glasses, and said: "Paul, is your model set
eady ? Let us have a private view of it."

••Charmed," the young man replied, in a mincing accent.
Felix disliked him at once.

••Pkul," the red-haired girl explained, turning back to

32 The Briary-Bush

Felix, "is our scenic genius. He makes the mosX wooderfol
little sets out of painted cardboard, and then we go and
spoil than trying to carry them out in our theatre. He won't
even come and look at them when they're finished — don't you
think that's unkind?"

"Oh, please don't say that. Miss Prentiss!" the youn; man
protested, still in that tone which seemed to Felix uruutunl
and "prissy." Al ihe foot of tlie wide stairs he hailed, ind
put a 6nger to his lips. "I don't know realty whether I <M^IC
to show you the set — just yet. It's not quiit — "

"I'm sure it's perfectly all right." Ihe giri said firmly, and
proceeded up the stairs. To Felix she continued over btr
shoulder; "It's a set for our 'Prince and Pauper'. I'm tmd
to see what it's like. Paul ought to do something quite stnh
ning with iL"

"But I've only got one scene done, you know," Pid
objccled. "And even that's uncertain, you understand; Ite
idea for the whole thing — " he waved his hands bdplcssly;
Felix noted that they were graceful hands and beaotifiUly
manicured — "hasn't quite comt j'etl"

He paused again, doubtfully, but the girl ran relentessly
ip the siairs. On the top floor she stopfied in front of a door.
"Now don't make any excuses, Paul, but just let us in."

Paul cdiediently opened the door, snapped on the lifihtt,
aad ihey entered a room of which Ihe walls were covered wiA
tattered Persian rugs, the shelves sprinkled with cnriotn
bronze figures and the floor, along one wall, lined with a row
of books. In the centre of the room was a drawing-tab'
littered with scraps of gold and silver paper, colourr
cnywu, and tiny (xinles of coloured inks. In the corr
with a wire ninning down from the electric fixture in i'
ceiling. wa.t a pot of glue. FcHx walked orer to the w:".
glanced down at the row of books on the floor, and noted a ^■-
of ttie Yellow Book and an odd volume of the Savoy.

Paul had taken up a stnall model of a stage-tet and wa»
boking at it anxiously.

"Oh." the girl cried, "let me sec t"

He put it into her hands, sat down at the drawing-

Surprises 33

jumped up and turned on the current under his pot of glue,
and sat down again, intent upon a pasteboard figure which he
had taken from the tiny stage.

"Dear me, this is all wrong/' he said in distress, stripping
die tinsel from the figure. "How could I ?"

*nLook/' the girl said to Felix, beckoning him with her
head. 'TTiis is the palace scene. See — ^"

"Do take it over to your room to explain it," Pftul said pet-
ulantly. ''You distract me."

^Come,'' said the girl, and they entered the room on the
odier side of the hall. But in a moment Paul had followed
them anxiously. "I must teU you that the colours here are
not right," he said, hovering over the model, which the girl
had set down on her table. "No blues — no blues at all I
bhies go in the next scene. Nothing but red and gold and
Mack. And this arch will be different — ^more sombre. The
dirone higher— dwarfing the human figures. Very high —
twenty inches, an inch to the foot, twenty feet high !"

"But Paul," said the girl, "you know our proscenium-arch
b only twelve feet high !"

"I can't help that, my dear young woman," the young man
replied with hauteur. "I know well enough that you'll ruin
my beautiful scene. But in my mind — Oh, pewter^
platter f* His voice, uttering this preposterous exclamation,
had become shrill, and he dashed to the door. "My glue-
pot I" he cried, and disappeared.

The girl sat down and began to laugh. "Isn't he funny?"
she said.

"Funny ?" Felix echoed dubiously.

''But he does make nice stage-pictures anyway," she said.

Felix looked at the model. "But are these airs natural to
him, or is he just putting them on to impress people?
Where is he from?"

"Guess!"

Felix thought he saw a light. "London?"

The girl laughed again. "Arkansas," she said.

"What!"

"Yes, just as be is now, trom Arkansas — glasses^ ^ofixvV

34 The Briary-Bush

Yellow Book and everything. I've a kind of notion whj
is, if you'd like to hear it."

"I would."

"Then make yourself comfortable." She motioned loward
the couch, which with its pillows was the only suggestion of
ease in her rather bare and workmanlike room; a writing-
table, a typewriter on its stand, and a long shelf of books,
gave it an air quite different from the room across the hall.
She drew over a chair for herself in front of the couch.

'"Don't blame him," she said. "We're all a little like that —
I mean, queer. I'm sure I seem quite as queer as that to my
family down in Springfield. If you live in Arkansas, and
want to make lovely stage-pictures, you are a freak; or you
become one trying to keep from being dull like everybody
else. It's inevitable."

"You frighlen me," Felix said soberly. "Am I a fi
I suppose I am — but somehow I don't like the idea.'

"Do you want to make a million dollars?"

"No, not at all."

"Then of course you're a freak." She laughed cheerfully.

"And what does Chicago think of — of us?" he asked.

"Oh. that's all right. Chicago is beginning to realize that
it needs us. Chicago wants to be a metropolis. And all the
stock-yards in the world won't make a metropolis. Enough
of us, given a free-hand — can. And Chicago knows it. Just
now we are at a premium here. We can be as crary as we
like !"

"I wonder?"

^ "You ought to have known the scenic genius who preceded

Paul. Dick Bernitz. his name was. He was a wild one

Gloom — despair — and, as it turned out, drugs. He came

from Nevada. He affected evening clothes — wanted to wear

I tbem all day long, in fact! Baudelaire was his god. We

I were loo tame for him. He left us, and starved and froze

somewhere in the slums — still in his evening clothes ; and got

pneumonia and died. And Dick was — just a nice boy who

wanted to do beautiful pictures and poems. Nevada did that

to him."

freal^

Surprises 35

But — why blame Nevada ?*'

His father was in real-estate. He wanted Dick to sell

"'Wdly and after all, why not? One must do something
ordinary — to make a living."

"Why didn't you do something ordinary? Why did you
oome to Chicago ?*

Felix was silent.

•*I'vc kind of got you bothered, haven't I?" said the girl
maliciously.

"You've given me something to think about." He rose.

"But I haven't asked you yet what I was going to. Will
foa do a play for us?"

"I can't do plays !"

"Oh, yes, you can. You write poetry and stories and
things, don't you ?"

**Do I give myself away as plainly as that?"

The girl laughed. "You ought to know that an institution
like this is a gathering place for idealists of all sorts and
lands. I know the chief varieties, and you aren't any of the
sociological sorts, so you must be one of the artist kind.
Besides, didn't I hear you talk at dinner?"

Felix grinned shamefacedly. "I didn't disguise myself
very well," he admitted. "But anyway — "

He walked impatiently across the little room. His mind
was in a state of strange upheaval. All his ideas about
Chicago and himself were being upset. He ought not to
listen to this girl. He must not let her confuse his plans. In
particular he must not become interested in writing. He
had put all that aside for the present.

His lips twisted in an uneasy grimace. Why, at this
moment, when his mind must be braced to meet the impact
of realities, should he let himself be drugged with the opitun
of dreams?

Already, at her mere word, the old numbing desire had
come in a new guise — a vague, feverish yearning toward
the puppet-world of the stage : fascinating half-formed ideas
for plays rose like bubbles in his mind.

The Briary-Bush

It was a feeling like home-sickness.

He must not indulge it. Of course, it would be fa
to write a play for this girl, and help invent scenery and '
costumes for it- But that was not what he had come to
Chicago for. He must put aside all enthusiasms which had
no relation to the world of work-a-day reality. The very
fact that he was so much interested io the idea proved that
it waa wrong. . . .

He saw now that it was foolish to have ever come to this
place — this refuge for idealists and dreamers. The thought
of hunting up a new lodging that night suggested itself; but
of course it would be hard to find another place half so
comfortable — and he must consider his very limited
finances. . . .

"Anyway," he said, pausing in front of the girl, "I won't
write you a play !"

"Oh, yes you will !" she said.

A knock, and the door burst open, and Paul rushed in with
a new-made cardboard figure, dressed in gold tinsel. "At
last t" he cried, holding it up. "This will be the key-note of
the play !"

"Splendid!" cried the girl, glancing at it. "And now I'm
going to take Mr. Fay down and show him our theatre."

As they went out, Felix noted on her door a card which
revealed that her first name was Rose-Ann. It seemed a
singularly fitting name for her, somehow.

V. The Struggle for Existence

A STRANGE and perturbing girl ! . . . He had not be-
lievedy he wished not to believe, what she had told
him — that one could be fool and dreamer and yet
make terms with Chicago.

But in the course of a few wedcs it began to seem as if
she were right.

Felix's other letter of introduction was to Mr. Qive Bangs,
editorial writer on the Evening Chronicle. Very diffidently,
after having made futile inquires at other newspapers during
the week, he went one afternoon to present the letter.

Some one in the front office said, "Back there under the
mezzanine — the first office to the right." He found a little
built-in coop, and opened the door. The space inside was
crowded with desks and tables, the floor littered with papers,
the air filled with cigarette smoke. Through the windows,
facing on an alley overhung by tall buildings, no sunlight
came, and electric lamps on the desks pierced holes of light
through the twilight atmosphere. At one of the desks a
plump man lounged, smoking a cigarette. A long, lean man
in shirt-sleeves was pounding a typewriter. A surly-looking
young man with a careless Windsor tie, and a lock of hair
that fell over one eye, sat at a third desk, reading a book.

The plump man looked up with a good-humoured smile,
and Felix approached him, saying, "Mr. Bangs?" The
plump man waved a hand towards the surly-looking youth.
"That's Mr. Bangs," he said.

Mr. Bangs looked up, frowned at Felix, and said, "You
want to see me?" He jumped up, and indicated a chair
vaguely. ''Wait a minute," he said, and taking up a ty^

38 The Briary-Bush

written sheet from his desk went hurriedly out of the office.
Felix looked at the chair. It was piled high with ex-
changes, so he remained standing. The plump man
continued to smoke dreamily. The long, lean man thought-
fully wrote on. Felix waited. Mr. Bangs did not return.
It was, Felix felt uncomfortably, just what he had expected
— it was silly to have come here with that letter.

He glanced down at the desk, saw the book which Mr.
Bangs had been reading, noted the name on the cover, and
picked it up with a sudden interest. He looked at the title
page, the date ; and then turned the leaves, tenderly, affection-
ately. . . .

He had quite forgotten Mr. Bangs, and the nature of his
errand.

Mr. Clive Bangs, having handed the typewritten sheet to
the foreman of the composing-room, walked back slowly.
He knew very well who his visitor was. Helen's letter
announcing his arrival was in his pocket. "He is," Helen
had written him, "just as crazy as you are, Clive I" But he
distrusted Helen's judgment. ... It was one thing to
welcome to Chicago one more of the too few sophisticated
spirits of the mid-west ; it was another to have on his hands
some pale, gawky, helpless youth who had been falsely
encouraged by country librarians in the notion that he could
write I What seemed a prodigy out in Iowa might be merely
one of the army of unemployed and unemployable here io
Chicago, Give had tried to help these prodigies before;
and he knew that a painful addiction to the style of Ruskin,
combined with egotism and a total lack of ideas, was no easy
malady to cure. He rather flinched from the prospect of
taking Helen's protege in hand. . . . But, still — "crazy as
you are" — Helen might know what she was talking about.

Stopping in the doorway, Clive looked at his problem in
person. He had picked up that book — that H. G. Wells
book. . , . Those were the days just before "Tono-Bui^ay,"
and the name of H. G. Wells was as yet cherished by onl>.B
a few enthusiasts. Besides, this was the least known of i~
G. Wells' writings, and one who might have heard of Wells ■

The Struggle for Existence 39

a writer of pseudo-scientific yams would be puzzled by it.
Give stood for a moment trying to gauge the quality of Felix
Fajr's response to the volume in his hand ; then he went up
to him.

Felix awoke to find Mr. Bangs standing beside him, and
looking at him quizzically.

**I see you're looking at my latest Wells find," said Mr.
Bangs.
* "The first English edition! Where did you pick it up?"
Felix asked. "In a second-hand store?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bangs. "Forty cents! At Downer's."

► Fdix laid the book down reverently. "I wonder," he said,

"if they have any other Wells' things there. There's one of

' his books I've never been able to come across anywhere —

r 'The Island of Doctor Moreau.' Do you know it ?"

•*I have the only copy I've ever seen in Chicago," said Qive
Bai^. "Ill lend it to you."

"I wish you would," Felix said gratefully. "I found 'The
Time Machine' in an old junk-shop in Port Royal last
summer, and that made 'The Island of Doctor Moreau' the
only thing of Wells' I hadn't read — I suppose you know
*Kipps'? And *Love and Mr. Lewisham'?"

Mr. Bangs nodded. "This book," he said, indicating the
volume on the desk, "isn't so well known as it might be."
He took a cigarette and passed Felix the box with an uncon-
scious gesture.

Qive Bangs had ceased to judge this young man. He
had accepted him. After all, how many people were
there in Chicago who had read "First and Last Things"?
So it was» once upon a time, when two men met who had both
read an obscure book of poems about Wine and Death by one
Edward Fitzgerald.

Felix lighted his cigarette from Clive Bangs' match. "I
brought my copy to Chicago with me," he said. "It's the
only book I did bring."
, Clive Bangs looked at his watch and picked up his hat.
Suddenly Felix remembered, and put his hand, embar-
rassedly, in his pocket tor his letter of introducdoiL

40 The Briary-Bush

Qive Bangs laughed, "Never mind!" he said. "I know
who you are. Come on, let's have a drink."

A few minulcs later they were sitting in a barroom called
"The Tavern," ordering ale with bitters, which Qive Bangs
recommended as the specialty of the place.

"So you are Helen's wild young man from lowal" said
Clive. "I wish Helen were here, and we three would get
drunk together."

Felix was startled at the idea of Helen, the beautiful and
condescending goddess of the library-shrine of his youth,
getting drunk. . . .

Clive laughed. "Oh," he said, "I mean on ideas.
Though for my part, after a hard day's work, it takes a
little alcohol to put the practical part of my mind asleep and
set free my imagination. My mind is disposed in layers.
After the first drink I cease to be interested in politics and
social reform. After the second I forget the girl about
whom I happen to be worrying at the time. And with
the third drink, I enter the realm of pure theory.'" ^^

The tall glasses of ale were set before them. ^^M

"Here's to Utopia 1" said Clive. ^^|

It was only when Felix had warmly parted from his new
friend, and agreed to come over the next noon for lunch
and a visit to Downer's, that he realized — with some chagrin
— that he had failed to say anything to Mr. Qive Bangs about
getting a job as a reporter on the Evening Chronicle.

In fact, he had fallen very neatly into the trap prepared
for him by his own fatal temperament. He had given him-
self away at the very start. And Bangs, who appeared to
indulge some theoretical and visionary trails as a relaxation
to the sober work of helping get out a great daily news-
paper, had enjoyed his moon-calfishness: but to what end?

Going back to his room at Community House, Felix
gravely and dispassionately considered the question of what
impression he had made. "On the one hand," he said to
himself, "it is doubtless true that Mr. Bangs must enjoy

The Struggle for Existence 41

oofmng across another person who shares his own literary
tastes. But, on the other hand, these tastes are in the nature
of an avocation for him, and my possession of them proves
notfaing whatever as to my fitness for a newspaper job.
Suppose he had happened to be enthusiastic about Japanese
prints; suppose he had just bought a Kiyonaga, and I had
looked at it and praised it ; he would have been pleased to find
some one who knew the difference between a Kiyonaga and a
Kunisada — but would he have thought that a reason for
helping me to get a newspaper job? Tm afraid not."

Felix was pleased with the coolness of his reasoning
under circumstances where another person might have
built up vain hopes. And in any event, Clive Bangs was a
friend; and friendship had a value of its own. He would
not embarrass Qive Bangs with any requests for help; he
would take what their friendship had to give, and be glad
of it.

Accordingly, it was without any ulterior motive that he
went to lunch with Bangs next day. Again they talked
literature and ideas; they explored Downer's together, and
Felix picked up a second volume to complete his Muses'
Library edition of the poems of John Donne: and they
strolled back to the office of the Chronicle, where Felix
became acquainted with the other editorial writers.

The long, lean man was a New Englander named Hosmer
Flint ; he corresponded very much to Felix's idea of what the
editorial writer of a great daily newspaper should be, for he
had a mind incredibly stored with statistics of all kinds. The
other was the chief editorial writer — a man of fifty, plump
and dimpled, with a childlike charm of manner which made
it naturaJ for every one to call him "Willie" — ^his other name
being Smith.

Willie Smith genially expressed to Felix the hope that
there might be something for him on the Chronicle, and
when the managing editor happened in he introduced Felix to
him casually as a yoimg man who was looking for a news-
paper job; but Felix understood that this was simply Willie's
good nature, and refused to take the possibility seriously . H&

riea

mou:
^ self.

^H Ann
■ her I
^^1 tane<

42 The Briary-Bush

found his new acquaintances agreeable to talk to, however,
and fell into the habit of dropping into the editorial uffice in
the slack oart of the afternoon, for a half-hour's talk.
Having no economic reason for pretending to be anything but
himself in their presence, he talked about the things that
really interested him — socialism and anarchism and life and
art.

He permitted himself these idle pleasures only after hours
dutifully spent in annoying the editors of five or six other
papers with a brisk and efficient presentation of his useful-
ness. He had to appear so preternaturally capable and alert
on these occasions that it was a relief to be able to throw off
the disguise and loaf and invite his soul in the editorial room
of the Evening Chronicle. It was, as he sometimes reproach-
fully told himself, a concession to his inborn weakness, and
just so much time lost from his task of getting a newspa per
job.

s wn^

But one could not look for a job all the time. It was \
only slight compunction that he fell into the custom of spend-
ing his evenings in the company of Rose-Ann — sometimes
talking in her room, sometimes in Paul's watching him invent
his beautiful and fantastic toy-scenery, and again in the tiny
Community Theatre, helping them make costumes and build
stage-sets.

It was, it seemed, to the fascination of the tiny theater it-
self, as much as to Rose-Ann's persuasions, that he presently
succumbed, and found himself writing a little play for a
group of children — a play about the further adventures of the
Pied Piper and the boys and girls who followed him into the
mountain. . . . He felt rather like one of those children him-
self, lured by some irresistible music away from the daylit
Id of ambition into the hollow hill of fantasy. . . . Rose-
Ann approved the play enthusiastically, and the children of
her group, assigning the parts among themselves, began spon-
taneously to learn tt by heart.
Meantime, reltearsals of a sort were going oti for the

The Struggle for Existence 43

•*Priiicc and Pauper." Rose-Ann had her own way of
teaching. She became, it seemed, herself a child, and was
accepted by the others as such; they quarreled and made
up with her, kissed her and made faces at her and petted
her, exactly as if ^e were one of themselves; and Felix,
watching these scenes, vrished that he, too, had that
capacity for childlikeness, so that he could join in the fun
on such terms of innocent intimacy. But he felt dreadfully
grown-up and awkward, and Rose- Ann, on her knees amid
her playmates, laughing and talking and acting one part or
another with the utter abandon of childhood's "pretending" —
Ac was the youngest of them all ; indeed, she seemed more
than anything else a delightful doll — a marvellous talking and
lat^lhing doll of gold and ivory.

Mrs. Perkins — big, fat, comfortable Mrs. Perkins, still
young-looking though reputed to be a grandmother, who
lived in the neighborhood and came to the theater to sew cos-
tumes for them, and whom everybody, without any disres-
pect, called "Perk" — beckoned him over one day to her comer
as he stood admiring Rose-Ann with her children, and whis-
pered to him :

^ou just feel like putting her in your pocket and carrying
her off, don't you ?"

Felix grinned at her. "How do you know?" he whispered
back. Yes, she was a wonderful little toy-girl, less and more
than human, that one wanted to hold and touch and play
with, and take home to keep I But how did she, old Granny
Perk, know how a young man felt about it !

••Oh, I know !" and Perk smiled her comfortable smile. "I
was a girl myself once. Little Miss Rosy-Posy knows just
how nice she looks to you, and don^t you doubt it I"

Yes, perhaps Rose-Ann did like to be looked at and enjoyed
by some one who was not a child. She seemed to be teasing
him with her presence — to be saying, "Don't you want to
come and play with me, too?"

He had tried to tell Clive about Rose-Ann, but his first
words, **a giri over at Community House," had apparently
evoked in Clive's mind the picture of a misguided sp\tv%\fcT ^V

The Briary-Bush

I forty whose repressed maternal instincts were finding satis-
I faction in the running of other people's lives — a creature
I against whom he proceeded to warn Felix in humorous terms.
"She will manage you, Felix," he said, " — for your own good.
I Now it's all right to be managed by a woman, so long as it is
I for her benefit. You can at least complain about it. But
I when you're managed for your own good, you are helpless."
Felix objected (o this notion of Rose-Ahn, but Give asked
I her age. And Felix said he didn't know, but that she was a
I little older than himself.

"A little older than you. I thought so," said Oive. "Be-
I ware!" There was no use talking to Clive about girls, any-
I way; it was a subject upon which he was frequently bitter
I and always absurd. Felix had told Rose- Ann a little about
I him, and she had said, "He's been hurt by some girl."
I Doubtless that was true. And Felix felt a certain satisfac-
Ition in the inward comparison of this creature of Clive's dis-
Itorted fancy with the real and delightful Rose-Ann — whom
|even as Clive talked he could see in memory, with himself

The Struggle for Existence 45

And ibttn one afternoon when he dropped in at die Chron-
icle office, Clive asked him if he was ready to go to work
Monday morning : he had been taken on as a reporter. . . .
He would get, Clive told him, twenty dollars a week to start
with. Clive told him this in a pleased but casual way, as
though it were something long arranged between Felix and
himself which had just been ratified by the higher powers.
So Clive had been working for him all along!

^Go and tell Harris youll be on deck/' said Ciive. Harris
was the city editor. ''And better speak to the Old Man, too."
The Old Man was the managing editor, Mr. Devoe. Felix
had never supposed for a moment that these personages had
him under consideration.

He presented himself before both of them, not knowing
what to say. Apparently it was not necessary to say any-
thing. Both of them were busy — ^too busy, Felix hoped, for
them to notice how dazed he was.

**A11 right, Fay, youll be here Monday morning at eight
o'clock," said the dty editor.

**! suppose Mr. Bangs told you that we're going to start
you off at twenty dollars?" said Mr. Devoe. "We can do a
little better later, perhaps. It's up to you." Mr. Devoe
looked at him severely — or kindly, Felix was not sure which
his glasses, and turned back to his desk.
'Yes, sir," said Felix.

Willie Smith patted him on the back. "Glad you've got
it," he said.

"Take it easy," Qive told him. "A newspaper job in
Chicago is just like a newspaper job anywhere else."

Weill So at last, somehow, the devil only knew how,
he had gained a foothold in Chicago.

He discussed the event with Rose- Ann that evening. She
laughed at his surprise. "How do you suppose people get
jobs?" she demanded. "You were going at it in precisely
the right way. I knew from what you told me they were
going to take you.'

46 The Briary-Bush

Felix had already begun to worry akxit the future. ^I
don't know where any place is," he said* ''I must dig up my
street-map."

"Oh, throw that street-map away," said Rose-Ann. **ni
give you a guide to Chicago that's much more useful." She
went to her shelf and took down a little book. *'Here!"

It was the ''Bab Ballads." Felix k)oked puzzled.

'*If you can write a play that will please children, you can
write to please the people of Chicago. Thesr're children, too,*'
she said.

Felix slipped the book in his pocket and went to his rooiD
and his street-map. She had too much confidence in him.
Only he himself knew what a fool he was. He had got diis
job under false pretences.

VL A Gruide to Chicago

AND yet it seemed that Rose-Ann knew him better tfian
be knew himself.
On Monday morning the city editor gruffly as-
sailed him a desk. He hated to sit there idle, and he had
duown away his morning paper. Finding that he still had
Rose-Ann's little book in his pocket, he took it out and read
in that. Presently the city editor called his name. He rose,
patting the book back into his pocket. His first test had
come.

*'Go over to the Annex and see if you can get something
about the Taft-Roosevelt situation from — " and he named a
distinguished political personage.

•^Where?" Felix asked.

•'At the Annex."

( But what in the world was the Annex ? From the tone in
which its name had been uttered by the city editor, Felix was
aware that it was some place that he ought to know all about.
Some place that anybody who had ever dreamed of being a
rqwrter on a Chicago paper would of course know all about I
But what was it? The Annex to what? ... By a violent
mental effort he came to the conclusion that it must be a hotel ;
probably one of Chicago's most famous hotels I and here he
had been in Chicago a month, and didn't know where it was.
Idiot I)

"Yes, sir," said Felix to the city editor, and went out and
asked the policeman on the nearest comer. ... It was hor-
ribly obvious to him, at that moment, that he was too ignorant
of plain everyday reality ever to hold this job.

48 The Briary-Bush

He came back, having failed to get the interview. ... He
had been given half an hour by a delightful old gentleman at
the Annex; half an hour in which to try to get some kind of
quotable poHtical comment on a situation in which everybody
was interested, from a man who, if any one, knew what the
situation really was. And every question had been tumed
aside so cleverly, so smoothly, so genially, that under other
circumstances it would have been a pleasure to see it done.
The old gentleman had been the soul of courtesy ; he seemed
to enjoy talking to his young questioner; doubtless because
it was so easy to put him off the track.

At first Felix's questions had been straightforward ; and the
evasiveness of the replies had disconcerted him. He framed
his questions more shrewdly ; but the old gentleman answered
them with the same bland courtesy and to precisely the same
effect. Felix kept on for a while, doggedly. And then
gradually he realized — what, he told hlmsdf scornfully,
he should have known from the very start, that he had
been sent out on a futile quest. If there had been the slight-
est chance of getting anything out of this old gentleman, the
best reporter on the staff would have been sent — not the
newest and greenest cub.

He was angry — at himself, for having tried so naively to
do the impossible ; at the city editor, for not giving him a real
assignment; at the tradition of "news," wliich. having
attached a fictitious importance to the subject of politics, was
wasting his time and the old gentleman's in this solemnly
idiotic fashion.

"Is there anything else I could tell you about?" the old
gentleman asked blandly.

"You have been very kind — " said Felix.

"Oh, not at all," said the old gentleman. "Nothing pleases
me more than to give information to a young seeker after
truth."

"There is one thing I would like to know," said Ft
'TVho struck Billy Patterson ?"

A Guide to Chicago 49

This msultiiig question — ^insulting precisely because it was
sOly, because it threw the whole earnest interview suddenly
into the key of farce— did not for an instant shake the old
gentleman's aplomb. He appeared to reflect gravely, with
finger-tips delicately joined and head cocked on one side, in
his characteristic gesture. He smiled faintly, and spoke.

^You have trenched," he said, ''upon an important public
issue, and one not lightly to be discussed — a question of deep
interest to hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen.
In fact, I have seldom been in any gathering of true
Americans, when this question has not been raised. Who
struck Billy Pattersonf Again and again have I heard men
ask each other that question. And how seldom, if ever, has
die reply been satisfactory I No, I say frankly to you, the
rq>ly has not been satisfactory. And so the question remains
— like Banquo*s ghost, it will not down. Careless and un-
thinking statesmen may try to lead the people astray with talk
of minor issues, such as the tariff, imperialism, and the con-
servation of natural resources, but the heart of the American
people remains true. When the shouting and the tumult dies,
and the senators go back to Washington, common men look
at each other and ask. Who struck Billy Pattersonf It is a
question that searches to the very vitals of our polity. We
boast of our unexampled freedom, our magnificent oppor-
tunities ; and rightly so. But justice, even-handed and sure,
is the true foundation of a lasting prosperity. We know this,
and we are humble before the Muse of History. Be it said in
our behalf that others have not had to prod at our sleeping
consciences. It is not because of outside criticism that we
trouble ourselves over this matter. The Frenchman and the
Turk do not point the finger of scorn at us ; and even our
brothers across the sea, speaking our own language, are
probably ignorant of William Patterson's very name. But
we do not forget. And whatever happens, so long as this
question remains unanswered, I venture to predict that no
other issue will usurp its place ; and on the heart of the last
American will be written the solemn words : Who struck Billy
Pattersonf Is there anyihing else?"

I 50 The Briary-Bush

So the old gentleman could play that game, too!

"Well," said Felix, "I was going to ask you if — if you
I thought McPhairson Conglocketty Angus McClan got a
I square deal, but — "

The old gentleman shook hb head, still smiling.

"I really don't think it would be proper." he said, "for me
I to discuss the internal affairs of the British Em^re."

"And N'oah's Ark," said Felix. "If you could express
in opinion — ''

"It might be construed as a reBectkm upon the naval policy
I of llie new adminstration."

"And as to what became of little Charley Ross?"

"That," said the old grademan, "is sonxihing the national
I committee would prefer to remain, Cor the present, a secret."

Felix was beaten.

"Thank you." he said, and went away.
~ t anything?^ the city editor asked, when Felix came

A Guide to Chicago 51

WeD, he was lost There was no backing out now. He
handed over the first sheets.

Thought you didn't get anything," the city editor re-
marked.

"I— didn't/' said Felix.

-Where's the rest of it?"

Felix wrote the last sentence, and surrendered the page.

'^e said this ?" asked the city editor, pausing for a moment.
Felix nodded. "Jwst like the old bird, too," the city editor
muttered, and went on reading. He read to the end, and then
read the first page again, and then smiled amiably. ''And you
didn't know you had a story !" he said.

-Well," said Felix, still incredulous. "I didn't think—"

•TTou're sure you've got it right?" the city editor asked,
rubbing his chin.

"Every word," said Felix, earnest in behalf of his veracity.

•-H'm," said the city editor. "With a little fixing up, I
think we've got a nice little story here." He carried it into
the managing editor's room.

And to Felix's great astonishment the story, with a few
dianges, was printed on the first page, under a solemnly ironic
beading. . . . They were laughing about it in the editorial
room when he ventured in that afternoon to see Clive. "So
jTOU had a story and didn't know it I" Willie said delightedly.

"Never mind," Qive told him, "you've made a hit with
Harris by letting him discover the story for himself." Clive
really seemed to think he had played a Idnd of trick on Harris.
"The regular cub trick," said Give.

Felix showed the story to Rose-Ann that night.

She was pleased, but not surprised. "It's exactly the sort;
of thing I expected you to do," she said.

He was tempted to tell Rose-Ann the truth about it ; but
he decided not to. Let her keep on believing in him — while
she could I

I VII. Work and Play

FELIX kepi the little book in his desk, cultivated what
he called the "Bab Ballad manner," and waited, scepti-
- cally, to see how long his luck would last. In three

I weeks he was given a raise. But even this did not quite
I convince him.

It had been too easy — too astonishingly easy. It had come
1 about, not because of any change in his character, not because
I he had ceased in some miraculous way to be a moon-calf, but
Iprecisely because he was just as much a moon-calf as ever.
iThat was why he was compelled to suspect the authenticity
of his good fortune.

Work and Play 53

liis visits to the editorial room were a kind of special privilq^e,
which he endeavored to justify by an occasional piece of
writing suited to the editorial page — some entertaining
account of things seen in Chicago, the by-products of his
work as a reporter. Or, more likely, things not seen at all,
but pieced tc^ther out of his memory and hung on the
sl^htest diread of contemporary incident. . .,. Once he
attended a meeting of "aurists," and, with a reference to that
meeting as a starting point, meandered through a column of
odd and curious lore about ears: the ear as the organ of
stability, by means of which we are enabled to stand upright
— ^with the story of the littje crustacean which puts sand in
its ears, and upon whom some scientist played a mean trick,
substituting iron filings for the sand-grains, and then applying
a magnet overhead, with the result that the crustacean swam
contentedly upside down! ... In short, anything that
happened to interest him I

He discovered that these writings gave him a special stand-
ing among his fellow-reporters. They had never ventured to
aspire to the editorial page. Nor would Felix have ventured,
except that he knew from loafing about the editorial room how
welcome was an occasional column from the outside. He
still felt himself to be an intruder into a superior realm, and
he was grateful for those times, once or twice a wedc, when
Qive stopped beside his desk and suggested that they lunch
together.

He had wondered at first how it was that Qive Bangs, with
a passion for ideas as intense as the one Felix had long been
endeavoring to overcome within himself, should be a success-
ful editorial writer on Chicago's most conservative and re-
spectable paper — and, for that matter, the valued committee-
man of two or three eminently practical and sober reform
organizations I Clive was not merely a moon-calf like him-
sdf ; he was at the same time a quite sane and work-a-day
young Chicagoan.

The thought of such an adjustment to the world fascinated
and tantalized Felix. It held out for him the possibility of
gettii^ along successfully without going through atij smcK

54 The Briary-Bush

violent psychic revolution as he had demanded of himself,
Clive was inwardly an Anarchist, a Utopian, a theorist and
dreamer of the wildest sort ; and outwardly something quite
other.

That outward quality was what Felix envied in Qive — that
practical adaptability to the world, so far beyond anything
that seemed possible for Felix himself to achieve. He would
have given much for Clive's ease of manner, his ability to
meet ordinary people on their own ground — as for instance in
discussing the Yale-Harvard game witli a college boy and an
instant later local politics with a "reform" alderman who
stopped in turn by their table in the City Club. At such a
moment Feltx was struck dumb; he felt like a child in the
presence of grown-up people. Clive seemed to him an in-
finitely superior being.

And yet this practical adaptability to human occasions was
a trait upon which Clive himself seemed to set no value. His
easy worldliness — as Felix thought it — was only one side of
his character ; and he preferred to indulge the other side — the
side that was fantastically idealistic.

Perhaps it was because Felix had felt obliged to carry all
his theories into practice, that some bounds had been set to his
theorizing. No such bounds existed for Clive Bangs. The
most extreme ideas that Felix had ever timidly cherished
wilh regard to some free and happy sociely of the future,
were commonplaces to Clive. His speculations roved boldly
into Platonic, Nietzschean, and H. G. Wellsian spheres, and
dwelt there as among solid realities.

They talked chiefly of love — of love in the future.

Sometimes Felix, too much allured and disturbed, had to
protest that these were, after all, only dreams. One day at
lunch Clive discoursed on freedom in love until Felix felt
constrained to point out that human nature being what
is, jealousy — whether one liked it or not — was neverthel
a fact.

'Oh. yes." Oive laughed. "I realize that the rcd-haire<
young woman at the settlement would find it difficult not
to be jealous f In that sense, of course jealousy is a fact.

telt
ireii

Work and Play $$

and has to be taken into consideration. But we are free
men at present, dealing with ideas, not with Jane and Sue
— and as free men we are at liberty to inquire what kind
of fact jealousy is. Witchcraft, too, was a fact — soberly
attested by the greatest thinkers of the age. Anybody
who didn't believe in witchcraft was crazy, just like you
and I. And jealousy is the same kind of fact — a socially-
created fact People are persuaded that it exists — ^that
tinder certain circumstances it must exist. That's all.
How would I know when to be jealous, except that I am
carefully taught what my rights of possession are and when
they are infringed? It's the old barbaric code, still handed
down in talk and writing. And that's why I am interested
in the development of a new kind of talk and writing."

It was specifically as this "new kind of talk and writing"
that Qive discussed modem literature. He repudiated any
preoccupation with literature as an art. It was to him a kind
of social dynamics. It had been used to build up through the
ages a vast system of "taboos" — and now it was being used
to break them down again. In this work of sociol iconoclasm
the chiefs were H. G. Wells, Shaw and Galsworthy — with
Meredith as a breathless and stammering forerunner and
Hardy as a blind prophet. . . .

"Do you suppose the public knows what they are really up
to?* Felix asked doubtfully.

"No. And it would hang them if it did. But fiction
cuts deeper than any kind of argtunent. And it's doing its
work. Wait ten years. . . . The new younger genera-
tion won't be like us, Felix — content to orate about these
matters at luncheon. They will despise us, Felix! They
will say we did nothing but talk."

"Quite right, too," said Felix.

"They will have heard our talk — talk — talk, and they will
be sick of it. They will be all for action. And you and I,
Felix, who will then be respectably married, you to your set-
tlement Egeria and I to God knows whom, will be shocked at
the younger generation. We will remember how prayer-
fully we planned to be unconventional, in wbat a mcxA oV

56 The Briary-Bush ^B

far-seeing social righteousness we went about breaking the
commandments, and how, after all, we stopped on the way
to discuss the matter more tlioroughly, and ended by never
doing anytliing at all — and we will be disgusted by the light-
minded frivolity of those youngsters. Even our novels — in-
stead of corrupting the youth of the land as we hope ! — will
probably be regarded by them as hopelessly old-fashioned.
If we ever actually write them. . . ."

When he had reached that point in the discussion, Clive
would become silent and sullen. "If I only had the energy
to write !" he would complain bitterly.

He had been brooding over a novel for four years, and had
not yet written a word of it. . . . They had long talks about
that unwritten novel which was to corrupt the younger
generation.

At Coimnunity House, Felix was having difficulties with
his class. Not that they were lacking in enthusiasm ; on the
contrary, their enthusiasm carried him in directions where he
had no intention of going. At the outset, he had conceived
English composition lo be a simple matter. Perhaps it
might have been for children ; but these young people of
eighteen were already convinced of its difficulties, and hag-
gled over semicolons. They wanted to know the "rules" by
the observance of which one became a good writer !

Felix presently gave up prose as too hard to teach, and
started in upon verse, with greater success. Yet when it
came to explaining why loz>e and rove are technically cor-
rect rhymes, and young and son no rhymes at all, he was
nonplussed. Very soon the class had hit upon a mode
which was neither verse nor prose — a kind of free verse
It was quite other than Felix had any wish to encourage
anybody to write. He doubted if the writing of free verse
would ever enable them to appreciate the Ode to a Night-
ingale. But he was helpless in the situation, and could only
let them go ahead.
His conceptjon of veiae was praascV} tiiat it was not free;

Work and Play 57

be had thought that the pains and pleasures of rhyme and
metre would give them a creative understandiiq; of English
poetry. This free verse of theirs seemed to him utterly un-
related to the tradition into which he sought to give them an
insight It was very free verse indeed — it mixed its meta-
phors recklessly, it soared into realms of vague emotion.
And when its meaning was at all clear, it carried the burden
of a hopdess reproach against circumstance, and a plaintive
3reaniing for it knew not what. Felix fiercely disUked
this plaintive hopelessness, and preached scornfully at his
dass. They seemed to be impressed; but they continued
as before.

"I can't believe you really feel like that," he said to a
merry-faoed young Jewess who had just read aloud a
poem fun of world-sorrow.

She k>oked offended. ''But I do!" she cried. "If you
only knew!" and she put her hand expressively to her

-My Godr he said. "What a broken-hearted crowd!"

There was a quick burst of laughter, and then a girl
spcke up. '^ut Mr. Fay, do you not think we feel^'

"l know you feel unhappy. But don't you ever feel
anjrthing else? Don't you ever have a good time? Or
don't you think good times are worth writing about?"

''Did Keats and Shelley write about their good times?"
asked an ironical youth.

•'Yes," «id Felix defiantly. "They wrote about lucent
syrops tinct with cinnamon, and skylarks, and things like
that; and they loved them to begin with — ^that was why
they wrote about them. Don't you love anything — any-
thing that is right on hand to be loved — babies, or pet
kittens, or pretty ckHhes, or pretty girls ? Arc you always
pining for something you haven't got ?"

•"Always!" two or three of them responded impressively
BB chorus.

"Tlir desire of the moth for the star," the ironical young
man contributed.

"^See here*** said Felix. "Shelley was a young aristocrat

jfS The Briary-Bush

with an income, living luxuriously in Italy, and he could
afford to be unhappy." They laughed, but Felix went on
earnestly. "He could afford to be devoted to something
afar from the sphere of his sorrow, because his sorrow con-
sisted of the fact that after eloping with two girls, he
couldn't elope with a third and have a perfectly clear con-
science. Added to the fact that he knew, if he did, he
would be tired of her in a few weeks anyway. He had
tried it before, and he knew. That was what Shelley's
sorrow was all about, and if any one here present is in the
same situation, I grant that he is entitled to feel that the
desire for happiness is the desire of the moth for the star.
But for ordinary mortals like ourselves, happiness is no
such impossible thing. It is not the desire of the moth for
the star, but — " he hesitated, and the ironical youth broke
in with:

"The desire of the moth for the candle-flame!"

"And suppose thai it is!" said Felix. "What is life
anyway, except a burning of ourselves up in action? Only
I don't see why you prefer such tragic figures of speech.
Why not—"

The ironical youth interrupted again: "The desire of
the caterpillar for the cabbage-leaf 1"

"I give you up!" said Felix.

But he learned from Rose-Ann that his class was con-
sidered by the residents a real success. And fat old Mrs.
Perk, one evening at the tiny theatre, said to him: "I hear
you're making poets out of the boys and girls. They say
you're a grand teacher!"

It was very odd; it seemed to make no difference that
they could not take what he wanted to give them, or that
he did not want to give them what they were getting; the
class was a success anyway!

"Who was telling you?" he asked.

"That David Arenstein," she told him. "The one that
always used to be talking about committing suicide." David
was the ironical youth who had quoted Shelley at him.
"But he's far from committing suicide now — " and she

Work and Play 59

sfluled her comfortable smile. "He's going to be married.
Oh, yes, he ccrnies and tells me all his troubles/'

Felix laughed. "I hope he doesn't hold me to blame!"

She shook her head. "Well, you'll be getting married
yourself, pretty soon, I suppose?"

He did not venture to challenge her as to whom. But
he said, ''What in the world makes you think that ?"

"Oh," she said, "young folks do, sooner or later, I've
noticed."

It was nonsense, of course. He was in no position
to think about such things, at all. And as for Rose-Ann,
he had in the course of weeks become as it were acclimated
to her loveliness, so that it no longer tormented him as at
first. He was secretly proud of his imperturbability. And
if Rose-Ann's companionship had lately grown more dis-
turbii^ than ever, it was for a very different reason. It
was because of her flattering and at the same time annoying
expectations of him as an artist — a poet — a creator. He
attempted to deny any pretensions of this sort; he tried to
evade any discussion of art at all. But they had formed
the habit of going to the theater together, and he found it
impossible to resist talking with her about how plays should
be written.

"Why don't you write a really-andrtruly play?" she
asked, one night on their way back to the Community
House.

He attempted to turn the question aside. "Hawkins is
writing one, according to office gossip," he said. Hawkins
was the young dramatic critic of the Chronicle.
'Well, if Hawkins can write a play — I" she said.
'All right," he assented cheerfully, "I'll wait and see if
Hawkins can!"

"Don't be silly," she said. "You know what I think,
Felix?"

"I never have any idea what you're going to think. What
IS It tms tuner

60 The Briary-Bush ^B

"I think you've had your feelings hurt, somehow, back
where you came from. In regard to writing. Something
has made you afraid to show what you can do."

There was something quaintly maternal in her manner
which almost took the sting out of that word afraid. But
Felix hardened. "Well, why don't you write a play?" he
countered.

"Don't be brutaJ, Flelix, You know — and I know —
that I'm not up to it, I can do little things, I can't do
a big thing. And you can."

"It's nice of you to be so sure, Rose-Ann. But I'm not.
Or rather, I'm pretty sure I can't. So there."

"Why do you say that? It's not true, and you know it."

He wished Rose-Ann had not become so serious. They
were walking home through one of the first winter snows.
A little while ago she had thrown a fluffy snowball at him,
and threatened to wash his face, reproaching him for not
being enough of a child. This was even more embar-
rassing. He had an absurd fear that she would commence
to talk to him about his soul. . . . This was coming danger-
ously near to it. He scuffed up the soft snow with his feet,
while she looked sidewise at him waiting for a reply.

"Rose- Ann, you make me uncomfortable," he said at
last. "This business of having some one 'believe' in you
isn't what it's cracked up to be in the romances. - It —
it's a damned nuisance. I'd be perfectly happy if you
didn't come to me with your preposterous demands. I'm
not the young genius in 'Tlie Divine Fire.' I'm a
reporter on a Chicago newspaper. Of course I want to
write a play. Every young reporter wants to, I suppose.
And of course, since you insist upon it, I think I could.
But what of that? Every young reporter thinks the same
thing."

"Why this pretence of modesty, Felix? You'ne ;
that's all."

"Scared of what?" he demanded angrily.

She answered slowly, as though she had just discovered
,:tbe reason. "Of letting people know your rcaJ ambitions."

Work and Play 61

''Of making a silly fool of myself/' he muttered
''Biit Where's the harm?*' she continued. ''Suppose they
did know? Suppose everybody knew all your secret
dreams? Would that be so terrtt)le? Do you think every-
body is watching you, ready to laugh at you? You're
afraid of being laughed at, that's the trouble. . . . Well, I
know your secret, Felix, and I don't laugh."

He shrugged his shoulders. It was intolerable that she

should fhink she knew his secret. '*What if I do want to

write plajfs? I want to write novels, and poems, and lots of

other things. And if I had nothing dse to do, perhaps

I'd try my hand at them all. But my main concern now is to

make a living."

"Still worried about your job? Not really?"

"Yes, really. How do I know how long this fool stunt

of mine is going to please the Chronicle? I haven't done a

single piece of straight reporting since I've been on the

paper. And I know no more of the real Chicag(

"Pdix, you are absurd!"

I VIII, Rose-Ann Goes Away

ROSE-ANN had suddenly become a problem. In spite
of everything he was falling in love with her. He
J criticized her to himself, harshly. She was a

I daughter of the bourgeoisie — a sort of madcap and runaway
Idaughter, it was true, adventuring by herself in Chicago for
while, but destined, he told himself, after the flare of this
Irebellion had burned itself out, to return to the bourgeois fold.
I What else could she do? She was not an artist — or not
lOugh of an artist — to face the world alone. She wrote
le, cleverly, but with no sustained strength ; and what
; wrote was inferior to what she thought and felt. She

Rose-Ann Goes Away 63

a figure. Paul, with his ^pewter-platter" manner Dick,
the boy wiio 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 diere to deny them by her every word
and gesture.

In her presence he could not think these things. She was
a sedcer like himself — imperfect like himself, but utterly
sincere — a comrade in the very simple and obvious adven-
tnre of making die most out of life. . . . Why was he so
suspicious of her? Was it because he had vaguely heard
dat her people were well-to-do? She was not to blame for
that! She was herself. There seemed no reason to dis-
trust her.

*But these arguments sufficed to discourage any tendency
to romanticize her. She ¥ras less a wonderful person to him
now than a dangerous person. Dangerous only in the sense
tfiat 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
migfat 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 I 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 pre-
ferred 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, dis-
cussing 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 mlex^sX. oV

64 The Briary-Bush

boy a,ad 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.

Then, in the midst of the preparations for the Christ-
mas performance of "The Prince and the Pauper," when
everything was being rushed to its conclusion, and every-
body 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 some-
body 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
of her. , . ,

She explained the situation as they taxied in to

Rose-Ann Goes Away 65

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 Dark
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
telq^ram 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 *spcll,' 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 sur-
rendered 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

166

The Briary-Bush

I to annihilate time and space, to make them remember it and
I what it meant forever.

" 'Bo-o-o-ard!" said the conductor, and took Rose-Ann's
Belbow and put her firmly on the step. She turned and
■ smiled back at Felix, and the train started.

Book Two
Canal Street

IX. How to Spend One's Evenings

FELIX began the task of forgetting— a task for youth
in its most fantastically stem mood: — of trying to
forget that unforgettable moment on the station plat-
form with Rose-Ann. Or at least, to behave as though it
had not occurred. For he was convinced that neither of
them had intended it to occur.

It was obviously an accident — ^the mere mood of parting.
It had meant nothing. It must be ignored.

But it was hard to ignore. It was a moment to which
memory would recur. It dramatized vividly for him the
fact — to which he sought to adjust himself— of Rose- Ann's

Rose-Ann's absence made a great deal of difference, it
seemed — and not only to himself. What she had predicted in
r^ard to her dramatic class came true very quickly.
Under Miss Qark's fussy direction, all the fun was taken
0"t of the work for everybody. Mrs. Perk looked on the
altered face of things with an air of wry disapproval, and
whispered to Felix, '^Oh, it's not the same place at all any
more!'^ The children were listless. Paul froze into a
silent rage at some tmfortunate remark of Miss Qark's
about his scenery and left Community House, and Felix
began to stay away from the rehearsals altogether.

He wrote these things to Rose-Ann, and received brief
replies which showed how remote all these matters had now
b^xnne to her. He accepted the probability that Spring-
field had captured her for good and all this time. It was
true that she always inquired in a friendly way about the
things in which they had both been interested; but these
weekly inquiries were tinged with a kind of faint retros^ec-

The Briary-Bush

tive glamour, as though to her these interests were already
invested with the pathos of distance. She was evidently
saying good-bye to her moment of freedom.

Feh'x did not tell her how much he missed her. He
was rather ashamed of the fact. There was something
intellectually disgraceful about a state of dependence upon
one person for companionship. , , .

It was true, he had Give. But he had been neglecting
Clive, and now Clive had other concerns. Clive had several
times urged him to come out over the week-end to Woods
Point, where he was undertaking lo spend the winter in
his summer cottage, and Felix had always had some engage-
ment with Rose-Ann which prevented his going. Now,
when he would be glad to accept such an invitation, it was
not renewed : Clive. it appeared, was so much interested in
some girl that he had no time to spare for Felix. And Clive
was the only person about the office that he cared for : at
Community House since Rose-Ann had gone, there was
no one. He wished that he had taken the trouble to make a
few more friends. It made all the difference in the world
to have some one to talk to at the day's end, some one to
share one's thoughts with. . . .

Suddenly he began to find Community House intolerable.
He spent his evenings looking for a place to live. Certainly
he could not be less lonely anywhere else! And one
evening, on Canal Street, in a dingy building which had
apparently once been a residence and was now rented out
room by room, he found a tiny hall-room on the third
floor which he had not the excuse of not being able to
afford. He made some explanation for leaving Community
House — which it seemed was not needed, for room tliere
was much in demand — and moved at once into his new
home.

It was a room about eight by eleven feet, hardly holding
the cot-bed, table and chair, which constituted its furnishing.
He improvised a shelf above the tiny radiator in the comer
for his half-dozen books. . . . And for one evening he was

How to Spend One's Evenings 71

happy, in being away from Community House, in being
in a place of his own, in having in some way established
his independence.

And then loneliness descended upon him in a black mist,
obliterating the clear outlines of the actual world. He
managed to get through the day's work somehow, and then he
wandered about hopelessly, unseeingly, the victim of a long-
ing that made the very act of breathing a pain ; a longing that
he could not undertand — for what was Rose- Ann to him?

He dined in various restaurants in the loop, in the vague
hope of finding some one to talk to. «

One evening, as he stood in a restaurant looking about
for an empty table, he heard his name called. A young
man, sitting alone, was beckoning to him. It was Eddie
Silver, a reporter of whom Felix had been hearing much
of late.

Come over and congratulate me," he said, grinning,
I've just been fired !"

•'ReaUy? What for?" Felix asked.

''Coming down to the office crazy drunk," said Eddie
Silver proudly. "Sit down,"

Felix had heard of Eddie Silver's epic drunkennesses.
Another thing he had heard was that Eddie Silver wrote
poetry. . . . This was not so rare a thing among Chicago
reporters as Felix would have supposed. Two in every
dozen young reporters, as Qive had said, were poets of a
sort But, as Give had added, it was always of a tame
and colourless sort Eddie Silver was not tame and colour-
less, whatever his poetry might be. Or rather there was
nothing tame about the Eddie Silver legend — ^though its
hero had appeared to Felix, whenever they met, to be the
gentlest soul alive.

Eddie Silver was having a dinner which consisted mostly
of cocktails; but he showed no signs of any of the alcoholic
beUtgerency for which he was famed; he seemed, on the

€4

72 The Briary-Bush ■

contrary, likdy lo ^nirst into tears at any tnometiL iff
was in a soft poetic mood. He talked about poetry. He
tried to recite it. But the lines kej)I getting mixed up.

"Come on over my place," he said, "well read some
Swinburne."

He took Felix to a large furnished room a little lo the
north of the loop, and propping himself on a couch with
pillows, read "Pocin.« and Ballads" in a sonorous and un-
intelligible manner until midnight. He invited Felix to
come back the next cvertii^ (or more Swinburne, and Fdix
went away feeling that the legend had nlber ovcr-
anphasized the belligerent side of Eddie Silver's character.
... He came the next evening, which was spent in
predsety the same manner, ending with an tnvitaticn to
come in tomorrow evening for still more Swinburne.

Fctix wondered if Eddie Silver read Swinburne every
night.

Coming the third time, he found Eddie Silver's rooni

occupied by half a dozen young men all more or less drunk.

"Cm' on in I" Eddie Silver called from the couch, where

he sat propped with pillow* as before, with a book in one

hatul and a glass in the other. "On'y two bol's o' Swis-

bume left t" \

He row, and poured a glassful of whiskey for Feliv

Felix kxiked at the huge drink with an involuntar

{csnire of dismay.

■"S all right." said Eddie Silver. "Nas'y stofl. I knowi
But you take it 'n' yoult feel better right away C

Felix had never been drnnk. He had never wanted n
be drunk. But it occurred to him that now was the proper
tttne to have that experience.

He looked rixnit the room. All these half doten pcaph
were in that state, so eloquently described by the pocta, af
being "perplexed no nxiTc with human and divine.**

One of ihcm was telling an incoherent story, and t*':-
others were laughing in the wrong place and being lot!
indignantly that that wasn't the point at all. Another «»
singing to himself, and not doing it very well. Poor deni

I^V Wow to Sd.. j ^^^^™

" « «» iLl'* si^/, '*'"'■

■*« of rJw. . "»"«li »."■"' nor .. '""
^'^'^.■•"^ Wo. «,„, „ ^'

72 The Briary-Bush

contnry, likely (o burst into (ears at any nioroent.
w 10 a soft poetic mood. He talked about poetry. He
tried to recite iL But the lines kept gettitt; mixed up.

"Come on over my place." be said, "well read kmik
Swinburne,"

He took Felix to a larRc furnished room a little to (he
north of the loop, and prof^ng himself on a coach with
pillows, read "I'ocms and Ballads" in a sonorous and im-
intelligible manner until midnight. He invited Felix to
come back the next evening for more Swinburne, aod Fdix
went away feeling that the legend had rather over-
emphasiied the belligerent side of Eddie Silver's dtiracter.
... He came the next evening, which was spent in
precisely the same manner, ending with an invitation to
come in tomorrow evening for «ill more Swinburne.

Fdix wondered if Eddie Silver read Swioburoc evetj
nighl.

Coming the third time, he found Eddie Silver's room

occupied by half a dozen young men all more or kaa dfWik.

"Cm' on in I" Eddie Silver called from (he couch, where

he sat propped with pillows as before, with a book ia ooe

hand and a glass in the other. "On'y two bo1'a o* S«riB-

bumc left!"

He rose, and poured a glassful of whiskey for Fcl;':

Felix looked at (he huge drink with an involunu:

gesture of dismay.

*"S all right," said Eddie Silver. "Nas'y stuff, I know:
But you take it 'n' youll feel better right away I" |

Felix had never been drunk. He had never wanted r> I
be drunk. But it occurred to him (hat now was the ptOfB j
(ime to have that experience. I

He looked ^>oat the room. All these half doscn pM^ |,
were in that state, so eloquently described by the poeii, of I
being "perplexed 00 more with human and divine."

One of them was telling an incoherent story, and t*-
others were laughing in the wrong place and being n-
indignanlty that that wasn't the point at all. Another vn
singing to himself, and not doing it very wcU. Poor devJ

How to Spend One's Evenings 73

he probably wanted to sing and nobody would let him except
when he was drunk. And still another was arguing with
Eddie Silver, who paid no attention to him whatever, about
somebody named John. ^'J^hn means well/' he explained,
with the air of one who understands all and forgives all.
^'John just don't know how, that's all ! But he means well."

Felix considered. Did he really wish to join them in that
state, so merely ridiculous when viewed from the outside?
Yet they were doubtless happy, in some way which he, in
his inexperience, knew nothing about. Well, he would try
it He would get drunk.

And he might as well do it quickly.

He drank half the glassful down, choked, and was
slapped on the back. He waited.

He was surprised, and a little disappointed, to find that it
had no further effect than the same gentle exhilaration he
had experienced from an evening's slow sipping of his
friend Tom Alden's Rhine wine. That was not what he
wanted. That was not enough. He braced himself, and
drank the rest of the glassful.

Some hours later he was awakened from a deep and
peaceful sleep on the floor of the bathroom by two of his
companions, and walked out of the house. ... He felt
refreshed by the night air, and remembered a discussion
about Chicago, and of slapping somebody's face. He did
not remember being knocked down — several times, they
said. By a man named Smith. He did not remember
Smith.

"And every time," they told him gleefully, "you got
up and solemnly slapped his face again. You said you
wouldn't allow anybody to talk that way about Chicago. . . .
And you kept calling him 'McFish.' "

His companions were taking him home. He thanked
them extravagantly, and tried to give them directions, but
they explained that they lived in the same building he did
— a fact which at the time he found very puzzling. Never-
theless they affirmed that it was so.

He got up two flights of stairs without assistance, and

1 74 The Briary-Bush

Bopened his door, but immediately became overcome with

Hsleep, and sank on the couch. They pulled off his shoes
|and left him. . . .

At seven o'clock in the morning he awoke, located himself
lafler a momentary wonderment and shook his head. No
Bheadachel That was strange! Apparently he was not
Bgoing to suffer the traditional aftermath. ... He went to
Itake a cold bath, and returning found one of his companions
Hof the night before in the hall. "How do you feel?" He
Ifelt fine. He had some breakfast at the nearest restaurant,
Tand went to work.

X. The Detached Attitude

HIS kindly neighbors, who lived in the big room at the
back next to his own, were Roger Sully and Don
Carew, so he learned from the inscription on their
mail-box in the entrance. He went in that evening after
dinner to thank them.

He was surprised to find, in this dingy building, so
charming a room — strikingly in contrast to his own bare
and cheerless one. Across one wall a blazing splash of
colour — some kind of foreign-looking dyed-stuflF — arid a
few brilliant cushions on the couch, warmed the place and
made him forget what seemed the bleak chill of all the rest
of the world.

Roger, it appeared, was the fat little man with the air of
distinction, who was making coffee in a glass bulb over an
alcohol lamp. Don, a long and bony youth, was stretched at
ease in a big chair.

"Have some coffee with us," said Roger. "It will be good
coffee, I promise you. And good coffee," he went on in his
gently modulated voice, ''is one of the few really important
things in life."

"And a cigarette," said Don, rising to offer him a box of
queer-looking Russian things with long pasteboard mouth-
pieces. As he offered the cigarettes with one hand, he raised
the other and ran his long fingers through his fair touseled
hair, reducing it to a state of more picturesque disorder.
He made this gesture continually, not in mere nervousness
but as if he were caressing something he liked.

The coffee was very good, and Felix drank it gratefully.
The two hosts drank it as though it were a rite, Felix ob-
served, a veritable and solemn ceremonial. They smoked

I76 The Briary-Bush

Hci^arettes the same way — slowly, as if tasting each inhalation
Iwiih a devout palate, .'^nd aside from these rather solemn
Isensory enthusiasms, they maintained a slightly bored air.

They referred to the incident of the night before as if it
Ihad happened a thousand years ago. It did not appear to in-
Iterest them in the least, and Felix found it difficult to identify
Ithem with the delightedly chattering companions who had es-
Bcorted him home — until something that was said seemed to
Bbreak the spell, and Roger leaned forward eagerly and de-
Imanded :

"Yes — now w/iy did you call him McFish? Have you any
|idea?"

"Yes — why?" echoed Don, also alert.

Felix did not know, and could not imagine why anybody
Bshould care to probe the secret of a mere drunken mistake in
I nomenclature. . . . The McFish incident reminded them of
; equally esoteric mistake made upon some similar oc-
Bcasion, and they spent an hour in a quite excited discussion
lof psychic revelations which seemed to Felix both immate-
Irial and irrelevant. He went away feeling as though he had
Istepped by inadvertence into a chapter by Henry James, and
|he decided not to come again.

But he did drop in a few evenings later, in sheer bore-

The Detached Attitude 77

Fdix suflpected that it migfat be simply another name for
b ore d om, bat he did not venture to say so.

The artist, they went on— one talcing up the argument
languidly where the other left off—should strictly avoid per-
sonal e3q)erience. He should hold himsdf austerely aloof
from participation in human affairs. . . .

"But I Aought," said Felix, '*that what the artist was sup-
posed to need was eiq>erienoe I"

•*A vulgar error/' said Roger scornfully.

''What an artist needs/' said Don, "is background/*

And background, Felix gathered from their further ex-
planations, was something one got by being in many differ-
ent places without ever settling down and belongii^ to any
one place — by merely being there and, as Roger put it, 'iook-
ii^ on disinterestedly while other people passionately and
ridiculously did things."

The idea rather appealed to Felix. ... He secretly wished
he had stood by and looked on while the others got drunk
that night'. He regretted his participation in that scene — re-
gretted it in spite of the absence of any of the traditional un-
pleasant after-effects. He wished he had remained austerely
aloof from the human activities of that occasion. What,
after all, was the use of passionately hitting somebody in the
face if you couldn't remember afterward what it was all
about? ... He was inclined to think that Roger and Don
were right ; it was not the meaningless raw material of ex-
perience that one needed, but some calm, fixed point of view
from which to look on and understand it.

Did they have such a point of view ? He b^;an to respect
and envy them.

It was strange — he said to himself — that he should con-
tinue to be so upset by Rose-Ann's absence! He realized
grudgingly and unwillingly how much the centre of his
Chicago she had been. Without her companionship, his life
seemed to have lost its significance.
* His class at Community House had come to seem a nui-

78 The Briary-Bush ^P

Sance, his newspaper work mere empty trickery. And
there was nothing in the outside world to turn to, no cause
that seemed worth serving. Socialism— it was loo Utopian.
Social reform — perhaps that was not Utopian enough. The
art of writing — no, he must not think of that. . . . He
found in his life nothing to give it meaning.

Rose-Ann's letters increased his sense of futility. They
were friendly letters, telling of her mother's illness, which it
seemed was sufficiently real this time, and of her encounters
with a family of aggressively brotlieriy brothers : and to these
letters he had responded in equally friendly terms.

That was the trouble. He did not want to write friendly
letters. . . . He wanted to write angry letters. He wanted
to tell her to stop writing to him — to let him alone, and let
him forget her. as she would soon forget him. He wanted
to say: "You know, and I know, tliat your moment of free-
dom, and all it promised, is over for good now. Springfield
has got you, you belong to your family again, you will never
come back except as the wife of some fat Springfield manu-
facturer, to see the sights, or go to the theater with him and
show off your new gowns, and — yes, you will come to Com-
munity House, and visit your old class, and as you go away
you will say to your husband, 'I used to know such a quaint
and interesting boy here — I wonder what has become of
him !' And your fat husband will put his fat cigar into the
other comer of his fat mouth, and say, 'Yes, I suppose it's a
good thing your folks got you back to Springfield when they
did!' But he will be wrong, at that; Springfield is your
natural habitat, you would have gone back there any^.
way. . . ,"

He wanted to write absurd things like that to her. Inste
he wrote friendly letters, "frank" and comradely and (
in the tone in which their whole relationship had been
couched from the first, up to that insane moment on the
station platform. . . .

He was ashamed of himself for thinking so much about
her. Of course he was not in love witli herl He was merely
lonely.

any^

isteafl
i cooSX

The Detached Attitude 79

Clive was still preoccupied with that troublesome girl to
whom he had darkly and allusively referred in their infre-
quent luncheons together.

He needed other friends. He called on Roger and Don
one Sunday afternoon, and they were primping to go out to a
tea, and urged him to come along. "It's at Doris's — ^you
know Doris, don't you? Doris Pelman. Youll like her."

Doris Pelman's apartment, somewhere on the north side,
was like Don's and Roger's in having a certain impressive
charm which consisted precisely in its being un-homelike.
It was meant, somehow, to be looked at, rather than lived in.
The chairs were thin-legged and rickety, but doubtless
genuine antiques; the rugs were hung on the walls instead
of on the floor; and on the walls, too, were dim Chinese
paintings to whose beauty Felix was dense; yet altogether
the place had an effect of being somewhere quite out of
the world, and Felix liked it for that. ^-^

He was introduced at once to half-a-dozen young men and ^
women, and in the course of the afternoon to half-a-dozen
more. The young men greeted Don and Roger with a lan-
guid enthusiasm, and the young women with a sort of bois-
terous camaraderie. Felix was struck by something at once
delicate and artificial about these young men, something
which he had at first noted and then became oblivious to in
Roger and Don. Among them, he felt somehow coarse and
brutal. ... He had an impulse to swear, or spit on the
floor. '

Don and Roger and two other young men were talking
about travel. A nostalgia for foreign parts seemed to afflict
them all. They had, it seemed, been everywhere in Europe ;
and most of them knew, with an especial and fond intimacy,
the geography of France, Italy, and Spain. They had sdl
been somewhere, if not East of Suez, at least somewhere ex-
otically remote, last year; and they were going somewhere
even more strange and distant, next year. With Don and
Roger the question was, Tunis or Tahiti? — they could not
decide which.

Felix had accepted this travel-mania as part of Don's and

The Briary-Bush

Roger's interesting scheme of life. Sometimes he had even
envied them, for they boasted that they did all this travelling
"on their wits" ; they inaiiled that one could go anywhere and
live well, without money — and Felix had felt rather ashamed
of his own singular lack of nomadic enterpriso. But today
he felt annoyed with them. He remarked to himself that
though he had not ostensibly travelled, he had actually spent
his life in changing his place of habitation, from house to
house and from town to town; and even if these places were
only the same middle-western town all over again each time,
yet he felt that he had never stayed long enough to get really
acquainted with it! He observed aloud, challengingly, tliat
he thought one might slay in a city like Chicago the whole
of one's life without quite exhausting its interest.

The four young men raised their eyebrows, and uttered
impressively the names of the great capitals of Europe; and
even more unctuously the names of little out-of-the-way
foreign towns of which he had never heard.

"The trouble with writers," Don remarked — ^he and Roger
paid Felix the compliment of regarding him as a fellow-
writer — "is that they try to write before they have sufficient
background."

Evidently, Felix reflected. Don and Roger had not made
that mistake! They had been acquiring background for
years, according to their own testimony — Roger for some ten
years, and Don for perhaps five. And neither of them had,
so far as he could discover, written anything yet! . . . And
when would they begin, with so much background still left to
be acquired ? Tunis and Tahiti !

He turned impatiently to the young women. . . . They
seemed at tirst much more congenial spirits. And yet there
was something odd about them, too — something odd in their
very friendliness. His hostess, Doris Pelman, a strikingly
handsome girl, tall and fair, was the one with whom he had
what most nearly resembled a conversation — a thing difficult
enough to achieve at a tea. What immediately impressed
him was that she did not seem at all conscious of her looks —
she might, from her behaviour, not have been possessed of

Th(V Detached Attitude 81

any; or imther, the mysterious barrier across which two
straogers, man and woman, must communicate, seemed not to
be there for her ; she was apparently unaware of herself and
him, tn a way that even old Mrs. Perk, a grandmother, never
could be. There was in her manner an utter absence of shy-
ness, an apparent perfect ease in this contact of personalities.
But in her easy unembarrassed friendliness there was some*
thing steely and aloof — a fundamental untouchableness. She
talked fluently, about his work and hers — she was an interior
decorator, it appeared, — about the new books and plays, and,
with an especial zest, about people. ... A peculiar zest,
too: she had a way, which at first gave him an uncanny
feeling, of talking about human beings as though they were
insects. The only things of which she spoke with visible
affection were the fabrics and materials of her profession —
and art in general.

But they were all, he felt, rather like this. The tea had
become a kind of family gathering, in which only Felix felt
out of place. Dusk fell, tall candles were lighted, and every-
one became anecdotal. It would seem that they had spent
their lives in collecting these anecdotes, and they related them
and heard them with an inexhaustible relish — each one being
rehearsed at full length with a loving care for the minutest
psychological details. Some of th^e stories were apparently
precious gems in their collection, worthy of being taken out
and enjoyed over and over again. Other stories they laughed
over uproariously, chokingly, helplessly — ^though to Felix
the point of these seemed frequently rather obscure, and sel-
dom very funny.

He went away feeling surprised, and not knowing quite
whether he was disappointed or grateful at the absence of
any challenge in these new feminine acquaintanceships. He
had never consciously realized, except now in its absence,
that undercurrent of vague questioning, at once delightful
and disconcerting, as to just what there might be in a new
"friendship'' — ^what rich and beautiful possibilities it might
hold in store: all the familiar and foolish day-dreaming
that follows the most casual meeting of masculine with femi-

'W
82 The Briary-Bush

nine youth. But here there was no question whatever ; imagi-
nation took no hold on this extraordinarily self-possessed.
this imperturbahle young womanhood. . . . Here was, in-
deed, the "detached attitude" 1

■

XI. An Adventure in Philosophy

HE had not confided to Rose-Ann the fact of his
change of residence — ^though he had asked her to ad-
dress him in care of the Chronicle. But after some
hesitation, he did write to her an account of some of the new
impressions of Chicago which that change of residence had
yielded. He did so with the feeling, which he could not logi-
cally defend, that these things concerned her equally with
himself. He told her of Don and Roger, of Doris Pelman,
and the detached attitude. *' Adventures in philosophy," he
called them; and he added:

''These people find life ugly^ I think, and so they avoid and
evade it. That is what I seem to myself to be doing at present,
too. But I am not like them — I cannot just look on and be
amused. Only I want to live my life understandingly — and I
seem to have lost my bearings/'

A boyish letter, he thought, having sent it; and he was
glad enough that her reply made no mention of its contents —
being, in fact, only a brief, hurried uncommunicative note of
acknowledgement. But its briefness did not hurt him; by
the time it came she was an utter stranger to him again. He
glanced at her note, threw it in the waste-basket, and went
on writing some meaningless story for the Chronicle. . . .
After all, he had one thing left — a certain pride in his work:
though it was all of no consequence, he knew whether it was
good or bad — nothing could take that away from him. . . .

And then at another of Doris Pelman's teas he hegaai
another "adventure in philosophy."

He had been invited to come again. It appeared that these

84 The Briary-Bush

teas were an institution. He came, out of curiosity, and left
early; and as he went out into the hall he was joined by a
young man who had come iate, and who had sat in the comer
eilentiy and with an expression of weary gloom. He was a
short, thick-set young man with curly black hair and heavy
hps. He had interested Felix as possibly — he thought cer-
tainly — the only person there besides himself who did not feel
at home in that group.

Outside the apartment door, he turned to Felix with an
expression of extreme distaste.

"La-de-da !" he said with a glance backward in the
direction of the company they had just quitted. Felix
smiled sympathetically.

"You know, those aesthetic birds," the young man went on,
as they descended the stairs, "—they make me sick." They
emerged upon the sidewalk. "Come on,", said the young
man, "I know where there's a real party going on tonight,
with some real girls. We'll get some grub, and then we'll
take it in. D'you ever eat at George's? It's a Greek place
on Clark street, just north of the loop. Not bad at all. — I
know you," he added. "You work on the Chronicle. You
don't know me, but you ought to — I'm a pretty good scout.
My name's Budge — Victor Budge. I'm studying at Rush."
"At what ?" Felix interjected.

"Rush — Rush Medical College. Going to be one of the
best little surgeons that ever cut out a gizzard." He gave
a dramatic flourish of his hand, as if wielding a scalpel. "But
that's not all. I write, too. In me you behold the world's
greatest novelist, living, dead, or unborn. Well may you be
amazed — though I must say tliat you take the news rather
calmly. I'll tell you about it. I have a theory about art —
just like those birds in there; only I've got the correct dope.
The trouble with art is that it's too detached from life. My
idea is that the artist — the writer — has got to belong to the
world he lives in — has got to be a part of it. That's why I'm
going to be a surgeon. With a simple twist of my accom-
plished wrist, and a four years' course in human guts, I shall
be able to make an honest living, and write on the aide. Like

An Adventure in Philosophy 85

Chekhov. I never read anything he ¥n^te, but I understand
he's same writer. Yes, believe me, I shall put it all over
diese literary fakers ! — ^You know Roger Sully ?"

"Yes — and Don. The others I've merely met."

**Wdl, th^re always gassing about where they've been —
London^ Paris, and places you never heard of. They've
made a business of bumming all over the world. And they
call that leariiing to write !"

*' Acquiring background," assented Felix.

"That's the word. And avoiding anything that resembles
real woric. They have an elaborate code of morals about not
working. It's a point of honor with them not to work in an
oflice, not to have any job that requires regular hours, and
not to stick at an3rthing longer than a month or so. A job,
says Roger, is fatal to tiie spirit of art I Can you beat that ?"

**But how do they get along?" asked Felix. He had
wondered, for in his visits to the Sully-Carew apartment
there had never been any mention of the manner of their
subsistence.

**Oh,- odd jobs on trade papers, publicity stuflF — anything.
Or nothing. Mostly nothing right now, I guess. People
can live quite a while on coffee and cigarettes, and an oc-
casional invitation to dinner. And when they're short of
cash, they can warm themselves with memories of the equa-
tor, I suppose."

They reached the little basement restaurant, and entered,
**ni order for you, if you don't know the grub," said Victor
Budge. ''This is on me anyway. One lamb kapama, one
shish kebab, lots of olives, some red ink, two baklavas, and
Turkish coffee. . . . Yes, the ripe olives, of course."

The olives were put before them. "Those remind me of
Roger," said Victor Budge. "We were having dinner here
one night, and he lifted one olive up, like this, delicatdy —
poor devil, I'll bet he hadn't had a square meal for a week —
and said, 'When I shut my eyes and taste one of these salty
olives, I am back on the Mediterranean, in a boat with a la-
teen sail I' What do you know about that 1"

Felix found himself rather sympathizing with Roger, and

86 The Briary-Bush

resenting the vulgarity of outlook of this young man, which
like his vulgarity of speech, seemed deliberate and
forced. . . .

The food came, and Victor Budge served it. "I'm a real-
ist," he said. "When I'm hungry, I know it. 1 don't
pretend that I like olives because they remind me of the Med-
iterranean : grub is grub — you need it, and you've got to have
it. And if you take life simply and realistically, it's not
hard to get all you want of it. What's the use of starving in
a garret? You and I know what life is like, and that it's a
pretty good old game if you play it like everybody else does.
Be like oilier folks! Why should an artist feel that he has
to be so damn refined and superior? What's good enough
for ordinary people is good enough for me. I don'l believe
in this artistic belly-ac hi ng-a round about how coarse and
vulgar Hfe is. Take things as you find 'em, and don't bawl
for the moon. That's what I say."

In spite of the way Victor Budge put this philosophy — its
boisterousness somehow smacked of an inner lack of convic-
tion, as though he were arguing to convince himself — yet
there seemed to be sound sense in it. That, afler all, was
what Felix himself was trying to do — ^be hke other peo-
ple. . . . Yes, Victor Budge was right.

"Have some more red ink ? Plenty more in George's cel-
lar. — And girls, for instance. Now I don't have any use at
all for this — this eternal poetizing about them 1 What's a
girl, after all? The same kind of critler we are! I don't
find 'em mysterious— and I don't go 'round grouching about
'em, either. Girls and me have always got along perfectly
well. Because I don't expect them to be something else than
what they are — Helen of Troy and the Blessed Damozel and
all that sort of rot. I don't go up to them asking, 'Are you
my long-lost ideal ?' They don't want to be anybody's long-
lost ideal. They want to be taken for what they are! Isn't
it so?"

"I don't know," said Felix, humbly, , . . Yes, doubtless
there was something unrealistic in his attitude toward girls —

An Adventure in Philosophy 87

something that he must get over. . . . "I'm afraid I don't
know very much about girls. You may be right."

"Of course I'm right," affirmed Victor Budge. "It stands
to reason that there isn't just one girl in all the world for you
or me." Which, while perhaps not a logical sequitur to
Victor Budge's previous remarks, was precisely what Felix
had been trying to convince himself of. . . .

"That," said Victor Budge, "that sort of silly nonsense
in people's heads is what makes them go around making them-
selves miserable, because they haven't yet found the one and
only. I guess if a man was cast away on a desert island
with a girl, he'd find she was his one and only quick enough I
Of course, if you're going to have to spend the rest of
your life with her, you'll want somebody who knows what
you're talking about, and all that sort of thing! But when
all you want is an evening's good time, what difference does
it make to you whether she's read the latest book by Henry
James? There are some damn fine girls that couldn't tell
Henry James from Jesse James, and you dam well know it !"

Yes, Felix thought, books are not the only things worth
knowing; there is life itself. And he had certainly never
intended to spend his days in Chicago without seeing any-
tfiing of girls. To be sure, he did not want to fall in love
— and he knew himself to be at this period in a dangerously
susceptible mood. But must he be such a fool as to fall
in love with the first girl he kissed? It was time for him
to learn to be like other people — to take such things more
lightly. If he could find the kind of solace which Victor's
words suggested . . . and a part of his mind leaped to
welcome the thought of that release from the torment of
loneliness. He envisaged in fantasy a "real" girl, ready
to put aside the hypocritic disguises of civilization and reveal
fierself as what she was — a splendid young animal whose
x>uch was joy. ... As this warm vision flashed and faded
n his mind, he turned to Victor Budge and asked:
"Where is this party you're taking me to tonight?" For
of these Arabian Nights come true in Chicago,

88 The Briary-Bush

seemed a little surprising. But doubtless there were many
things that he did not know,

"Did I say party? Wdl, you know what I mean," said
Victor Budge, not without embarrassment. "It'll be a real
party, all right, before we get through! We'll siart down
in Jake's place, and take in the whole district."

Felix flushed slowly, a painful flush of anger and shame
that seemed to spread all through his body. Anger and
shame at his own credulity. Arabian Nights, indeed! He
laughed, loudly — at himself.

A picture came into hts mind, compounded of things
he had read, and the brief glimpses of actuality with which
his curiosity had been satisfied and sickened back in Port
Royal on the Mississippi — of the tawdry, dirty, dull, the
incredibly dull, the joyless, loveless, hard, empty hfe of —
as it was sometimes called — joy. . . . The stupid women,
the foolish men, the mechanical noise and laughter, the boozy
humour, the touch of stale, jaded, weary flesh. . . . And
this was what Victor Budge was talking about — this was
the subject upon which he had expended so much vulgar-
eloquence I , , . This, then, was Victor Budge's realism.
This was what he called a real party; and those were what
he called "real girls". , . . That was what he meant by
taking things as one found them, and not bawling for the
moon.

Victor Budge was staring at him. "What's eating you ?"
he asked.

Felix laughed again. "Well," he said, "I've some aesthetic
theories of my own which make it impossible for me to
accept your invitation. What's good enough for other people
isn't good enough for me. I don't want to take life simply
and realistically. I'm going off to starve in my garret
and write poems to Helen of Troy and the Blessed Damozel 1"

XII. Bachelor's Hall

E had decided to write — what, he did not know yet :
and it did not matter : something, anything, a play, a
poem, a story — whatever came into his head, good
or bad. It would occupy his time.

He spent a happy evening buying the materials of writing
at a stationery store. He bought a dozen penholders, a
quantity of his favourite stub pens, two bottles of a thick
black indelible ink, half a ream of good thin bond paper,
a great blotting-pad and a whole stack of small blotters.
That afternoon he had bought a copy of Roget's "Thesau-
rus,** witfiout which the literary life is mere vexation; and
a good, fat, reliable little dictionary with "derivations.**
Going to his room, he lighted the gas, arranged these
materials on his little table, gazed at them with pleasure — and
realized that he had forgotten to buy an eyeshade. He went
back to the stationery store, and returned with a half-dozen
e>*eshades of the best pattern, the kind that do not saw the
cars or get tangled in the hair. It appeared to him also that
the gas-light really would not do; he must get a kerosene
student's lamp; it would be a nuisance to keep it filled and
trimmed, and the chimney clean — but the literary life has its
inevitable penalties. ... He would get a student's lamp
and a gallon can of kerosene tomorrow.

He sat down again at the little table, fitted a stub pen
into his penholder, lighted a match, and held the steel point
in the blaze, to bum off the oil and take out the temper,
making it soft and flexible and easy to write with. He
uncorked the ink, wiped out the neck of the bottle with a
bbtter, and dipped his pen in. Yes, the pen held a full

The Briary-Bush

■90

Bsentence's-worth of ink, as it should. There was nothing the
Bmatter with the pen. He took a sheaf of paper from the
t pile on the back of the desk, laid it at the proper angle,
ladjusled his chair, dipped the pen again, poised it above the
virgin paper^and remembered that he had only two ciga-
Irettes left in the box. One cannot do a good night's writing
without plenty of cigarettes. He went down to the cigar
(store and rclurned with five boxes.

Once more he dipped his pen, lifted it . , ,

An hour later he roiiS(?d himself from the vagiie waking

1 which his mind had been immersed. The sheet

Jof paper was covered with lines and circles, stars, geometrical

Bigures, childish pictures of houses with smoke coming out

lof the chimneys, illegible words, his own initials, and crude

[attempts to draw the outline of a girl's arm; and amidst all

his, carefully obliterated, so that lie could hardly recognize

t himself, the name — Rose-Ann, Rose-Ann, Rose-Ann. . . .

He tore the sheet into tiny fragments, bnislied them xo the

Dr, and then got dctwn on his hands and knees and care-

ly picked them up. He must remember to buy a waste-

isket for his room tomorrow. He looked at his watch. It

Bachelor's Hall 91

He stepped back hastily, with a queer feeling in the pit of
his stomach.

'The fool's got a revolver!" said Roger.
'Here, give me that," said Don, going over and trying to
snatch it.

'Let him alone — ^he's drunk," said Roger.
'No — ^not drunk!" protested Eddie Silver. "Don't say
I'm drunk!" He tearfully extended his hands in pleading,
with the revolver dangling from a finger. "But—" and he
beamed at them suddenly — "going to get drunk 1 Going — "
He noticed the revolver, put it carefully in one overcoat
pocket, and took out of the other a quart bottle. "Get some
glasses, Rojjie!" And taking off his overcoat, with the
revolver still in its pocket, he bundled it up and tossed it
over into the corner of the room.

There was a moment in which everybody — except Eddie
— held himself tense in expectation of a bullet. Then Don
started across the room toward the overcoat.

"No, Don— no!— You le' tha' o'co' 'lone. 'S my bes'
o'co' !" And then, very clearly enunciated, "Hurry up with
those glasses!"

Felix followed Roger over behind the screen which masked
their simple culinary arrangements. "We've got to get him
drunk enough to get that gun away from him," whispered
Roger.

It took another bottle of whiskey, procured by Don and
paid for by Felix, and four hours of time, to kill Eddie
Silver's jealous watchfulness of that overcoat in the corner.
Eddie, with a maudlin efficiency, divided his attention be-
tween the overcoat and the whiskey. His conversation for
the last three of the four hours consisted of a promise to
tell them something. "Wo'n' tell 'nybo' 'n worl' 'cep' you,"
he kept saying.

It appeared to have to do with himself and some girl —
but whether it was in the nature of a crime or a joke they
could not tell, because sometimes he laughed and again he
cried about it. But as often as he started to tell what it was,
he became diverted, and told instead about somebody else and

1 92 The Briary-Bush

Jsomebody else's girl. He confessed many follies that night,
I but not his own.

At three o'clock, just when he seemed to be really on the
Bpoint of making that long-delayed confession, he suddenly
Iconimenced to laugh. "'Minds me Cli' Bangs!" he said.
J" Know Cli' Bangs?" And becoming articulate again he
Iwent on, "I'll tell you a funny story about him. He's got a —
■ (come on, everybody have another little drink!) — house out
lin the coimtry. I te' you 'bou' tha' h-house!"
1 _ And with vague relapses into the muffled speech of drunk-
lenness, and startling recoveries oi clearness, but always with
I thread of coherence, he told the story of Clive Bangs'
■house. At times Rt^er, watchfully listening, had to
Tserve as official interpreter ; Roger understood the locutions
Tof drunken speech as if they were a foreign language in
which he was versed. And Felix, half-ashamed to Usten,
^ut curious, heard it to the end.

It seemed that Clive had built— or rebuilt — that house in
Voods Point for a girl he was in love with at the time.

Bachelor's Hall 93

glimpse into the secret of Clive Bangs' heart — and yet he was
glad he had heard the story. Yes, it must be true. Rose-
Ann had put it in a phrase: ''Some girl has hurt him."
And this — this ridiculous and pathetic incident, too ridiculous
ever to confess, a secret that must be buried deep and for-
gotten — ^was the reason for Qive's being what he was. • • .
And suddenly Fdix understood why that story had moved
him so : — for had he not been as ridiculously, as pathetically
hurt, in his own episode of moon-calf-love back in Port
Royal? And was that incident, too, to affect his whole life,
remaining tmtold, unconfessed, poisoning his courage and
his faith?

He jumped up, lyent to his room, altogether wide awake,
and commenced to write — the story of his folly in Port Royal.
He commenced it as a letter to Rose-Ann. He did not
consider whether he would ever dare to send it to her. He
only knew that it must be written so.

An hour later he paused, tired out — ^and remembered
Eddie Silver's revolver. After all, that was perhaps a life-
and-death matter, and this wasn't. He went back to Don's
and Roger's room. . . . Eddie Silver's confession was again
on the point of becoming definite.

•Tdl you an about it," said Eddie. "Lis'n !"

They leaned forward to hear, but Eddie's head dropped
on his arms, and he was asleep.

"Damn!" whispered Roger.

Felix slipped quietly over to the woolly heap in the comer
and readied into one pocket and then the other. He found
something strangely light to the touch. He pulled it out
and gazed at it angrily. A tin revolver!

"Flix!"

Eddie suddenly awake, was calling to him.

••Go ge' 'no'er bol' Swinburne !"

Fdix looked at his watch. If he went to sleep now, he
would never wake up in the morning in time to go to the
office. He might as well keep awake the rest of the night.
''Make 9omt coffee," he said to Roger, "and 111 get some
more whiskey for this crazy loon."

f94

The Briary-Bush

That sort of thing — he reflected next evening, when he
turned in immediately after dinner — was not the sort of
thing he had expected of his Canal street home. He had
thought of it as being a quiet backwater, out of reach of the
tides of life. And if Eddie Silver was going to come
therel ... He fell asleep, only to be awakened by the cry.

"F'Hx 1 Oh you F'lix !" and a pounding on his door. "G'
up! We're having li'l' Swinburne party!"

Felix lighted a match. It was one o'clock. How had
that madman got into the house at this hour? Anyway,
there was no sleeping now. Besides, he had had six hours'
sleep.

He rose and dressed, and went into the other room,
"Make me a little coffee, Roger," he pleaded. . . . And an
hour later he managed to slip away, and went back to his
room and wrote feverishly on his letter— the letter which
he would never send — to Rose-Ann . . . falling asleep with
his head on the table, and only waking in time to get to the
office, without breakfast.

The third evening Eddie Silver came again, and this time
Felix felt himself too tired to write, and drank whiskey with
the rest. In the morning he was apparently none the won
except that he had no appetite for anything except a cup
coffee and a cigarette. In the afternoon, for lack of sufficii
sleep, he needed more coffee. And of course, the more
coffee one drank, the less one seemed to need real food, so
that dinner, too, consisted exclusively of coffee. And then
he could not sleep, and sat up half the night writing.
Fortunately, Eddie Silver did not come again for a while, so
there was a lull in the fever of existence. But it took days
to get back to normal habits of eflting and sleeping again.

And Felix, in the meantime, had commenced, for the sake
of companionship and gcx)d coffee, to take his dinners with
Don and Roger in their room, taking his turn in providing
them. These meals were of a delicatessen sort, sometimes
chosen because the ingredients reminded Don and Roger of

Bachelor's Hall 95

Spain or Italy, and sometimes because they made an interest-
ing colour scheme.

For a while their evenings were quiet. Felix would
labour upon that endless letter to Rose-Ann — ^who had by
now come to seem to him an unreal figure, an invention of
his own fancy; only becoming real again for a moment, a
moment only, when he saw on his desk at the office an
envelope addressed to him in her large undisciplined hand-
writing. Within that envelope would be a friendly note,
saying nothing ; and he would reply in kind.

One day he dropped in at the little Community Theatre to
sec how things were getting on ; Rose- Ann in her latest note
had expressed some curiosity about her old class and its new
teacher. He found old Mrs. Perk there.

'•It's pretty bad," Mrs. Perk whispered. "They don't like
the new one at all. And they miss you, too." Which some-
how pleased him very much, even diough he suspected it to
be only an old woman's flattery.

"And how do you like your new place? You don't look
very well fed. No, it's no use; men can't keep house by
themselves. You'll have to wait till Miss Rosy comes back,
and be taken care of right !"

"I'm afraid Miss Rosy will never come back," said Felix.

"Don't you bother yourself about that! — Here, thread
this needle for me, with your young eyes. . . . Why, I
asked her for a piece of the wedding cake, the very day she
went away so sudden. She'll be back all right !"

So old Mrs. Perk had been joking with Rose-Ann, too —
about him. Felix wondered how she had taken it. . . .

"No, your bachelor hall won't last much longer, I can'
promise you that."

He laughed and went away, amused at the quaint pseudo-
wisdom of the old. She thought she knew all about him
and Rose-Ann. Two young things hopelessly in love, but
too shy to tell each other so I And in this situation the incon-
veniences of bachelor's hall would operate as a deus ex
machina, driving him in despair and her in pity into each
other's arms — and matrimony I

\g(i The Briary-Bush

How simple it all seemed to her I And how ct»nplex it all
I was in reality !

Mrs. Perk had the old-fashioned-woman's naive confidence
1 the importance of woman's cooking ; for that matter, how
I did she know that Rose-Ann could cook? Most probably
J she couldn't! Girls like Rose-Ann didn't nowadays, . , .
I And besides, how could Mrs. Perk be expected to under-
I stand the pleasures of a man living alone, free, able to keep
what hours he chose — the sheer lazy charm of a masculine
I establishment, however inefficient!

Yes, Felix really enjoyed this happy-go-lucky kind of

■ existence. As long as there was plenty of good coffee, and
Icigarettes, nothing else mattered very much — not even Eddie
I Silver.

He had commenced to come again. At first his visits were
Bwelcome as a relief from the monotony of Canal street life.

■ But he was becoming a nuisance. . . . He would come in at
Ball hours, but preferably when they had just gone to bed —
[pounding on the doors until they awoke and let him i

Bachelor's Hall 97

for the sleq> he could not have. Sometinies during the day,
in the midst of a story, his mind would suddenly go blank for
a minute. His appetite failed, and there were pains in his
stomach that nothing but whiskey would relieve. He caught
a bad cold, and had a cough that would not go away. And
then, one morning in the eighth week of his stay in the Canal
street menage, he found himself too ill to go to the office.

Roger and Don ministered to him with hot coffee, and
called in a doctor who lived in the same building. The
doctor had long white locks that fell picturesquely about the
collar of his coat. He stuck a thermometer in Felix's mouth,
took out his watch and held Felix's wrist, then shook his head
gravely.

"What do you want to do with him ?" he asked.

*'We can't very well take care of him here," said Don.

"Any folks in town?" asked the doctor.

"No."

"H'm. How about the County Hospital? They'll look
after him all right."

"I suppose that is the correct thing to do with a sick
person," said Roger.

"H'm. Yes. . . . Has to be pretty serious, though, to
get him in."

'Well," asked Roger, "how serious ia it ?"

'H'm. Can't tell just yet. May be very serious — may
not be. Better not take any chances. . . . Well, what do
you want to do? County Hospital?"

Roger and Don looked at each other. Felix tried to get
the thermometer out of his mouth so as to protest, but com-
menced to cough instead.

"Yes," said Roger, "County Hospital."

"All right," said the doctor cheerfully, pulling his ther-
mometer out of Felix's mouth and putting it in his pocket
without looking at it, "I'll diagnose pneumonia. Where's
the telephone? 1*11 call up the hospital right away, and stay
here till they come."

98 The Briary-Bush

So Felix was taken to the County Hospital — firat address-
ing to Rose-Ann a large envelope in which he put his long,
unfinished letter, and giving it to Don to mail. . . . And
at the hospital, after the doctor got round to him, the night
nurse told him that there didn't seem to be anything the
matter with him except a bad cold, but the doctor thought he
ought to stay in bed a week and rest up.

"He says you need to make up about a month's sleep, and
get some of that booze out of your system," She grinned at
him sympathetically, "You ain't used to it, are you?"

He rather wished, since he wasn't going to die after all,
that he hadn't sent Rose-Ann that foolish letter. Still — he
didn't care. He couldn't care very much about anything.
He was weak, and tired, and very sleepy.

XIII. In Hospital

TIE ward in which Felix lay was a great room with
a hundred beds in it, only a few feet apart.
It was a restful place, after Canal street Even the
delirium of a man on the other side of the room was, after the
first night, easy to disr^ard. Those yells had no relation to
Felix's life; at least, they were not Eddie Silver's yells. He
did not have to wake up and join in any painful festivities
with that man. ... In their utter aloofness from his own
life, those yells seemed actually soothing, and he went to
sleep to their music as to a lullaby.

Every morning, at five o'clock, he was awakened, and a
cup was put to his lips. It was merely hot tea with milk
and sugar in it ; but Felix had never tasted any drink so good
as this — so invigorating, so life-giving, so nourishing. . . .
A wonderful drink! And when he had drained the last
drop, he sank back again into a drowsy slumber like that of
childhood.

It was so good to know that he did not have to get down to
the ofhce at eight o'clock. He could just stay in bed all day,
and sleep, and sleep, and sleep.

His friends came . . . bringing him messages from still
other friends. He never had any idea that he had so many
friends in Chicago. He was touched by their remembering
lim, and caring about him. People from the settlement, and
:he boys from the office. Clive came the first day, bringing
?vord that Mr. Devoe, the managing editor, was anxious
ibout him. His pay, Clive assured him, would go on just
:he same while he was sick. ... It seemed quite wonder-

100 The Briary-Bush

ful. Felix had never realiied how good people were. . . .

His friends brought books for him to read. Clive brought
him "The Island of Doctor Moreau," which he had long ago
promised to lend him. Paul came with a slender volume en-
titled "The Complete Works of Max Bcerbohm." Roger
brought him "The Confessions of a Young Man," and Don
appeared with Dowson's poems. Eddie Silver did not come,
though Felix rather expected him to bring a volume of Swin-
burne. . . .

Very nice of them, too, to think up such exotic and sophis-
ticated books for him to read — a tribute, doubtless, to his
superior tastes, But he felt, as he glanced languidly into
their pages, that these were not just tlie kind of books a sick
person wants to read. He wished somebody would bring
him the Saturday Evening Post — or the Bab Ballads.

But it was all right — he didn't want very much to read,
anyway. It was pleasanter to lie and day-dream — or watch
the pretty head-nurse, who was exactly like a pretly nurse
on the cover of a magazine — or think. He had a lot of time
to think, now. Hours. Funny, how one never seemed lo
get time to think, outside of a hospital.

His thoughts were slow and long, reaching to places
where it seemed he had not been in thought for a great while.
Really, a hospital was a fine place. People ought to go there
once a year for a long, long week of thinking. These
thoughts of his own, for instance — how glad he was about
them! They would make a great difference in his life,
once he got out of the hospital, . . .

The only trouble was that when he did get out of the
hospital, he never could remember what any of those thoughts
were. . . . They had vanished, leaving apparently no trace
upon his mind. And that seemed queer, too. Thoughts that
took such hours upon hours to think, and that seemed so
wonderful at the lime, oughtn't to disappear like that. ...

The only thought that remained was a very small and
insignificant thought, not worthy of being remembered, h ^

In Hospital lOi

was not really a thought at all» but only a memory : it went
bade to the time when he was a little boy in Maple, and
there was a syringa bush in front of the house, growing
up to the second-story window ; and he would lean out of
the window to see the bird's nest in the syrii^ bush, and
smell the perfume of the syringa blossoms; and he would
watch the mother-bird, sitting on her speckled ^;gs and
looking back at him with bright, sharp eyes, not at all afraid
of him. . . . Out of all those profound thoughts, that was
all he could ever remember.

On Saturday morning, his fifth day at the hospital, Qive
came, bringing Felix his pay-envelope from the Chronicle.

"When do you get out ?" he asked.

"Some time today," said Felix. "The doctor has to for-
mally discharge me, or something. This afternoon, I guess."

"Well, come out to my place in Woods Point, and rest up
for a week before you go back to the office. . . . I'll have
something special for dinner tonight in your honour. I
have a neighbour woman come in, you know, to cook for
me whenever I dine at home; you needn't be afraid you'll
have to depend on my culinary abilities. All right ? Good I
... I must get to the office now and finish some work. Oh,
I forgot, here's a letter for you. Good-bye — see you this
afternoon !"

The letter was from Rose-Ann.

"/ couldn't write," it opened abruptly, "till today. Mother
died Sunday. There is something very strange about death —
you can't quite believe it, or adjust yourself to it. I've had
all sorts of queer feelings about it all. But I know now why
people go through the ceremonial of funerals — it always
seemed to me absurd before. But in some queer pagan way
it seems to make up for all one's ingratitude to the dead —
for all the things you've forgotten, and only remember when
ifs too late. It is, as people say, 'all you can do.' And in
some queer way, it suffices. It enables you to think of other
thi$9gs again — to go back to ordinary life.

102 The Briary-Bush

"/ shan't have to ever quarrel with my brothers again
now — that's one of the other things I think of. I mean —
I've a tiny legacy, enough at any rate to make me inde-
pendent of them forever. Father was very nice to me — /
don't think I've ever told you about my father: he's a clergy-
man, and I suppose perhaps I didn't want to be known as
a clergyman's daughter. But he does understand me.

"Felix, I am worried about you. I suppose it's absurd,
but I keep thinking you're in trouble of some kind. And
your letters tell mc nothing at all — except — But we will
talk about that when I see you.

"I'm coming back to Chicago as soon as ever I can,"

BookThm
Woods Point

XIV. Heart and Hand

OSE-ANN came to the hospital that afternoon —
when he first saw her, she was walking down the
aisle with the young hospital doctor, and he was
pointing casually in Felix's direction. She nodded, said
something to the doctor, and ran quickly over to Felix's
bed-side.

"Are you really all right, Felix?" she asked, sitting down
on the bed and taking both his hands.

He spoke without premeditation: '*Oh, Rose-Ann, I'm so
glad you've come!"

'Why?" she asked breathlessly.

Because I love you," he said. It was an immense relief
to have said it.

"Do you?" she said. "I'm so glad." They looked at
each other a moment, and then she bent and kissed him softly.

They were presently aware of the smiling doctor standing
beside the bed. Rose-Ann turned to him.

"I want to take him away," she said.

"You're welcome to him," said the- doctor. "He's
perfectly well."

"Can he leave — right away?"

"This moment, if you like."

"Good. Ill go and call a taxi. Be ready as soon as you
can, Felix."

"But where are we going," Felix asked. He did not want
to go back to the settlement, which he felt that he had in a
way deserted ; and he had an idea that Rose-Ann would not
let him go back to Canal street.

"I don't know. I forgot — " said Rose-Ann, sitting down
on the bed again with a helpless air. Then she burst out

105

The Briary-Bush

106

laughing. "I was going to lake you home — I was under
the impression for the moment that we were married!"

"We can get married," said Felix, uncomCortably, feeling
that an important matter was being disposed of rather
cursorily.

She laughed again. "We can, yes. And I'm afraid
that is what is going to happen to us; aren't you, Felix?"

The doctor smiled and left them.

•*I know." she said. "It's an unfair advantage to take
of an invalid. But what else can we dc "'

"I only want to be sure — " said Felix.

'•Of what?"

"You read my letter, didn't you — that terribly long let
about that girl back in Iowa. . . ."

"Yes. dear."

"Well, you can see froin that — I mean, I'm afraid yoi
will think Vm not the sort of person who — "

"Who what, Felix?"

"Who makes a good husband. But, Rose-Ann—

"Oh, I know that, Felix dear. And — 1 don't want «
good husband. I want you."

"But — " He wanted to tell her that that was all over
now— that he would try to be all that she wished. . . .

"I understand," Rose-Ann was saying. "You told me
in that letter that there was something in you that rebelled
against reality. Irresponsible — unstable — you used those
words. 'Too unstable for ordinary domestic happiness,' I
think you said. Wei! . . . who wants ordinary domestic
happiness ?"

"But," Felix said earnestly, raising himself up on one
elbow, "a girl wants — more tlian an interesting lover. She
wants . . . some certainties in her life. A home, children,
and the promise of security for them. I — "

He wanted to be brave — to offer those certainties. But
it was too rash, too bold a promise. How did he know he
could fulfil it?

"I'd have to become very different, wouldn't 1?" he said
hesitantly. ,

:o laxe
letff

1 ya^

Heart and Hand 107

Rose-Ann spoke very quietly. "I don't want you to be
different, Felix. I'm not that girl back in Iowa. I'm — ^me.
I don't want to be supported — I don't need to be; I told
you I've a tiny but sufficient income of my own now.
And I don't want the kind of home you speak of, Felix — I
want to go on living my own life outside the home. And
— I think, Felix . . . that perhaps there are enough children
in the world without — without vagabonds and dreamers
Uke us taking on such — interesting but unnecessary —
responsibiUties. ... I really don't want us to be married
at all, Felix ; but I'm not brave enough to dispense with the
— rigmarole. I want you to have your freedom, and I mine.
I don't ask any promises of you — ^any at all. I know what
we are like. Freedom — for each other and ourselves —
that's what we want, Felix. Isn't it?"

He pressed her hand, and remained silent. He had not
dreamed of this. . . .

'Isn't that what we want, Felix?" she asked softly.
1 guess so," he replied dully, looking away from her. . . .
He knew he ought to be grateful to her; but he was sad
rather, with the wish that he had had the courage to promise
rash, mad, impossibly beautiful things.

Instead, he was to give her — uncertainty, insecurity. . . .

Did she understand?

'*Do you remember," he asked, staring outward as if
into the darkness, "what Garibaldi offered his soldiers?
'Danger and wounds' " —

He paused. "That seems a queer sort of offer for a man
to make to the girl he loves," he said grimly. "But, Rose-
Ann—"

"I enlist," she said softly.

They pressed each other's hand, looking away from each
other, silently each in a separate world of dream. Then
she smiled, coming back a little bewildered to the world
of immediate fact "I must call that taxi," she said.

4<'

IXV. Pre-Nuptial

THE streets outside were full of dirty mehing snow,
and there was a cold drizzly rain falling.
"We still don't know where we are going," said
|Rose-Ann, as they stood in the doorway, waiting for the
"Isn't it amusing? What are we going to tell the
Iriver?"

"City Hall, what else?" said Felix.

Rose-Ann shrugged her shoulders. "It's an abode, a
of residence — a home, if you like — some place to
; you besides Community House or that dreadful place
t I've heard about on Canal Street: it's that I'm thinking

Prc-Nuptial 109

with all the appurtenances thereto 9ppertBimng, and a
woman to come in to do the cooking. And well be married
there. Qive will help us arrange it."

The taxi had swung up beside the curb. Rose-Ann «till
hesitated a moment, then said, *'A11 right 1'' and climbed in.
'Northwestern station 1'* said Felix to the driver.
'No!" said Rose- Ann. "To Community House first I —
If I*m to be married, Felix, at least I must change my clothes ;
there's no need for me to be married in this" — and she
looked down at the grey suit she was wearing. "I'm just
as I came from the train."

"All right," said Felix. "But let's not stop there long.
And — I do hope they won't suspect what we are up to . . .
it will be rather a give-away, our dashing in together and
out again!"

She laughed. "You mean it will look like an elopement?
Well, you can wait for me in the taxi."

He waited, impatiently, smoking a cigarette, for what
seemed a long time. At last she came, dressed now in some
soft creamy thing under her grey cloak, and carrying a
suitcase.

"I think one person suspected me," she said.

-Mrs. Perk?"

"Yes. Old women think they know so much, don't they?
Why should she imagine — ? just because I — ! It's my own
fault, for making a last sentimental visit to the theatre.
But I wanted to — sort of — say good-bye !"

At die station, Rose-Ann hesitated again, and urged Felix
at least to call Give up and tell him they were coming.
Felix refused. "Let's make it a surprise," he said.

"I don't know!" Rose-Ann said, when they were aboard
the train. "To tell the truth, I'm a little afraid of your
friend Qive."

"Afraid of him?"

'I mean — I'm in awe of him, a little."

'Nothing awe-f ul about Qive. He's a nice fdlow. I've
always wanted you to meet him."

*T. wondered why you kept us so carefully apart," said

The Briary-Bush

110

Rose-Ann. "I thought perhaps you fdt that J didn't
measure up to his specifications. Do you think I will?"

He laughed tenderly, and looked at her. She was very
sweet, and, it seemed, very tired despite the buoyant vivacity
that always made her lovely. "Yon are wonderful," he
said. "But," and he put his arm about her, to the amusement
of two adolescent girls across the aisle, "it doesn't make
any difference what anybody in the world thinks about
you, except me!"

"How possessive you are, of a sudden!" said Rose-Ann.
But she relaxed deep within his caressing and protecting
gesture, and closed her eyes.

He looked down, touching softly with his glance the
delicate surface of her cheek as it slanted away from the
high cheek-bones, and the forehead half hidden under the
drooping tangle of red gold hair. Yes, she was very tired.
and strangely enough he was glad to have her so, glad to
feel her restless and vivid life relax to peace in the shelter
of his arm. She had gone through a good deal of late;
he thought of her home, and of that death-bed from which
she had come, and the jarring family hostilities only half-
repressed by the solemnity of that scene ; it was strange to
think of her — this lovely child made for happiness — emerging
from those troubled shadows. . . .

She was free now. And he too was free — free from
dubieties and hesitations, strange and foolish suspicions of
her — free from fear. How simple everything was, after all I
By what strange ways they had come, to find each other
— not knowing until this Uist moment the real meaning
their lives.

"It's beginning to snow again," said Rose-Ann, rousing
herself and looking out of the window. And then — "What
have you told Clive Bangs about me?"

"Not very much." he confessed, "I suppose because of
Clive's manner about his own girls — or girl, I should say;
it's been a particular one for a long time now. He aUudss .

Prc-Nuptial ill

to her* discusses her in an impersonal way, but he has
never even told roe her name. A queer sort of futile
secrecy. — Which reminds me of a curious story about him.'*
And he told her Eddie Silver's drunken tale of the
building of the house.

•*Thb house we arc going to?"

•*Ye5--if the story's true-"

*'So that's why he became a woman-hater."

^'Perluq^ not quite so bad as that. I should say it made
him a Utopian."

*'It's the same thing/' said Rose-Ann. "It's curious,"
she added, **how many men nowadays — particularly
interesting men — are afraid of women; afraid that being
really in love will ruin their career, commercialize their
art, or something. — ^Are you afraid of me, Felix?"

"^ot any more," he laughed.

••Why, were you ever?"

••Afraid you didn't really care for me," he said.

••Yes, you were rather shy I But I liked you for it. And
it was just as well, until I had made up my own mind."

••How did you come to make up your mind? Why did
jrou decide to marry me ?"

-Shall I ten you?"

-Yes, tell me."

••It was partly your love-letters — "

••Did I write love-letters to you? I suppose I did — but
I tried awfully hard not to!"

••Beautiful love-letters I And then — being at home: that
more than anything else made me realize that I was in love
with jTOU. I had thought so before, but then I was sure
of it. And — well, it seemed stupid not to make something
of our two lives. Why should we keep on being afraid to
try? . . ."

••Were you afraid, too, Rose-Ann?"

••Yes. But I'm not any more. We're going to be very
happy, and you're going to be a very great man and write
wonderful things. . . ."

He stirred uneasily. ''Don't put our happimess oci lAcoX

|ii2 The Briary-Bush

)asis, please. Suppose I don't write wonderful things l"
"But you will !"

He sighed. "That makes me realize that 1 am a little
kfraid of you, Rose-Arai, Afraid you will make me have
I career !"
"Don't you want a career? I don't want you to do any-
Ithing you don't want to."

"That's just it. I'm afraid you are going to make me do
Jail the things I do want to! Things I would otherwise
Ijust dream of doing!"

"Is that prospect so terrifying?"
"Yes, rather."

"Poor dear !" She pressed his hand in hers. "I suppose
terrible person. I can't do the things I want to
I myself; and so I'm going to insist on your doing them
-is that it?"

. have the feeling that you expect a terrible lot from
' he said.
s true^I do think you're rather a wonderful person."

Prc-Nuptial

113

over their frayed edges. He looked at his dusty shoes,
and tucked them out of sight under the seat.

'Does Felix fed himself again?" she asked maliciously.

'Quite/' he said. *'Now I know it's true I'm going to
be married."

«i

**i

IXVI. Clive's Assistance

THE snow had fallen more and more heavily while
they were on the train, and the air was crisp when
they emerged into the dusk at Woods Point. "I
Ithink I'm going to like my wedding," said Rose-Ann.

They found a car at the nearest garage to lake them to

BClive's place, some two miles away. The driver halted at

Ithe edge of a steep ravine that cut down toward the lake.

I He pointed over to the gleam of a lighted window. "There

' he said. "And here's the path. It goes right along

dge of the ravine, but Mr. Bangs keeps it pretty clean

f snow, and there's a raiting by the worst places. I guess

Clive's Assistance 115

"Yes!" said Felix gaily.

Clive laughed. '* Welcome !'' he said, ushering them inside.
"If I'd known you were coming, I'd have met you at the
station and guided you to the house. You weren't afraid
of breaking your neck?" And then, as Rose- Ann emerged
from her snowy cloak, he took her hand. ''So this is Rose-
Ann! I'm delighted. You know, Felix isn't very good
at descriptions, and I never got the right idea of you at all."

Felix felt vagudy annoyed. All this was beside the point.

"I suppose we can get married here, can't we?" he asked.

Qive looked at him, and then back at Rose-Ann. "How
solemn you both are!" he said. "Why, I really believe
— Felix, what is this about getting married?"

"That's what we've come for," said Felix patiently.

"You mean — " Clive appeared incredulous.

"I mean, married. Preacher! License! Ceremony!
Didn't you ever hear of anybody getting married before?"

"Not really?"

"Yes, really. And right away. Tonight. Is your mind
capable of taking all that in, or must I spell it out for you.
You seem dazed."

This was not exactly the reception he had expected for
his news.

"I'm more than dazed. I'm shocked," said Qive. He
turned again to Rose-Ann. "Tell me — ^when did this —
when did you children decide on this rash deed ?"

"This afternoon," said Rose- Ann. "It is rash, isn't it?
Do you really think we shouldn't ?"

Felix made an impatient movement. What difference
did it make what Qive Bangs thought?

"Come in by the fire," said Qive. "You — ^you bewilder
me, you two."

He put a hand, with some kind of vague paternal ges-
ture, on Rose-Ann's shoulder. "In here" — and he showed
them into a room where a coal fire glowed in an open
Franklin stove. He arranged three big chairs. "Sit there.
. . . Bad weather outdoors."

"No," said Rose-Ann, "it's beautiful! It's snowing. . . ."

|ii6 The Briary-Bush

"I'll get you something warm to drink," and CUve left

|them.

They sat there a moment, silent.

"Do you — do you think — ?" Rose-Ann began in a
|troub1ed voice.

"I think Give is a little upset," he said. "Poor deyill"
"You don't — ?" She stopped again.
"What ?" he asked dreamily, reaching out and finding
Iher fingers as they drooped over the arm of the chair.
"Nothing," she said.

Presently he looked up, and met her eyes. A look he

1 never seen before glowed in them, and it was as if she

i shown him some secret part of herself always hidden

)efore. That look seemed to reveal to him, as if for the

Ifirst time, dazzlingly, by the real truth of their love. It was

i if everything they had said to each other had been in

Isome way false and evasive. This was the truth — this

timate surrender, this faith -beyond -reason, this something

Ideeper than pride and joy in her eyes. He was strangely

Clivc's Assistance 117

"And you diink marriage will spoil that?'* Rose-Ann
asked.

Clive r^arded them. '*Well/' he said, •'how many people
do you know whose marital happiness you would be willing
to take as your own?**

They were silent, Felix annoyed.

**I don't know anybody ¥Hiose happiness / wotdd want/'
said Rose-Ann at last. "But—"

"But you hope to have something different, and very much
better," said Give gently, as if speaking to a child.

"I suppose it's foolish," said Rose-Ann.

"I don^ see anything foolish about it," said Felix defiantly.
**What's your objection to marriage?"

Give turned upon him with mild surprise. "Is this the
young man with whom I have had a number of luncheon
discussions — in which, if I remember rightly, you spoke
eloquently on this same subject?"

Rose-Ann turned to Felix inquiringly. "I don't think
you've ever told me your views of marriage, Felix," she
said.

Give laughed. "That is what is known in fiction as a
sardonic laugh," he observed. "I trust you recognized it.
I will repeat it for you: Ha, ha! Now, Mr. Fay, is your
opportunity to explain to your prospective bride your views
of marriage."

Felix flushed. "As a matter of fact, Rose-Ann and I
have discussed them," he said.

'Relic of barbarism,' " quoted Give with gentle malice.

'Of barbarism?" Rose- Ann repeated, puzzled.
'Give and I have the habit of orating to each other on
these subjects," said Felix, "at lunch and whenever we
haven't anything better to do."

"I've heard of those luncheon discussions," said Rose-Ann,
"and wished I could have been present. I'd like to hear
you," she said, looking at Give and then back to Felix. It
was, subtly, her defiance to Give.

•*Our discussi(ms," said Felix, "are devastatingly theoreti-
caL We are accustomed to refer to everything we don't Uke

|ii8 The Briary-Bush

L relic of barbarism. Marriage, for instance. . . . It's
■essentially an intrusion by the Elders of the Tribe into the
■private affairs of the young. The Old People always think
Ithey know what is best Originally, of course, their power
Ito rule the lives of the young was far greater. Rose-Ann
land I wouldn't have been allowed to select a mate for our-
The choice would be made for us by the Elders;
lin their infinite wisdom they would choose for her a lord and
■master, and she would settle down at once to her proper
Bwomanly business of cooking his meals and bringing up his
Bbabies. Me they would doubtless have mated with
Bsome possessive young hussy who would efficiently smother
Band drug to sleep with her own physical charms any desire
"of mine for an impersonal intellectual life. And thus we
would both have been made safe and harmless — Rose-Ann
with her cooking and babies, and I with my harem of one.
ti of us tied down body and soul, and thus presenting no
■ to established institutions!"
'as speaking quickly, with a feeling that it was all

Clive's Assistance 119

**I went to one," said Clive, "once upon a time, in
Chicago. ... I had a sense of the girl's having been re-
captured by her family, after a temporary escape — re-
captured and subdued. In her white veil, at her father's
side, coming down the aisle, she .was so unlike the free wild
thing I had known. — Somehow it seemed like a funeral to
me — a triumphant and solemn burial of her individuality.
I remember that I went away from church saying over to
myself that little poem of Victor Plarr's, that ironic little
funeral poem — do you know it? It begins

"Stand not uttering^ sedately
Trite, oblivious praise above her —
Rather say you saw her lately
Lightly kissing her last lover f*

They laughed, interrupting Clive as he began on the
next stanza, and then they stopped, waiting for him to go
on. They exchanged a swift glance, wondering if this was
the girl of the story they had heard.

"I forget just how it goes," he said confusedly. "But
it ends something like thii

"She is dead: it were a pity
To o'erpraise her, or to flout her.
She was wild and sweet and witty —
Let's not say dull things about her,"

Having finished, he began to poke the fire.
'A lovely poem," said Rose-Ann softly.
'But," said Felix vigorously, "it doesn't discourage me a
bit. I think Rose-Ann can be just as wild and sweet and
witty after marriage as before. Her individuality, if that
IS what you're worrying about, is not in the least danger of
being buried by marriage."

Clive turned to her. "You aren't afraid the Tribe will
get you at last?" he asked. "That would be too bad."

She flushed, as at a compliment. "This marriage will be
one final defiance and farewell to the particular tribe to
which I belong," she said. "No, I^ — I guess I'm not afraid.
What do you think, Felix?"

The Briary-Bush

1 120

"Bring on the Tribal Ceremony!" said Felix.

"Well," said Ciive, "I've done my duty. . , . And now
Iril see about getting you married."

: sighed with relief, and reflected that it was about
|time Clive began to take the occasion seriously.

■'I suppose," said Clive, "that it hasn't occurred to you that
nhis is Saturday afternoon, and the county clerk's office is
Iclosed. And you can't be married without a license."

Felix looked his chagrin. Of course, he would have
Bforgotlen something essential! He glanced sheepishly at
BRose-Ann, who seemed merely amused. But why must he

, always, and even in his getting married, a moon-calf?

"However," said Oive, suddenly transformed into the
Jefficient and practical personage that Felix had so often
Badmired. "I think it can be fixed up! I'll telephone my
Bfriend Judge Peabody. And — " he paused for a moment and
Ifrowned — "we'll need another witness. I'll fix that up, too."

"I'm sorry I forgot about the license," said Felix as Clive
Bbriskly left the room.

XVII. Charivari

IT appeared that Mrs. G)wan, the plump neighbour who
was cooking Qive's dinner, had heard his telephonic
arrangements for a wedding, and was, according to
Clive, much flustered. A few minutes later she disappeared
from the kitchen^ with a brief warning to Clive to keep his
eye on die oven, and presently returned, breathless and
sparkling-eyed, wearing her Sunday shawl, and bearing one
of her own cakes.

''Well give them the best wedding we can, Mr. Bangs 1"
she said.

Clive came in to report this speech, and thus reminded
that Mrs. Cowan was a human being, and a woman, with a
prescriptive right to share in this occasion, he took the bridal
pair to the kitchen and introduced them. Mrs. Cowan's
warm friendliness pleased as well as embarrassed them.
Rose- Ann exclaimed over the cake, and putting on an apron,
commenced to help with the last stages of dinner.

Clive and Felix wandered back to the Franklin stove.
**Oh, yes," said Qive. "I must build a fire in your room.
Come along," and he set Felix to chopping kindling in the
woodshed while he carried up a load of cannel coal. Felix
followed him to the great room at the top of the stairs, oc-
cup3nng almost the whole of the upstairs space, with a fire-
place at one end. ''I built that fireplace myself when I had
the house remodeled," said Qive. "It's quite an art, build-
ii^ a fireplace so that it will draw properly. I'm very
proud of it."

FeKx knelt and stuffed the kindling into the grate. ''No,"
said Clive, ''let me do it — ^you don't know how."

While tbej waited for the kindling to get well ablaze

I 122 The Briary-Bush

I before putting on the coal, Clive took Felix to a French

i-indow thai opened on a balcony. "Here you have a view

I of the lake." he said, and then going to one end of the

I balcony, "these steps lead down to my shower-bath, which

I unforiunalely only functions in summer. You must come
lout here then — you'll like it. It's really wonderful country.

I I love it even in the winter. I'll tell you: Why don't you
land Rose-Ann stay out here this week? I've got to be in
I town next week anyway, and I'll clear out tonight when the
1 fuss is all over and leave you to yourselves. Everything is
I shipshape, and Rose-Ann will have no difficulty in finding
Iwhere things are^and I'll, arrange with Mrs, Cowan to get
lyour dinners. You haven't a place in town yet, have you?"

Felix thanked him, with the sense that the dedication of
Ithis house to another honeymoon than the one for which it
Iwas originally intended gave Clive a kind of painful and
Tironic pleasure. But there seemed to be no good reason
I for refusing the offer.

"Do you suppose my job will stitl be open for me when I

Charivari 123

and erroneous notion about her. She's not interested in
these damned theories of ours. She's a real person/' Felix
protested.

"She's real, all right," said Clive. "But she's not a simple
person. She's very complex. I think she's just as com-
plicated — as mixed up — as you or I."

"Heaven forbid !" said Felix.

Rose- Ann came in just then, and Felix looked at her
guiltily, ashamed of discussing her with his friend.

"Things are getting along very well," she said. "I just
ran in for a moment to see my lover." She came up to him,
with a shy frankness, to be kissed. "'That ought to show
Clive what sort of a person she is I" he thought.

She turned from his embrace to Clive. "It's curious,"
she said, "the pleasure people take in other people's wed-
dings I There's Mrs. Cowan — she doesn't know me and
Felix. She hasn't any reason to believe we are going to be
happy. It's just because it's a wedding! I was thinking
about it, and I realized that if this were a secret love-affair,
she would be shut out of it. But a wedding lets her in. In
a way, it's really more her wedding than it is ours I"

"Well," said Felix, "I don't mind ! I haven't that damn-
able instinct of privacy that some people seem to r^ard as
essential to love-affairs. I'd as soon the whole world knew
we're in love."

"All right, Felix — but you haven't had to discuss the
nuptial couch with her, and / have! She's upstairs now
getting the room fixed up, and putting my clothes in the
bureau ; I left her to avoid an argument about which night-
gnown I should wear — ^as a matter of fact, she doesn't think
any of them are equal to the occasion, they're all too plain !
Perhaps you'd as soon everybody knew all about those
details, which is what a wedding seems to amount to — ^but
[ don't like it I" And she made a face and left the room.

•'Well?** said Qive, rather triumphantly.

"Well?" said Felix, stolidly. He really had not liked that
mat speech of Rose-Ann's. If she didn't want her night-
liowiis discussed in public, then why — ?

1 124 The Briary-Bush

You're really rather conventional, at the hottom of your
Isoul, aren't you?" Clive remarked thoughtfully.

"Uf course I am. And so is everybody else. So are you,
lif you only knew it."

"Then," said Clive, coolly, "why do you marry Rose-Ann?
I She isn't. It you want a conventional wife and conventional
I married happiness, why don't you marry some simple little
Icountry girl, and have a houseful of babies? Why — "

There was a knock at the door.

"Thai's my other witness," said Clive, and hurried into
■the hall.

While Clive and the newcomer talked for a moment in
Bthe hall, Felix stood frowning at the fire. . . . Qive, he

■ felt, was becoming rather exasperating. Really, the un-
Bquestioning enthusiasm of Mrs. Cowan was preferable to
Bsuch an inappropriately critical attitude as CHve's. There

s something deliberately malicious in it. That last remark
Babout the "simple little country girl" was an attempt to
Ishake his faith in this marriage. It was a damned mean
Btrtck! . . . And then he laughed at himself. For how
Bcould Clive possibly have guessed the effect of that remark?

■ How could he know what a crazy fool he was talking to?

CSiarivari 125

Ann: a companionship in the adventure and beauty of
life. . . . And in an hour or two his choice would be
confirmed — ^irrevocably. Marriage was just that — a definite
decision among tangled and contradictory wishes. . . .

He turned to face the girl whom Give had led into the
room. For an instant he was .startled as by an apparition.
Perhaps it was the effect of Qive's words — this young
woman seemed the very creature of his day-dreaming wish.
Young, hardly more than nineteen, of slight but robust
figure, with soft brown hair, dark quiet eyes and a serene
mouA, she brought with her the fragrance of that fantasy
which had only a moment ago disquieted him. She had
a bundle in her arms, and for an instant the illusion was
breathlessly complete — she was Rose-Ann's phantom rival
come to him in visible sweet flesh, bearing his baby at
her bosom.

•*The hridegrocmy Clive was saying. "The witness! —
Miss Phyllis Nelson, Mr. Felix Fay."

She smiled imperturbably and held out her hand, her
eyes meeting his.

"And what have you in that bundle, Phyllis? Something
without which no wedding would be complete, I suppose,"
said Clive.

"Only some smilax," she said. "And I know how many
knives and forks you have, Qive, so I brought along some
of my mother's silver. But where is — "

Rose-Ann ran in just then, and the two girls, while Qive
pronounced their names, shook hands, and then suddenly
kissed eadi other, and with arms linked went out into the
kitchen.

Clive followed with the bundle, asking Phyllis if by any
chance it contained a veil for the bride. He and Felix
were shooed back into the other room, and Rose-Ann and
Phyllis reset the table. The three women could be heard
talking together, with a kind of excited seriousness, as
they worked. Fqlix's last glimpse was of Phyllis arranging
wreaths of smilax on the white tablecloth, and Rose-Ann,
with an adorable gesture, lifting her arms to twine some of

126

The Briary-Bush

it about the low-hanging chandelier, while Mrs. Cowan,
I her hands on her hips, stood looking from one to the
I other with approval before dashing back to the kitchen.

"Womenfolk have an instinct for such things," said
I Qive, sitting down beside the fire. "Even Rose-Ann
I appears domestic."

Felix looked at Qive fretfully. "I don't see anything
I terribly domestic about hanging up a wreath of flowers."

"You are hard to suit," Ciive commented. "When I
I say she isn't domestic, you look daggers at me, and when I
I say she is, you still object. What shall I say? I strive
I to please."

"So it seems," said Felix,

Give smiled. "Since you're so conventional, you ought
I not to complain. Nothing is more regular and old-fashioned
I than the effort to embarrass a bridegroom. You may
1 interpret my remarks as a modern version of that ancient
I mode of licensed tribal merriment — an intellectualized kind
I of 'shivaree.' I am trying to make up for the absence of

C^harivari 127

Mrs. Cowan went, bearing the piece of calde carefuUy
wrapped in a napkin.

Clive stared after her. ''Very interesting,^ he said, "she
takes home a piece of her own cake — "

"No longer her own/' Rose- Ann finished, ''and no kniger
merely cake — but a piece of Wedding Cake I Will she put
it under her pillow, I wonder, and dream of getting another
husband? She's a widow, and her husband used to get
drunk 'something awfuL' Yes, she was telling me all
about it — I think by way of warning, so I wouldn't
be too badly disillusioned by the facts of marriage. 'You
can't expect 'em to be aogels,' she said. So you see^
Felix, I'm prepared for anything I"

This speech jarred upon Felix. It was too much in
the vein that Clive had been indulging all evening. He
wondered if he were going to become critical of Rose-Ann,
now diat he had a sense of possession with regard to her.
He said to himself that Rose-Ann was over-wrought and
he himself over-sensitive.

"Rose-Ann, here at my right hand," Qive was saying,
••Felix, here at my left. I believe that is correct. The
Witness will take the remaining seat, opposite me. First
of all, we must have a toast." He rose. "Up with you
all! No, Rose-Ann, you sit still — you can't drink your
own health. . . . Here's to the bride!"

They Ufted their glasses.

"No— wait till I finish my speech. ... In defiance of
an the laws of nature and of modem realistic fiction, we
wish her happiness! . . . No, that isn't all I have to
say. . . . We make this wish — at least I do— with an
unwonted confidence in its fulfilment. For this is no
ordinary marriage, dedicated to the prosaic comforts of a
mutual bondage — it is an attempt to realize the sharp new
joys of freedom. A marriage, let us say, in name only —
for upon Rose-Ann I set my faith, believing that not even
a wedding can turn her into a wife!" Rose- Ann looked
up at him and smiled. "To Rose-Ann," he concluded,
"and her adventure I"

1 1 28 The Briary-Bush

They dranlc. Felix looked at the others. He had a
Isense of something having been outraged by this speech
-something which, if only a tradition, was somehow real
Ito all of them except Clive. But Rose-Ann merely looked
lamused, and Phyllis's expression told him nothing. He
Ireflecteil, "She's used to him by this time."

A sense of embarrassment remained with him, in spite
lof the light talk that followed as Clive heaped their plates
■ in turn with roast duck and dressing.

"Why are you so quiet, Felix?" Clive asked at last.
I "You might at least tell us how it feels to be a bridegroom
—whether you fee! as depressed as you look."

"I confess 1 shall be glad when it's over," said Felix.

They laughed, and went on talking. Rose-Ann was
Bapparently enjoying herself. She and Clive were exchang-
ling pleasantries on the subject of "modem marriage." For
Isome reason the phrase annoyed Felix. Did they know
Iwhat nonsense they were talking? Of did they really
|think that his and Rose-Ann's marriage was to be, as

Charivari 129

Perhaps it wa» that word afrajd, which Rose- Ann used
so lightly, that stung him. ''Because/' he said, "I am
apparently the only one here who knows what those words

y»

He had not intended to say it — certainly he had not
intended to say it in that tone of vt>ice. It came out,
raspingly, like a voice out of a music-box, a voice from
a strange record that has been put in unawares. His
voice was, even to his own ears, remote and metallic

Rose-Ann looked at him, startled. "What words, Felix ?"
she asked gently.

"The words you have all been bandying about," he
replied. "Modernity. Freedom." His voice was still
hard.

"Well, what do they mean ?"

She leaned toward him.

The others were silent, listening — Clive with an amused
smile, Phyllis with troubled eyes.

"Not what you think, I'm afraid, Rose-Ann," Felix's
voice answered, the voice with a quiet grimness in it.

Rose-Ann's voice took up the challenge softly. "And
what do you think they mean, Felix ?"

He looked away from her, and spoke as if from a
distance, slowly. "Freedom. . . . It's not a nice word,
not a pretty word ... to me. There is something
terrible in it . . . something to be afraid of. . . ." He
looked back at her. "Don't offer me freedom, Rose-Ann."

Her voice was still soft, but infinitely cool and firm.
"Why? Because you might take it? I knew that when
I made the offer, Felix. I think I know what you mean.
But I take back nothing." She lifted her chin proudly.
"I am not afraid of freedom."

"Bravo!" cried Clive. "Rose-Ann, I am falling in love
with you myself! Why don't you marry me instead of
Felix! He doesn't appreciate you."

Curiously enough, nobody except Felix seemed to mind
CUve's clowning. Both girls laughed, and the atmosphere
was suddenly cleared.

130

The Briary-Bush

"But what an odd occasion for us to choose to stage a
quarrel !" said Rose-Ann, gaily,

"Yes," said Felix, now bewildered and contrite. "I must
have got into my argumentative mood, I'm sorry. When
I get to arguing I think of no one and nothing, except
the point at issue — which is usually not of the slightest
importance. It's a bad habit you must break me of when
we are married."

"You are forgiven," said Phyllis.

"Don't forget there's fruit salad coming," said Rose-Ann,
rising and bringing a bowl from the sideboard.

"Yes." said Give, "and the car will be here for you two
people in ten minutes or so. Will you have your coffee
now, Felix? — Rose-Ann?"

XVIII. The Authority of the State of

Illinois

TIE car took them through the deepening snow on up
to the county seat, where the license was soon made
out for them. "You're lucky to find me here on
hand tonight/' said the county clerk. They expressed their
appreciation. "But I like to accommodate young folks/' he
said smiling, and shook hands with them when they left.

It was snowing more heavily all the time, and the roads
were difficult, but Judge Peabody had kept his promise,
and was waiting for them when they arrived. He greeted
them with grave benevolence.

"Mr. Bangs tells me you want a very simple ceremony,"
he said, and put on his spectacles and took out a little book,
turning the pages back and forth until he found the right
place.

"Do you, Felix Fay, take this woman, Rose-Ann Prentiss,
to be your wedded wife, to cherish ^nd protect, in sickness
and in health, till death do you part ?"

A promise: a strange defiance flung out by the human
spirit against the infinite vicissitudes of chance; a barrier
of will against all the hostile forces of the days and years;
a renunciation of whatever may lie outside the magic
circle of our little mutual happiness, forever; a few weak
words, easily forgotten, that must be stronger than passion,
stronger than forgetfulness. . . .

"I do/' he said.

"Do you, Rose-Ann Prentiss. . . ."

"I do."

"Then, by thp authority of the State of Illinois, in me
vested, I pronounce you husband and wife."

He took off his spectacles and put them in his pocket.

131

P32

The Briary-Bush

Rose-Ann and Felix looked at each other in a kind of
■surprise. So they were married!

The judge was wishing them happiness. "And now," he

Bsaid, "I'll hurry home before the snow gets any deeper."

Felix, a little embarrassed, and wishing he could do it

Bless obtrusively, gave him a crumpled bill, which the judge,

without embarrassment, smoothed out and placed in a

|wal1et.

"Good-night!" he said, and let Phyllis help him on with
|his overcoat. "Good-night !"

At the door he turned. "Oh, by the way," he said.
|"Do you want a marriage certificate?"

The question was addressed to Rose-Ann. She shook
Iher head in a determined negative.

"No?" he repeated absently. "Lots of people don't,
s. . . . Good-night!"
[ suppose you know the house is yours for as long as
J want it now," said Give to Rose-Ann.

The Authority of the State of Illinois 133

"that's overt" She came to him and drooped within his
arms. "I'm very tired. Felix, I never want to be married
again!"

Poor dear !" he said, "it is rather awful, isn't it?"
Oh," she said, lifting her head from his breast, "there's
one more thing to do, before we can be — just us. I promised
to save a piece of my wedding cake for somebody." She
smiled. "You can't guess who!"
"Yes, I can," he said. "Old Granny Perk!"

««i

•<i

IXIX. Together

AT dawn Felix awoke with a sense of loneliness.
The vague consciousness which had remained with
-l him even in sleep of a beautiful and beloved body

jat his side, was gone ; and the hand that he reached out in
Itroubied half-sleep had found no warm and reassuring
(presence. For an instant it seemed as though the night had
teen only a dream. He felt a vast desolation, a profound
I ear. It was as if not this one night only had been taken from
Thim. but the thousand nights and days which lay implicit
—the lifetime of sweetness and intimacy which it had
fcegun.

Together 135

wind, in the light of the dawn, leaning over the railing
of the porch.

"Rose-Ann I" he called sharply.

She turned. "Good-morning, old sleq)y-head I" she cried.
"You were dozing so peacefully that I didn't have the
heart to wake you up. Isn't it lovely!" And she waved
a hand toward the ice-bound lake that stretched out to
the east like an Arctic wilderness, tinged with the rose of
dawn.

'*What are you doing out here?'' he demanded, com-
mencing to shiver.

"I was thinking of taking a snow-bath !" she said. "I've
always wanted to and never have. Look where the snow
has drifted up here against the house. Wouldn't it be
wonderful just to drop off into that snow bank! Come,
let's do it !" She took his hand and led him to the edge of
the porch, which was here only a few feet above the ground,
with the snow piled up to its very edge.

"But how would we get out of that snow-bank once we
had got in!" he expostulated. It was a crazy idea, and
he had no intention of letting her carry it out.

"Oh, don't let's stand here and argue about it," she said
impatiently, "and get cold. I'm going to, anyway!" And
before he could stop her she had climbed the railing and
leaped down into the snow-bank. . . . He realized that he
must do the same. There was no choice! And in an
instant he had leaped down beside her, down crunching
through soft feathery snow that stung the skin deliciously
and made the blood hot iil^s veins — and an instant later,
laughing, they were fighting their way out and sttunbling
up the steps to the balcony and into the house.

"Towels!" cried Rose-Ann, racing to the bathroom and
back and flinging him one. "Now wasn't that worth doing!"

"And no doubt very entertaining to the neighbours,"
Felix grumbled — secretly rejoicing in their spectacular feat.
It really seemed to him a splendidly pagan thing to have done.

"Our only neighbour for miles is Mrs. Cowan," said
Rose-Ann, "and she's over somewhere the other way.

136 The Briary-Bush ■

Besides, for once in my life I'm going to do the things I
want to do without stopping to think of other people first.
Now, Felix, can you build a fire? If you can't, I can!"

"Of course I can build a fire," said Felix. "The real
question is, can you cook an egg? Because if you can't, I
can.'* He was a little nettled at her having taken the lead
in the snow-bath, and he did not intend to let her carry o6f
any more honours of leadership. "If Qive has not deceived
and betrayed us," he continued, "you ought to be able to
find eggs and things in the kitchen."

"All right," she said obediently; and finished with the
simple task of dressing, in an old skirt and a smock, but
not without a look at herself in the glass, she started off
to the kitchen. J

Felix looked at the fire. It needed rebuilding, and ll^fe
would have to chop some more kindling. He went down tM
the woodshed, and energetically chopped up one stick. ^
Then he paused, laid down t!ie hatchet, and commenced to
whistle a plaintive, melancholy, tuneless tune. He picked up
his hatchet, ran his thumb over the edge, and laid it down
again.

He was not thinking about chopping kindling. He was
thinking about Rose-Ann. there in the kitchen only a few
feet away. What was she doing? He could see her in
imagination, ransacking Clive's cupboards. He wished he
could sec her in reality. He started to his feet impulsively,
and then sat down again.

He was annoyed with himself. Couldn't he be separated
from her for a few minutes without wanting to tag after her?
She would be surprised, and perhaps annoyed, by his coming
in. She would ask, '"Have you got the fire built? Well
then, for heaven's sake, go and build it, and leave me alone
to get you some breakfast 1"

He could not confess to her how utterly indispensable
her presence had become to him. . . , Yesterday they had
been two different and separate persons — but they were so
no longer, A quaint churchly phrase leaped into his mind,
a phrase that had never seemed real before: "these twain

Together 137

shall be made one flesh." He knew its truth now. Last
night they had lain and talked for hours of the things they
were going to do— together. Together I Their life hence-
forth had pictured itself to them as something enjoyed
always in common. They had not thought, last night, of ever
being apart again. But of course they would be apart — a
great deal of the time. And dpubtless it was as well to
b^n now. There was no sense whatever to this feeling
of k>neliness. He was going to have the rest of a lifetime
with Rose-Ann, and he certainly ought to be able to go off
and chop a little wood without her. No, he must not go to
the kitchen to see what she was doing! He must subdue
this weakness — ^this absurd feeling of helpless loneliness when
he left her for a moment.

He raised his hatchet and brought it down sharply on the
stick of wood. The door opened, and there stood Rose-
Ann, with an apron on, her cheeks flushed.
Hello !" he said, and laid down the hatchet.
I just came to see what you were doing," she said.
Chopping a little kindling, that's all," he said.
Oh," she said. She continued to look at him with interest.

He took up the hatchet again, and split the stick with a
few eflident strokes. She looked about, up-ended a short
log, and sat down, her hands in her lap. Felix chopped
another stick, and another, with a sense of great peace
and contentment. Chopping kindling had become very
interesting. He chopped on« under her gaze. He did not
need to look up at her. She was there with him; that
was suflicient. He went on chopping.

"Don't you think that's enough kindling now, Felix?"
she asked at last, hesitantly.

He looked at the pile. He had chopped an awful lot I
"I thought I might as well cut enough to last for a while,"
he explained.

'•A good idea," she agreed. "And we might as well take
a lot upstairs while we're about it. Ill take some, if you'll
load me." She held out her arms, and he piled them full,
then loaded his own, and they went up together.

138 The Briary-Bush ■

She knelt beside him, watching, while he laid the fire.
He felt somewhat insecure in his knowledge of fire-making.
and he tried to remember just how Clive had done it the day
before. But he felt nothing critical in Rose-Ann's watching;
and apparently he remembered well, for the fire behaved
quite as it should. He waited until the proper moment, put
on the cannel coal, and drew the fire-screen in front of the
fireplace.

Rose-Ann stood up. "Now we'll go and get breakfast,"
she said.

tn the kitchen, she turned to him. "Do you like
omelettes?" she asked.

"I love them," he said.

"With peas and things in? There's a can of little peas
here." She searched in a drawer and found a can-opener.

"Here, let me," said Felix authoritatively, and took it
from her.

She surrendered it, and bent to another drawer, bringing
out another apron.

"Must wear," she said, and tied it around him.

The touch of her fingers was too much. He turned and
took her in his arms, and found himself tightly bound in
hers, and kissed the eager lips uplifted to his.

"Oh, Felix I" she cried in a weak, smothered voice.
"Felix, lover!"

"And now," she said at last, smiling happily and rousing
herself from their dream, "we really must get breakfast!"

After breakfast, which was prolonged for hours by talk
and cigarettes and endless cups of coffee, they "bundled up"
and took a long walk, through the deep snow, stumbling
and laughing like children, and as indefatigable as children.
First they went down to the lake, that snowy waste strewn
with high-piled ice-hummocks, and with the blue of water
showing strangely here and there. Then they turned their
backs on it, and walked toward the west, where the black
branches of trees made delicate patterns against the sky.

Together . 139

They were as if aware of the kinship of their love to the life
of the earth, and seeking outdoors that magical sympathy o£
natural living things which no roof -tree, however hospitable,
can furnish to lovers. This great white expanse, with no
green thing visible anywhere, with not even the friendly touch
of the ground underfoot, might have seemed to hold out no
invitation to their love. It was an earth sunken in winter-
sleep, apparently unconscious of their presence, vastly
indifferent to their demand. And yet they loved it, and
it gave them something which they craved.

Utterly exhausted, they reached home at last, with the
sunset flaming behind the black branches. They were
ravenously hungry. But they faced the prospect of clearing
up after last night's feast, a task blithely postponed that
morning, before they would have dishes enough to eat from.
Of course, they might have had Mrs. Cowan come in; but
they preferred their magic isolation. Changed into dry gar-
ments, they set to work washing dishes — not without a
friendly quarrel over which one should wash and which one
wipe them.

"Maybe you think a man doesn't know how to wash
dishes," Felix said belligerently.

"No," said Rose-Ann, "but I think a woman might have
the privilege of washing dishes in her own house. . . .
Felix, I wish this were our own house! I shall hate to go
back to town after this. . . . But don't let's think about
that now. All right, selfish, you can wash the dishes I"

The thought frightened Felix a little. A house of their
own I A house in the country! How beautiful, and yet
how — but no, nothing seemed impossible now. . . . They
could plan for it, and work for it, and at last have it,
together. . . .

"Read me some poetry, Felix," said Rose-Ann, after
dinner, as they lay drowsily, in a great warm nest of cushions,
in front of the fire in the room upstairs.

He stirred himself, and then -elaxed. Rose-Ann's head

1 1 40 The Briary-Bush

iwas nestled in the hollow under his shoulder, and her red-
|gold hair, unbound, flowed across her bosom and touched
s caressing hand. He was altogether too happily situated
lat this moment to want to go downstairs and look for a book
|of poems. Besides, why need he ?

"And. frosts are slain and flowers begotten."
Ihe began. She closed her eyes, and from her quiet breathing
night have thought her asleep. But once when he
Ifaltered, forgetting the words, Rose-Ann munnured them
|softly:

"And frosts are slain and flowers begotten.
He took it up, in his voice of subdued chanting:

"And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins. . . ,"

pnd so to the end.

"Say me some more," she breathed. "Like that. Any-
Ithing with woods or flowers in it."

Together 141

indifference ; and its rays touched and silvered the rcx>f-tree
of the little house on the edge of a ravine, within whose
doors, by the grace of the English poets, it was April.
Blossom by blossom, about their couch, the spring b^;an,
and upon their naked limbs showered roses.

•'No," said Rose-Ann, "I'm not asleep !"

He laughed tenderly. "No, not now. But you have been
for half an hour. I've been watching you sleep. You do
it beautifully r

"Have I really?" She stretched herself, like a kitten upon
awaking from a nap. "Well, I'm awake now, and I want
some more poetry. Something sad this time."

"More poetry? What a glutton you are I"

"But I like poetry, Felix. It's real to me — as real as
our love."

"But why sad poetry ?" he teased.

"I don't know. I suppose it's because I'm so happy."

"I know," said Felix, and out of the storehouse of his
memory he brought one after another the stories of old
unhappy love, impossible love, love that goes toward death.
It was as if the contrast of these tragic fantasies was needed
to make poignant the sweet and easy fulfilment of their
own love — as if some chill breath from the grave must
intervene between their caresses lest they seem too tame.

''The mountain ways one summer
Saw life and joy go past.
When we who were so lonely
Went hand in hand at last.

"And overhead the pine-woods
Their purple shadows cast.
When the tall twilight laid us
Hot mouth to mouth at last.

"O hills, beneath yoUr slumber.
Or pines, beneath your blast.
Make room for your two childrenr^
Cold cheek to cheek at last!"

■ 142 The Briary-Bush

"No." murmured Ros«-Ann, lifting her head and putting
/arm cheek against his own, a cheek wet with sudden
|tears. "Not cold cheek to cheek. Felix!"

Tears sprung from that sweet sadness which only happy
lyoiith dares indulge — the wilful and daring melancholy of
lyoung love, turning aside from its joys to think of death. . . .

Rose-Ann dried her eyes cheerfully. "I wanted to cry,"
lihe said, "and now that I have, I feel better. Give me a
cigarette!"

XX. "The Ncst-building Instinct"

BY mid-week, Rose-Ann had become transformed into
a housewife. Meals were being planned, the butcher
and the grocer were making regular deliveries, Mrs.
G>wan had been pressed into service, and Rose- Ann was quite
the mistress of the establishment.

And then suddenly she became discontented. "I can't
keep on playing that this is my house," she said. *There
are so many things I want to do to it ! Let's go in to town
and look for a place of our own."

So on Thursday morning they took the train to town.
On the way in, they marked — or rather, Rose-Ann marked —
a dozen advertisements of apartments to let, which she
pr(^>osed to spend the morning looking at.

"I'm not going to find what I want," she said, "and I'm
going to be cross, I know. I'd really rather not have you
along. Why don't you do something else? Go and visit the
office. Weil meet at lunch."

"All right," said Felix. Going to the office, as it were to
confess his marriage, was an uncomfortable errand. In
spite of what Give had said, it seemed to him far less
likely that he would get a raise than that he would be fired.
But it did not seem to matter much now, if he did get fired.
The Chronicle job no longer seemed the only one in Chicago.

"Where shall we meet, and when ?" he asked.

He noted down the time and place. "But don't you want
to come with me ? Clive would like to see you."

"No, but you can bring Clive along to lunch, if he will
come."

"Good-bye, then." It was their first ^tl\TV^ «uwat

143

144 The Briary-Bush

Saturday, ages ago. It was to be for hours. In the station
here, amid the crowds, they sought to be casual about it.

"Good-bye." She smiled, and turned away. He walked
a few steps, and then turned. She had stopped, too, and
was looking back at him mournfully.

He came back to her and took her in his arms. "How
foolish we are!" she whispered, and surrendered herself
to a kiss that seemed somehow, to both of them, to make
their temporary separation endurable.

At the office, Felix perceived at once, by the manner of
his welcome, that he had established himself more firmly
in the esteem of everybody by getting married. He shook
hands formally with every one, and received their congratula-
tions. At last, it seemed to be over. But Willie Smith re-
minded him : "You haven't been in to see the Old Man, have
you ?"

Felix could not imagine that Mr. Devoe would concern
himself with such a matter as a reporter's marriage. But
Willie managed to convey to him Mr. Devoe would feel
hurt if not permitted to add his felicitations. "Sure, the
Old Man will want to see you !"

Felix shyly went in. Mr. Devoe rose and shook his hand
warmly. "Yes, Mr. Bangs told us," he said. "Quite a
surprise, my boy. But it's the right way to start out in life.
Yes. ... I understand you're quite well again? I'm glad
it wasn't anything serious^you look quite well now — " and
his eyes twinkled. "When you get back to work, come in
and see me — we may have some new plans for you. Next
Monday? Very good."

New plans. . . . Felix wondered what that phrase might
mean. Perhaps the promise of a raise in wages — though
it sounded like something more than that. But he could
not guess what it might be, and he decided not to tell Rose-
Ann about it — she was so egregiously confident for him.
I and she might build up vain hopes on a phrase that meai^^
nothing. He did not want her to be disajlpointed. d^|

The Ncst-building Instinct 145

Clive, who looked tired, and seemed preoccupied, came
willingly enough along to lunch. *'So the nest-building
instinct is at work already I" observed Clive. And then :
"What kind of place does Rose-Ann want? One with
elevators, a man in brass buttons to answer the door, and a
garbage incinerator?"

At hmch, which started in with a curious lack of amica-
bility, Felix repeated this latter pleasantry to Rose-Ann.
It occurred to him that what she wanted might very easily
be something beyond his income, even with that possibte
raise.

Rose-Ann smiled at Give. ''Not exactly that," she said.
"Perhaps more preposterous still! The truth is, I don't
know, exactly. All I do know is that I don't like any of
the things I've seen this morning. I did see some that—
but no, even those won't do."

"What's the matter with them?" asked Felix.

"Ill take you along and let you see for yourself. Mostly
stuffy little cubicles. You know what the ordinary Chicago
flat is like."

"Why should you want something diflferent?" asked Clive
innocently.

"Why not?" said Rose-Ann, challengingly. "Felix and
I are different — why should we live like everybody else?"

"I'm glad to hear it," said Clive. "I confess I thought
you were going to."

"Is that why you have been so distant and satirical with
me today ? Had you lost confidence in me already ?"

"Forgive me," he said.

"You are angry at some other girl," said Rose-Ann
shrewdly.

Clive smiled. "Perhaps you are right."

"And if you gave me a hundred guesses," said Rose-Ann,
"perhaps I could guess the girl, too."

"Perhaps you could," he conceded.

"So it's Phyllis. I'm sorry. I like her very much."

■
■

146 The Briary-Busb ^H

"So do I," said CUve grimly.

Felix was surprised al Rose-Ann's rashness in teasing
Clive about a situation concerning which he had always
shown a disposition to keep his own counsel; and still
more surprised at the way Clive took this teasing.

"Well," Rose-Ann was saying, "she has an air of quiet
possessiveness towards you which indicates that not much,
can be amiss I" j^

"What is amiss, dear lady," said Clive gravely, "is wttjH
the universe. Phyllis and I are each all right, in our separaa|r
ways, I hope. Phyllis is, Pm sure! — she's a lovely child,
isn't she? . . . With an interesting history too. Perhaps
I'll tell it to you, some time."

"Clive is very unhappy, isn't he?" said Rose- Ann, when
he had left them for a moment to talk to a couple who had
greeted him from another table.

"He prefers to be unhappy, I think," said Felix.

"Why should you be so unsympathetic, Felix? Because
you are contented, you think everybody else ought to find
it easy to achieve the same state? I hope you're not going,
to be smug. Pm really sorry for Clive."

"I might be sorry, if I knew wliat to be sorry about,
haven't the slightest idea what the trouble is."

"That neurotic girl, of course."

"Neurotic? Do you mean Phyllis? Why, what
sense 1" he exclaimed.

"Why nonsense?" she asked.

"Because — why — well, it's just ridiculous!"

"After all, Felix, we neither of us know her well ent
to be so positive," said Rose-Ann pacifyingly.

"Then why do you say that about her?"
"Because I think it, Felix!" she replied with a touch
exasperation. "1 really dol"

"I can't understand you," he said coldly.

"What are you children quarrelling about now
Clive, returning.

Rose-Ann laughed. "About nothing at all, again. Felix,
we are rather absurd. Come, we'll look at those apartmetits.

The Nest-building Instinct 147

— ^And don't imagine vain things about our home till
you see it, Clive I"

To Felix, the apartments seemed just apartments. An
apartment couldn't be a house in the country. And as
apartments, these were all that could be expected. The only
serious objection to them, indeed, was that the rents were
rather high.

**Why don't you like them?" he asked again.

"I don't know. They're not quite— our kind of place."

"I wish I knew what you meant, Rose-Ann," he said
wistfully.

"Ill try to tell you," she said, "on the way home."

And on the train, she began: "You saw those people on
the other side of the hall at that last place we looked at?"
The door had been opened by a fat man with a bulging
neck, and they had glimpsed an interior of plush and golden
oak, and the rather plump and vapid-looldng woman who
awaited him there. "Well, those apartments are made for
people like that — I mean people without imagination. They
take such an apartment and buy some of the furniture that is
made to go in it, and they settle down and are contented
there. Why not! It has a kitchen, a dining-room, a bed-
room, a bath-room, and a room to sit in and entertain
callers. And that is the whole of their existence — cooking,
eating, sleeping, washing their bodies, and showing off to
their friends. But that isn't the whole of our existence.
— Felix, I would rather we would eat at a lunch-wagon
and sleep on a park bench, than make those things the centre
of our lives!"

It was not so much her argument that impressed him as
the genuine and profound scorn in her tone and manner.
He was conscious of a defection of sympathy in himself
from the point of view that her words expressed. It might
have been himself of a few years ago saying these things so
intensely; and yet they seemed like nonsense to him now!

But one could not argue about such things in the midst

148 The Briary-Bush

of a trainload of people, the nearest of whom were alreai^
beginning to he too much interested in one's affairs, so he
only said, "Yes — 1 think I understand."

But his mind went back to their life in the country — to
the cooking of that first breakfast in the kitchen, to their
first dinner after walking through miles of snow, to the bed
of their happy love and sleep, the tingling snow-baths at
dawn, and the fire in front of which they had sat and
talked for so many lazy hours — and it seemed to him, without
quite understanding why, that Rose-Ann was really denounc-
ing her own life there with him! A kitchen, a table, a bed,
a bath, a fire— -hadn't these things circumscribed their life?
"People like that," she had said, bitterly. Who were these
people but their own happy selves of the past week? And
why had she turned so fiercely against that happiness?

All these things passed through his mind swiftly and
vaguely, an emotion rather than a thought: an emotion of
mingled anger and pity — a strange anger and a strange pity
that he could not understand. Vaguely he sensed the
existence in her of a tragically divided mind, torn between
the desire to sink deep into the lap of that simple and tradi-
tional domesticity she had been experiencing, and the fear of
some profound hurt and shame in making that surrender in
vain. . , .

But if he sensed this struggle in her, it was not very
clearly, and it was obscured by his effort to think the situation
out in logical terms. "Confound it." he thought, "if we
live in town, we must live in an apartment — and all apart-
ments are more or less alike. Of course, some are bigger
than others. It is probably the cramped space that she objects
to, after that house in the country. Well, if I get my raise
— let me see. ..."

Across the aisle were two women interestedly talking
with each other, one of them a young mother, with a rather
frightened little tow-headed boy of a year old in her lap.
He had been enduring this strange adventure rather stoically,
but he felt neglected, and his lips were curving down
further and further toward the danger point of tears. He

The Nest-building Instinct 149

was feeling very sorry for himself. • . . Rose-Ann had
watched the smaU lips begin to twist and the round chin b^n
to tremble, and she leaned forward and smiled at him — a smile
which interested him, which he considered hesitantly, and at
last found irresistible and answered wholeheartedly with a
beaming one of his own. This was not such a cold and
indifferent world after all ; somebody did love him I

Rose-Ann looked up, rather furtively, at Felix, who was
engaged in computing his rent-paying capacity. The women
got out at the next stop, and she leaned back in her seat.

"Some time," Felix was sa3ring, "we might be able to
have a house in the country like Clive's. . . ."

"We don't want a house in the country," said Rose-Ann
energetically. "What would we do with a house in the
country? No, we want a place in town, convenient to our
work, yours and mine."

"Your work? — ^you mean your dramatic class?** asked
Felix, reflecting that Rose- Ann was rather changeable. Only
a few days ago she had hated to come to town. . . .

"No— I mean a real job. I don't know what, yet. But
I'm going to get one. I'm tired of playing with children."

Fdix looked at her vaguely, still doing sums in his head.
And for a moment he seemed to her very stupid. And
perhaps he was. Yet it is an exacting demand to make upon
a young husband that he be able to read his wife's mind, and
know the wishes which she will not even admit the existence
of to herself !

They reached Woods Point, and took a waiting taxi.

"If I only knew what you really want !" he said, as they
started up their path.

"What I really want ?"

'Yes. All places to live in are more or less alike."

'Oh! No, they're not, Felix. There are enough odd
comers left in a city like Chicago to provide for the few
odd people like us who don't want the same things every-
body else does. Don't fear, we shall find something, sooner
or later !"

"But when and how ?" Felix demanded impatiently. "We

4*i

»
»

150 The Briary-Bush ^M

must live somewhere while we are looking for this UtopiaT^

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," said Rose-
Ann, ... An idea, a whimsical and perverse idea, liad
just come into her mind — an idea that hurt her at first by
its flagrant rebellions malice, and then suddenly took posses-
sion of her, and seemed eminently sane and reasonable.
"I've been thinking of it all day," she said — and as she
spoke it seemed to her a mature and long-considered plan-
She took his arm persuasively, "Fetix, we have a whole
lifetime ahead of us — and it is more important for us to
live the kind of life we want to, than just to be together
for a week or two. If we take the kind of place we don't
want, we shall settle down there and be like everybody else,
and it will take years to break free. . . . Suppose we
weren't married yet — we would decide on how and where
we wanted to live, first ; and we wouldi take whatever
little time was necessary to work out our practical arrange-
ments before we did commence living together, . . ,"

Why, yes, perhaps — though this, Felix reflected wist-
fully, was not the spirit in which ihey had acted on that Sat-
urday . . . ages ago it seemed, when they had left the
hospital to he married. But what in the world was she
getting at?

"Felix, dear, would you think it so terrible for us to live
apart a little while, you at your place and I at mine, until
we get a place we really want — ?"

He understood her argument now, and to his mind it
seemed one reasonable enough. He had, in the past, some-
times argued in favour of lovers keeping their own separate
establishments. And a mere temporary separation, for any
good reason, and however in defiance of custom, was some-
thing which he could expect himself to view calmly. But
his reason was not for the moment in control of the situation.
The blood mounted to his head in a dizzying rush of
anger, his cheeks burned, and. with an effort to control
himself, he said coldly: "No, I would not consider t
idea for a moment." And then, losing control of him

ler thaL
liima^H

The Ncst-building Instinct 151

he added: "If you want to leave me, Rose-Ann, you can
do it right now. But there won't be any coming back.
Do you understand?"

He was astonished at himself for that speech, and still
more astonished at its results. Rose-Ann dropped his arm,
looked at him, and then, under his indignant glance, suddenly
melted to tears.

"'But, Felix!" she cried, and came and clung to his arm
desperately. "I didn't mean that I Oh, Felix!" and as
they .reached their door, she flung herself unrestrainedly
on his breast.

"Felix! forgive me! I will do whatever you want. I
will live anywhere you say. I will be good, truly I will!"

He petted her, and kissed her cheek, and drew her inside,
infinitely astonished. He had impulsively accused her of
some horrid disloyalty, some crime against him which he
could not even name, and of which he did not for a moment
believe her guilty, whatever it might be: and she had con-
fessed it in tears, and promised to be "good" ! They had had
a battle over something which neither of them imderstood,
some issue which neither could believe really existed — but
a battle nevertheless— conducted with mysterious threats
on both sides, and now ended in tears and forgiveness as
mysterious! A battle over what? He did not know. He
only knew that somehow he was the victor.

But how take advantage of a victory which one does
not understand ?

"Yes," said Rose-Ann fervently, kissing him amid her
tears with what seemed a new access of passion. "How
foolish to think of being apart — even for a while !"

"Not foolish, exactly," said Felix, beginning to be a
little ashamed of himself. "I'm sorry I was so unreasonably
angry at you. ... I know that love ought not to be too
— too possessive. I don't want you to feel that I atvn
you! . . ."

"But you do own me," Rose-Ann whispered, pressing
his hand against her bosom, "I am yours, all of me. Do

1152 The Briary-Bush

lyou know it? Do you realize how much I am yours, Felix?
~ —it isn't enough, what I give you. I want to suffer for
Byou, for us. Do you understand that, Felix ?"

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

BooVFour
Fifty-seventh Street

XXL Advancement

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

155

10^^

156 The Briary-Bush

though one had no money I Of cour^, there were the mi
gages, of which Felix retained a somewhat sinister notion
from his childhood fict ion- read i ng ; but Rose- Ann seemed to
regard them as a commonplace. . , .

If he only knew what she really wanled!

It ended by his suggesting, half- jestingly, that they
go and live in a hotel until they could decide what lo 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.

>ffi9

They parted at the station, and Felix went to the
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 tlie 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 ofHce, 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, aad Clive's only half-ironical

Advancement 157

remark: "When Willie Smith enjoys a piece of writing,
you can figure on ten thousand other people liking it, too I"
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 em-
barrassed 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. ''AH 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 litLe
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

hir^^

158 The Briary-Bush

there was to be a small raise in salary ; he would get tl
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.

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 some-
thing of the feeling of revisiting the scenes of childhood and
finding one's old friends still playing at marbles, astonishingly
at 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 deeoralor, 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
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

Advancement 159

evemng 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
yon 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 I" he said gloomily.

Nevertheless, the prospect of evening clothes did not
spoil hb 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.

l6o The Briary-Bush H

"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 s.iy 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

Advancement 161

with you when you go to the office, in case of emergencies.'*
''You are an efficient little manageress !" he said.

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-fittit^ suit of brown homesptm 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 I

I XXII. Mainly About Clothes

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.
I Rose-Ann was observantly critical of their good and bad
I features, and yet extremely complaisant ; he felt that she
I would have agreed to anything he wanted. But he had not
I forgotten her fierce discontent at "ordinary" apartments,
land he was looking for something that would really please
He felt that he had not found it yet. . . .

) one at the St. Dunstan had objected to the noise
typewritt-r on occasional evenings. They could

Mainly About Clothes

163

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
Qive. 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 t&aaU
young business man? Nobody wanted him lo! Why not
be comfortable, in a soft collar and homespun clothef?
Yes. why not?

In this mood, he bought himself a stick, on hts own
initiative. ... He had always wanted to carry a ttidc.
and had never quite dared. His clothes had never bea
quite up to it. Perhaps they were not quite up to it now.
But there was notliing dandified about this stick; ii «»
no nlver-plated confection, just a simple stick of li^fat
, covered with a shiny black lacquer— a real tlxk.

; he liked the smooth firm lacquered
y swingii

bleel of it in hi» hand, lightly s

LCrocde of his arm. And Rose-Ann

surface,
r faaag-

e at lea o'dod m dv

■

The Briary-Bush

164

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 otlier very young, with
whom he was conducting two different conversations at once
— a flirtatious one with the aged dame and a very earne st
and serious one with the young girl. ^H

"The last time I saw you. you were painting scenei]^H
he said, smilingly extending his hand. ^^M

"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
falling water.

"Yes," said Felix, feeling very stupid.

Mainly About Clothes • 165

"Do you know Mrs. Meagham? Mr. Fay. . . ." And
the great man, who had retained FeUx's hand in
his, pressed it warmly, smiled with his big ddicatdy-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 — I

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 at. . . . It had been
easy enough, apparently ; no such heroic task as it appeared.
But then, things like that were easy, to anybody except
himself I

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.

166 The Briary-Bush ■

"Yes," like a fool, while a great poet paid him complimenrai
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 everyhody, share and share ahke!
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 con-
demned 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 titmy. 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,
darting. 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 Morj
More so, darling!"

Tell one whom you have caused to be waylaid ant)
tortured by cruel savages, that he has passed through the

Mainly About Clothes 167

incident very creditably; tell him that with a little more
practice he will be. able to wear the true martyr's look of joy I
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
g^ 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-bom
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
^otism? 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 Ms protestations to Rose- Ann, secretly
dreaming of greatness? Was it because this man dared
admit himself a poet, a creator, a Somebody, that Felix

i68

The Briary-Bush

real^

Fay disliked him? — And what was he doing to ;
those dreams? It was al! 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 hfe 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 hkc
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 I You are all the women I have
ever known; you are the httle girl 1 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 1
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 I"

A very literary dream ! He wasn't sure, when he ^
up at dawn, but that he had made it up hke a story,
way, he understood it, and he didn't want to forget it,
and he was writing it down hastily on sheets of hotel

Mainly About Clothes 169

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 your-

•'Well, what of it ?" he said crossly.

"Nothing," she said. "Only — I knew you would!''

IXXIII. A Bargain in Utopias

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
lasking for it, and a house in the country, if one wished,
Bwithout money— still, the fact remained that he was only
la young newspaper man getting thirty dollars a week. And
Ithirty dollars a week meant that he could afford to pay only
Bthirty dollars a month for rent : he had read that in a book,
land it seemed like good sound economics. And thirty dollars
la month would cover only the poorest and most cramped
lof the apartments that Rose-Ann had viewed so judicially

A Bargain in Utopias 171

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
Kke 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^lass windows in front being covered with curtains.
Felix wondered what kind of people lived there. As he
reached the comer, 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 indiflFerently.

FeKx 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.

I 172 The Briary-Bush

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
I 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
myou thinking of taking it?" she asked.

"Maybe," said Felix.

"If you do. maybe I could persuade you to take a few

I 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 I can't paint and look after a stove, too. Want to see my
Istove? It's a good stove. I'm moving to a steam-heated
I studio-apartment, and I shan't want it any more. There

A Bargain in Utopias 173

comer. 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 Si 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?"

''Ill — ^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 — ^"leavc
that stove alone and take a rest for about five minutes."

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

"It's— just

|4 The Briary-Bush

1 the steps and coming down to meet him.
; all the others."
IWell," said Felix, his voice unconsciously defiant, "I've
■nd 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
a cast iron sink?"

I can feel the water now, oozing out of a sponge
Ihe back of my neck ! What makes you think I'm afraid
(cold water? You remember my snow-baths at Woods
The primitive life has no terrors for me — so far
Ihat's concerned. So there's no bathroom?"
■No."

fM-m. Well, I'll see."
; it is, then."
ih, this? An unpromising exterior. . . ."

' said Felix, indicating the girl, who came to the

A Bargain in Utopias 175

at his own folly. So this was what Rose- Ann had wanted I
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 Ufe was, after all !

I XXIV. Studio

T~ HE girls came back from inspecting the mysteries

behind the screen. Rose- Ann's enthusiasm un-
diminished. "Where is the agent?" she demanded.
"We must gel this place right away, before somebody else
Bdoes. . . . 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
Bkind of place. And twelve dollars a month! And that
Blovely stove!"

! much do you want for the stove?" Felix asked the

Studio 177

when it comes." She held out her hand to Rose-Ann.
"Good-bye. Ill drop in some evening when you've got more
or less settled. Good-bye!"

Felix and Rose-Ann went to the landlord and were con-
firmed 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 imagina-
tion.

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 — s, giving up to outward
form of the special quality of their lives. . . . But he
had been willing to surrender. It was strange now to real-
ize, 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 livii^ in a studio meant. They would
not subordinate their individual lives to a domestic
arrangement. On the contrary, all their domestic arrange-
ments 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, arid 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

178 The Briary-Bush ^M

to bed without disturbing each other. And; a settle 10
front of the fire, and chairs — ordinary kitchen chiiri tliat
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 di^es
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 I

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 1

"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 cao.,
get it at a delicatessen and eat it with our fingers!" h

"The electricity has been turned off — we can't eat in AjH
dark," she said wistfully. T

"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 to-

Studio 179

gether 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

I XXV. St. George of the Minute

W~ ITHIN less than two weeks the studio was

furnished, according to their desire; and not
_ only furnished, but painted and kalsomined,

I light creamy yellow with a bright green-blue trim —
■a most cheerful and, as they felt, out-door effect! And old
Perk had been brought from Community House to
I sew the tall orange silk window-curtains. . . . "It's like
I painting the scenery and setting the stage for a play," said
I Rose-Ann. "Only this play is to run for — for as long as
Bwe like."

St. George of the Minute 181

said thoughtfully. "Wdl — ^I'm glad if other people have
as much fun about it all as we do 1"

""Oh, but they don't !" Rose- Ann said confidently.

Give 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 Are,
Rose- Ann said:

"Do jou remember, Qive, 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 mites 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 them-
selves 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 tiiat 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

182 The Briary-Bush

summer colony and a viltage girl. Everybody — in
summer colony and tlie 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 lejjend about
a foohsh boy who married a pretty vill^e 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 tt^ether
— 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. . , . Tliat'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 girl's 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 ihe
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 yoimg 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 Gals-
worthy and H. G. Wells, and dreamed of going to Chi*
and getting a job and living her own life — and yet
being a girl, stayed on in Woods Point."

"-^

«<1

St. Grcorge of the Minute 183

"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 I for instance. . . ."

'Goodness 1" said Rose- Ann, "who could have seen me?"

'Us village folks hears about everything that's goin' on 1"
said Clive. "Well — ^this girl would hear about these
crazy artists, and their crazy ialk, 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
viHage 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 any-
thing 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.

i84

The Briary-Bush

oat

"You can see what might happen. . . , Those peopl
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 3 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 t"

Clive shook his bead. "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 ber 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 tliat
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!"

"So that." Felix said, "was what was troubling you all
winter, I thought you were trying to get some girl lo marry
you : and you were merely trying to get her lo go to Chic^o
and get a job!"

"Am I to be given no credit for the disinterested and
unselfish character of my worrying?" Chve asked gaily.

St. Grcorge of the Minute 185

'*I don't imagine the girl gives you much credit for it/'
said Felix. "Why don't you marry her and be done with it ?"

"Good heavens 1" said Clive. "Must one marry a girl
because he has talked to her about Bernard Shaw ?"

"Must St. George marry the girl he has rescued from the
dragon?" Felix retorted. "I only know it always happens
in the story-books that way."

"A fine realist you are, young man! Fortunately, there
are other St. Georges in the world. — Why this sudden pas-
sion of matrimonial propaganda? Misery loves company?"

"I wouldn't worry about Phyllis if I were you," Rose-Ann
said to Felix coolly. "She's perfectly able to take care of
herself. Her plan is all right. She's very young, and it
won't do her any harm to wait a year or two and learn a trade
before she comes here to live. I think she's a very sensible
young woman, myself."

It was time for Qive to go, for he was living out at
Woods Point again. They discussed the studio for a few
minutes, and then Felix put on his hat and accompanied Clive
to the platform of the Illinois Central station a block away.

"Spring 1" said Qive, sniffing the mild March breeze.
"Tomorrow will be warm."

"Qive," said Felix, "what's the matter with you, anyway?
You're really in love with Phyllis!"

"Who knows?" said Clive. "Sometimes I think I am,
myself !'

Well, then?"

But there's another question you haven't considered. Is

JCII ?"
a

she in love with me?"

"Ask her and find out !"

"Oh, I've no doubt she thinks she is, at this moment.
Just because I don't seem to care whether she is or not!
She's a queer girl, Felix. You don't understand her at
all. . . ."

"You exasperate me," said Felix. "Marry her, and put
an end to all this foolishness."

"But why should you assume that my intentions — if I
have any — are honourable, young man! What makes you

Ii86 The Briary-Bush

Ithink I want to get married to anybody ? I think I'll wait
land see how your marriage turns out first 1"

FeHx walked home slowly, but it seemed only an instant
Bbefore he opened the door of the studio. "Who is it?"
Bcailed Rose-Ann from behind the screen. "It's me," he said,
land locked the door, and stood there for a moment. . . .
iHe felt a kind of vague bewilderment.

He had been so immersed in the story of these other
lunhappy lives, so poignantly concerned with their tangled
Idoiibts and fears, that it was strange to return to this scene
lof his own untroubled happiness. The sense of those other
Itormented lives burned at this moment more vividly in his
limagination than his own life and Rose-Ann's. . . .

"Coming to bed ?" Rose-Ann called from behind the screen.

"No," he said vaguely, "I think I'll write for a while."

"All right, then I won't bother you. Good-night I"

"Good-night, Rose- Ann."
e went over to his desk, and turned on the electric light,

i dipped his pen in the ink, and then sat dreaming before

XXVI. What Rose-Ann Wanted

WIY don't you want me to get a job, Felix?"
It was mid-April, and the Park across the way
had, all at once, turned that lovely young green
of beginning grass and burgeoning trees. It was dusk, and
Rose- Ann and Felix were sitting in their cushioned window-
seat — a new addition to the household furnishing — arguing
a point which had been coming up from time to time since
their marriage.

'You have your work," she went on.

'Yes," he said, "and Fm doing all Hawkins's work now,
and in the fall I will get a respectable salary, I expect, so why
need we — "

"I don't mean that," she said. "I mean your writing."
Ever since that morning at the St. Dunstan, Felix had been
writing at odd times, at — ^heaven knew just what, he wasn't
sure himself — something that might perhaps be called a play,
but so fantastic a thing as yet that he had not even ventured
to show any of the fragments of it to Rose- Ann; she had
been very nice about it, too, never asking him to let her see
what he had done the night before ... to furnish the
justification, as it were, for staying up until all hours. Felix
wasn't at all certain that they constituted such a justification.
They were probably mere folly : but, so far, they were all he
could attempt.

'You have your writing," Rose-Ann was saying. "And I
haven't anything.

'You used to write, Rose-Ann," he said.

" X ou nave yovi
en t anyining."

"I know. Not much."

"You need not have given up your class at Commtmity

House." he suggested.

197

i88

The Briary-Bush

I want something elsi

"It wasn't enough, any longer,

"What?"

"I don't know. Something to use up my energies. I
can't stay here and play keeping house in a studio. There's
no excuse for it. That's why we have a studio, Felix I So
we can each be free. Why are you so stubborn about it ?"

"I'm not being stubborn, Rose-Ann. I'm just being
candid. I can't stop you from going out and getting a job.
But I can tell the truth and say 1 don't like the idea I And
that's all I can do. If it means so much to you, you'll have
to do it in spite of my not liking it, that's all. ... It isn't as
if there were some particular thing you wanted to do — I
wouldn't say a word against that. But work in general —
work for the sake of work — that just means a little more
money, which we don't need, and your coming home tired
at night. . . - After all, Rose-Ann, I want a wife. ..."

She grew suddenly cold. "Then you should have mar-
ried somebody else," she said. "I don't want to be — a wife I"

And they went out to dinner in an estranged silence.

These silences, inexplicable and impenetrable, would spring
up between them, and then as inexplicably dissolve — some-
times in tears, sometimes in laughter.

That night when they came home to their studio and started
to undress for bed, Rose-Ann changed back suddenly to her
acccustomed self ; and his own mood, a moment ago puzzled
and angry, could not withstand the influence of her smile.
Then both of them were sorry, and accused themselves in-
wardly of the fault. . . . Felix could see why she objected to
being merely "a wife," and wondered that he had been so
crass as to say such a thing . . . and they sought with
passionate tenderness to make each other forget. . . .

"Do I make you happy, Felix ?"

"Yes. . . . And are you happy?"

"Yes," — a little sadly, in spite of herself.

"Sometimes," he said, "you seem for a moment to go fl
away from me, even when you are here in my arms.]

What Rose-Ann Wanted 189

can't bear that/' He held her more closely, as though to
reassure himself of the reality of her presence. ''Then it
all b^ns to seem like a dream again. . . . I've always been
lonely for you, all my life, wanting you always . . . and
not believing I was ever going to find you . . . trying to
adjust myself to a world in which you didn't exist. And
sometimes, even now — But you are real, aren't you?"

•*I dreamed of you, too, Felix. . . ."

''Isn't it strange? And strangest of all, that the story
should have a happy ending."

"This — is just the banning, Felix. . . ."

A faint sadness in her tone, that he had heard before in the
very midst of their happiness, frightened him.

"The banning, yes," he said. "The banning of
happiness."

"And— afterward, Felix?"

"More happiness. . . . Doesn't that satisfy you?"

"Yes, but— Oh, of course it's beautiful and wonderful to
me, Felix. But I'm afraid. . . ."

"Of what, darling?"

"We love just being together, now. But will we always?
I mean— <loesn't something happen to happiness, after a
while ? I know it sounds absurd. I don't mean we'll fall out
of love — ^not that — but won't we lose the beauty of this —
this intimacy, in time? You know how other people some-
times seem — cooped up and used to each other — just that.
It's ugly, to me ... I suspect we are rather awful, Felix,
talking about such things I . . ."

"No," he said. "It isn't enough to feel — ^we must know
why we feel."

She sighed. "I guess we are like that. We can't even
take happiness without asking why."

It was true; they encouraged each other in what would
have seemed, to some people, an exaggerated curiosity about
things of no importance — and, to many lovers, a prying into
matters best left alone. Do not all charms fly at the mere
touch of cold philosophy? They did not seem to fear it.

"I suppose," said Felix reflectively, "people must care a

tl^

rigo The Briary-Bush

great deal for each other. ... It would be dreadful,
closeness, if one didn't want it."

"But does one keep on wanting it? . . . Yes, Felix,
^^ that's what I'm afraid of. If this is only for a while — and
^^L then we were to be just hke other people — sunk in a greasy
^H domesticity — Felix, I couldn't keep on hving,"
^^M He took her hand tenderly. "But we aren't like those
^H other people, Rose-Ann," he said. He had a baffling sense
^^M of this speech contradicting something he had said or thought
^V before. . . .

"Do you really think our marriage is so different from
other people's, Felix?"

They seemed to have exchanged places in the argument —
that argument, so absurd and yet so poignant, which kept
arising, neither of them knowing why, nor quite what it was
all about. . . .

"Of course our marriage is different," he was saying.
"How many married people really want to know each otherr
How many of ihem can really talk to one another about
is going on in their inmost minds — as we do!'

"Yes, we do, don't we," said Rose-Ann, comforted to find
in this complete candour of theirs an authentic superiority
to the common destiny of tragic and ridiculous mutual mis-
understanding.

"We shall always be finding out new things about one
another," Felix went on bravely. "That is what our mar-
riage means— a knitting together of our whole lives, a
marrying of our memories."

"And our hopes, too, Felix." said Rose-Ann. "And a
creating of something new and beautiful — books, plays,
poems. . . . But I forgot!" she laughed. "I mustn't talk
about your literary works till you let me. Must talk about
somcthii^ else! . . .

"Yes, Felix, we are different. We can say things to each
other that ordinary lovers couldn't. I wouldn't have dared
speak of my silly fears to anybody but you. . . . And — ^you
can tell me things. . . . What you wrote to me, when I
home in Springfield, you remember, about that girl, F<

iaying,

otheriL

twlMfl

What Rose-Ann Wanted 191

I loved you for it. A sonnet you read me last night
reminded me of her and you. I made you read it over
twice — I didn't tell you why. I still remember the way it
b^ns.'' Softly she said the lines:

"IVe needs must know that in the days to come

No child, that from our summer sprang, shall be. , . .

*'It made me love you all the more to know you felt so
about your boyish love-affair — that you wanted to be mar-
ried, that you really wanted your girl-sweetheart to have a
baby, hers and yours. . . . I'm glad it didn't happen that
way, but I think you were a lovely, foolish, beautiful boy-
lover to want it. . . .

"Of course," she added, "artists shouldn't have families
to support. . . . They are children themselves. — Do you
know why I want to get a job, Felix? You mustn't be
angry at me — but if anything should happen, if you should
lose your place on the Chonicle, or if you should get to
feel that you need all your time for your writing, I would
want to be able to make enough money so you could go on
with your own work. You don't mind my wanting that, do
you, Felix? We're not the conventional married couple,
the wife sitting at home doing nothing while the man goes
out to work every day ! I want to be a real helpmeet — ^an
artist's wife, not an ordinary wife."

"You're a darling," said Felix. "But—" a little un-
comfortably — ^"I guess I can take care of myself; I shan't
need to be supported. Why don't you go ahead and be an
artist yourself?"

"Oh, Felix, I can't ! . . ."

'Why not? What kind of artist do you want to be?"
'Something I can't be, Felix. If I tell you, you'll under-
stand. . . . But you won't laugh at me ?"

"Of course not, Rose-Ann."

"But it's really funny! Especially if )rou had seen me
when I was a girl — shy, awkward, prudish — yes, prudish,
Felix. When I was eighteen, I w^is the worst little old
maid you ever saw. I read romantic books all the time,
and real people seemed to me coarse and horrible. I hated

1192 The Briary-Bush

I everybody. I wouldn't go to boy-and-girl parties, because
lot the— it still seems an ugly word to me^'spooning" that
I went on in the corners. I wouldn't dance, I wouldn't hold
I hands. I wouldn't keep company. Oh, I was terrible.
I For a while I wanted to be a missionary in some savage
I country — "

"And teach the natives to wear clothes? — is that your
I secret ambition?" he laughed.

"No — for I got converted ... to paganism. When I
Iwas twenty-one years old. It was a book that converted me,"

"I really know very little about you, don't I? All this

ems so strange. . . . I've imagined you as always being
I what you are now. What book was it converted you?"

"It was 'Leaves of Grass.' You remember I told you
Ihow I decided to be a librarian, and took a course of training,
land was made an assistant in the library at Springfield. . , ,

■ Welt, there was a shelf of forbidden books — and one day I
lopened one of those forbidden books, and read a passage. . .

■ I'll tell you: it was 'A woman's body at auction' — do you

What Rose- Ann Wanted 193

presently^ ''in a dreaming ecstasy. ... I had read in some
of my father's books about the mystics, and I knew that
I felt like them when they had seen God. ... I looked
every now and then with a kind of awe at my wrist or my
finger-nail, saying to myself, These are not parts of the body
only, but of the soul! And that night I took the book home,
and read it in bed, happy and afraid. . . .

"And now comes the part that is funny. There always is
something funny, isn't there, in trying to put a revelation into
practice 1 But don't laugh at me, Felix. Think what it
would mean to a young-lady-librarian, a clergyman's
daughter, to discover that her body was a poem. ... I
got out of bed and took off my nightgown to look at myself
in the glass. But it was a modest glass, fastened sideways
to the top of the bureau, and it refused to show me all of
myself at once; so I unfastened it, and wrestled it down
from the bureau, and stood it upright against the wall. I
was rather disappointed, Felix — ^my body wasn't as beautiful
as a poem ought to be ; it was just a slim, awkward; twenty-
one-year-old girl's body, that was all.

"But there had been something beautiful about it for a
moment — in the glimpses I had of it in the glass as I pulled it
down from the bureau; then it had been — ^well, yes,
beautiful, with the beauty of — flexed muscles and purposeful
movement. . . . And I had a kind of vision. . . . Yes,
really, Felix ... a wonderful and terrible moment, in
which I seemed to see myself wrestling with life, in a kind
of agony of creation . . . and for a moment I seemed to
know what my woman's body was for. And then I sort of
waked up, wondering what it was all about. I was thrilled
and afraid. . . .

"And then an idea came to me — I'm glad I can tell you
this part, Felix — I said to myself: I will be a dancer! Yes,
I decided to go to Chicago and learn to be a dancer. . . .

"There was a boy who wanted to marry me — ^though I
don't know what this has to do with it; anyway, I would
get away from him at the same time, by going to Chicago.
... I was all on fire with the idea. I wanted to start right

194 'The Briary-Bush ^1

away with dancing. I couldn't go to aleep. And — this u
the part that seems to me the most terribly ridiculous of
all — I went downstairs and brought back the Dan-Emp
volume of father's encyclopedia to read the article about
Dancing. . . .

"And there, in that article, Felix, I learned why I could
never be a really-truly dancer — it seems that one must begin
in one's cradle !

"Well — I cried. I could cry now when I think ahout it,
I'm a perfect fool, Felix. . . . But what's the use of having
a vision of one's purpose in life, if one can't do anything
about it ? . . . There seemed to be nothing to do except stay
in Springfield and — marry that boy. And I couldn't, I
couldn't do that. I thought of other things besides dancing
tliat I might do, but they didn't interest me. An artist's
model ? Somehow I didn't like that idea — not in modem
terms — not at so much an hour ; after all, I was a clergyman's
daughter, and it just didn't seem respectable! I thought —
if I had lived in Ancient Greece, I might have been a friend
of Phidias or somebody, and seen myself carved upon the
frieze of a temple ... or been one of the marble maidens
of Keats' Grecian Urn. Oh, I dreamed of all the lovely
and impossible things in the world. And I decided — at
least I wouldn't stay in Springfield!" ^^^

"And so you came to Chicago. ..." ^^M

"Yes, and became a settlement-worker. It seems ^^|
pitiful climax to my story, doesn't it? And yet, if one
lives in twentieth-century America instead of in Ancient
Greece, what is one to do? It seemed to me a good pa^n
life, to try to bring about a better world for everybody —
a world in which beauty would count for something. . . .
At one time 1 thought I was a socialist, but I found that
I couldn't bear to attend stuffy meetings, and that I couldn't
understand Marx and didn't want to. And I wasn't
interested in woman suffrage, either. My life had to be

' centred around something personal. So — "

^^t "So you taught those children how to play. ..." ^^M

^H "It was the Greekliest thing 1 knew to do. . . . If Aspi^^f

I
I

What Rose-Ann Wanted 195

had been bom in Springfield, Illinois, she might have taken
a class in a Chicago settlement 1" Rose- Ann said defiantly —
and then, doubtfully, "What do you think of it all ?"

"I don't know," he said — ^"it leaves me bewildered —
except that I think you're a wonderful child."

"It's you who are wonderful," she said, "to understand.
I am a child, I suppose — and I want to stay one always. I
don't want to grow up. That's very foolish, isn't it? Do
you know that horrible habit some married people have of
addressing each other as 'Pa' and 'Ma' — ^as soon as they
have a baby, I mean? I suppose it's meant as a joke. And
I suppose it's a joke, too, when a man refers to his wife^as
'the old woman.' When I was a little girl, I vowed to
myself that no man would ever have the right to call me his
*old woman.' Or . . . but then, we shan't ever have any
children, shall we? You remember what I said — ^the talk
we had in the hospital that day. I meant that, Felix."

Felix's mind was fumbling for the lost thread of their
discourse. Rose-Ann's talk had a disconcerting way of
suddenly leaping from one idea to another. How did they
come to be talking about children? She had brought them
in, without rhyme or reason, more than once tonight.
And each time he had remembered with a sense of discour-
agement and vague shame that moment at the hospital when
he had not had the courage to tell her that he wanted to be —
everything that it seemed he need not be after all. He
wanted now to say something — ^but what could he say?
Some other time, perhaps, when he had a chance to think
things out more clearly. ... It did not need to be settled
now.

"Why," he said confusedly, "we did talk about it, yes. I
don't suppose we can afford to—" He was going to add
"right away," but Rose-Ann interrupted him.

"Oh, dear!" she said, "I've forgotten — I promised to let
my father know our address, as soon as we found a place
to live, so he could come and see us, and I forgot all about it !
Felix, will you bring me pencil and paper, please? Ill
write to him now."

196

The Briary-Bush

Rose-Ann's troubled mind — too troubled to be aware of
itself — had been seeking an answer to a question ... the
question for which she had unconsciously sought the
answer in "Leaves of Grass," in the "Dan-Emp" volume of
her father's encyclopedia, in settlement work, and now in
her marriage. There was an answer which she dreaded —
and perhaps hoped — to hear. But in his chance phrase she
had heard instead the definite ratification of their casual
agreement that she was never to bear him a child . . . and
the question, which neither of them knew had been discussed,
of whether the meaning of her vision, of her search, of her
unsatisfied yearning, might not perhaps be found in the
common, ordinary, the all too obvious role of motherhood,
was answered No, . . .

Felix brought the pencil and a writing pad, and she sat
and wrote, and smiled, and wrote again. She had become
once more remote — a figure, it seemed to him as she sat
there on the bed in the lamplight with her red-gold hair fal-
hng over her white shoulders, tike a girl in a painting, as eter-
nally lovely and unapproachable.

She stopped writing. "We've utterly forgotten the world
ever since we moved into this studio," she murmured,

"And a good thing, too," said Felix, feeling in her words
some threat against their peace and quiet.

"But we must let our friends know where we are — and
that they can come to see us. . . . We might give a kind oi
house-warming." ~

"A house-warming?" Felix repeated doubtfully.

"Yes — a big party — one of the kind you hate. But
make it up to you by giving some cozy little parties.
There are people you ought to know, Felix. . . . Yes, I'm
going to be a real artist's wife I" She put her arms about
him and kissed him, fiercely and tenderly.

1 01

XXVII. Parties

ROSE-ANN decided to give at least one or two of her
"little" parties immediately; perhaps to encoun^
Felix to meet the larger ordeal. And to the first of
these little parties, she planned to invite, with what seemed to
Felix a reckless defiance of congruity, Clive, Dorothy Sheri-
dan (who had in the meantime been in to see "what they had
done to her old studio" and appeared to be satisfied that they
had not turned it into what she called "a Christian home")
— and the Howard Morgans !

A more ill-assorted company, Felix felt, had never been
invited to sit at the one table — 3, poet who was also (or at
least so Felix considered him) a social lion, a rough-man-
nered Bohemian girl-artist, a satirical young newspaper
writer ; and he, a frightened young husband giving his first
dinner, was doubtless expected by his infatuated bride to
bring music out of this discord ! Well, let her find out. . . .
It was a relief, anyway, to be told that he need not wear his
evening clothes.

The party went off amazingly well. There was a certain
constraint, at first, it was true; but it was not of the sort
he had expected. Dorothy Sheridan had turned up with
her bobbed hair elaborately and beautifully curled and wear-
ing a gaily embroidered Russian smock. "I never wear
smocks when I paint," she said, "painters never do — ^but I
like to wear them everywhere else. What kind of folks are
these Morgans?" And being told by Rose-Ann — rashly,
Felix thought — that they were "all right," she said, "Then
I can smoke," and lighted a cigarette with an air of relief. . .
And when the Howard Morgans came, the great man was
dressed in an old suit of corduroys, concerning which he

197

■ igS The Briary-Bush ^M

appeared to be nervous. He looked at Felix's clothes
anxiously, and then at Dorothy Sheridan with her cigarette,
and seemed reassured. He must have been reassuTed, for
when the introductions were accomplished, he took out an
old sack of tobacco from his coat-pocket and a crumpled
package of straw-colored paper, and rolled himself a
cigarette. . . . Yes, that was all they were afraid of — that
the occasion might not be sufficiently informal! And after
they had ceased to be afraid of that, they got on vastly
well, drank Felix's cocktails with gusto, ate Rose-Ann's
dinner (it was, though one might not have known it, a
delicatessen dinner) with unabashed appetite, and talked
like old friends. Later in the evening, Clive turned to
Dorothy Sheridan and demanded, "Come, you are not really
one of the Sheridans, are you? I can't believe it!" — And
she answered: "Well, I'm the black sheep of the family; I
don't live their life — 1 paint, and mind my own business —
so you ought not to hold that against me !" From her man-
ner, one would have thought that the Sheridans were a
band oT notorious criminals, but Rose-Ann told him after-
ward — what it seemed she had suspected all along— that
Dorothy belonged to one of the — well, as Clive had said, one
of "the" — families of Chicago. . . . Yes, they got along
very well indeed, and Felix talked about everything in the
world with complete unself consciousness. . . .

Yes, that party was all right. . . . But a dinner for Will
Blake of Community House, and Paul, tlieir old scenic-
genius friend, now a prosperous designer of musical comedy
settings in New York and just back in Chicago for a few
days — and (yes!) old Mrs. Perk . . . that was simply,
Felix felt, defying the gods. And yet it turned out to be
an even more successful party than the other. Mrs. Perk
was as delightful a dinner companion as any one could
wish, and really made the party a "go." ... Or perhaps
it was the studio: apparently everybody liked a touch of
bohemia; apparently anybody in such a place could be com-

Parties 199

pletdy human, natural, and at ease. ... Or perhaps it
was Rose- Ann: there was no doubt about it, she was a
wonderful hostess. . . .

And Rose-Ann had only just started, it seemed, on her
social career. After the **house-warming," which came
next on their prog^ram, she intended to ask some of her
"bourgeois" friends in to dinner, before they went away
for the summer. "You haven't been miserable at these
parties, have you?" she said. "Well, youll find the others
just as easy. Everybody's human — even in evening clothes,
Felix. We'll have to go to dinner at these other people's
houses, too, you know — and once you make up your mind
to it^ you can have as good a time there as you can here I"

All right. . . . He would try to enjoy himself, he promised
obediently. But this house-warming presented difficulties.
They were inviting everybody they knew — everybody! —
people from Community House, from the Chronicle office,
from Canal street, et cetera. . . . Such a crowd! "I shall
have to introduce them to each other, and I won't remember
their names," he said forlornly. "I never remember people's
names!"

"It's all right!" said Rose- Ann. "After a cocktail or
two, half of them won't know their own names. Besides,
this will be our last big party, ever. I promise !"

Well, it was a satisfaction to know that. But— cocktails,
and Community House residents; Felix was not sure (even
after seeing Will Blake flushed and merry with their
California wine sherbert the other night!) how these two
elements would mix. Eddie Silver after his ninth cocktail
would scarcely be an edifying spectacle. "Don't worry,"
said Rose-Ann. "People are not so Puritanical as you
think. Anyway, our respectable friends will come early and
go early — ^and the others vice-versa."

"I thought," said Felix, "when I went to the hospital, that
I had finished with boozing . . ."

"So you have," said Rose-Ann cheerfully. "This is quite
different !'^

"And you a clergyman's daughter!" said Felix.

The Briary-Bush

Rose-Ann's father was somewhat on Felix's mind, because
Ishe had said he might come to see them any day. And if

■ Felix felt some awkwardness in adapting himself to the
Bconvivial life, he felt still more embarrassment at the prospect
Bof acting the difficult role of the son-in-law of a clergy-
Bman. . . . One had to, it seemed, be so many different
Bthings to get along with people ! But he was learning.
BWhen these parties were over, he would commence to thiidc
Babout how to make himself agreeable to his father-in-law.

And then, late in the afternoon of the day of the house-
Iwarming. when Rose-Ann had gone out to buy something

: had forgotten, and Felix was busy squeezing lemons, a

I, gentle, stooping man with a slight greying beard
walked into the studio, looked about, smiled, and extended

s hand.
I suppose you are my son-in-law," he said. "I see you're
; ready for a party, so I'm just in time. Rose-Ann

XXVIII. A Father-in-Law

FELIX stood still for a moment with a lemon suspended
in mid-squeeze.
"I know just how you feel/' said the old gentleman.
''At such a moment as this, a father-in-law would be just
the last straw I"

Felix laughed, and shook the extended hand. "Did I
give away my dismay as plainly as all that?" he asked.

"I don't blame you," said the old gentleman, taking off his
hat and overcoat, and sitting down. "Go right on with what
you were doing, and we'll talk. I feel rather well acquainted
with you from what I've already heard about you. No,
Rose-Ann didn't say much, but I sort of always know what
she's up to. The marriage wasn't exactly a surprise to me.
And I shouldn't have thought of coming down here to bother
you, except that I thought it would be better for me to come
than one of the boys. You see. 111 have to report to them
that it's all right, or they'll go on thinking that Rose-Ann has
married some perfectly disreputable person." He smiled.

"How do you know," Felix asked, laughingly, "that Tm
not a disreputable person!"

"Well," said Rose-Ann's father gravely, taking out a cigar,
"perhaps you are. Will you have one of these? No?
They're very good Havana cigars — I can recommend them;
oh, I see you smoke cigarettes. . . . Perhaps you are a
disreputable person. But of a certain type that I can very
well sympathize with, because I belong to it myself. Im-
practical. Yes, I can see you're that. Not interested in
making money. All that sort of thing. Yes, I'm afraid my
sons would consider you a poor match for Rose-Ann. What
they don't understand is that she was bound to marry that

202 The Briary-Bush

sort if she married anybody. I'll have to misrepresent
when I get back home. I'll tell them that you're an enter-
prising young newspaper man. You won't mind that?"

"1 should be delighted to have somebody think that of mc,"
said Felix.

"Well, there's no reason why they shouldn't. . . , I'll be a
little sad when I get home, and tell them that I'm afraid Rose-
Ann will never be really happy with you — that you are too
practical to appreciate the poetic side of her nature. Then
they'll be convincd that it's all right, , . , I suppose it sounds
odd to you, my speaking this way of my own sons ?"

"Well — ^yes," said Felix, "it does rather ! But it's refresh-
ing."

"I haven't a scrap of family sentiment," said Rose-Ann's
father. "I am interested in people only as individuals. And
I must say that I have been cursed with four of the most
practical and unimaginative sons that a ne'er-do-well father
ever had. They will all end up as milhonaires, I'm sure.
By the way, I hope you've no prejudice against preachers?"

"Not your kind, anyway 1" Felix laughed.

"I was reading a book the other day." said the old man,
"about women in the Middle Ages. It said that women
often went into convents then, not because they felt par-
ticularly religious, but because they wanted to escape from
the humdrum ways of ordinary life. A woman who went
into a convent might become — a scholar, a ruler, a politician,
the peer of princes ! She could have friendships with dis-
tinguished men. She could be, in a sense that her married
sister wasn't, free. . . . And I thought how well all that
applied to myself. If I had lived in a Catholic country, I
would probably have gone into a monastery, and written a
history of something. I did the next best thing, it seems to
me now. I went into a profession where nobody is expected
to succeed. I escaped from the bedevilment of business;
I started out in business, you know, and left it for the
ministry. Now I can be a little odd, and nobody minds very
much, I am very fortunate, 1 think. The pulpit is a
wonderful refuge. For instance — do you like to drink?"

A Fathcr-in-Law 203

•'No— not really," Felix said.

"No, I thought not," said the old gentleman. "But yoa
have to. You will have to consume your share of that
enormous quantity of vile-tasting medicine you are preparing
for your guests. Now, I am free from any such social
necessity. It's an enormous relief."

Felix thought of his Eddie Silver parties in the past, and
all the parties he seemed committed to in the future — and it
seemed to him that Rose- Ann's father was indeed very fortu-
nate.

"I asstmae," said the old man, "that you don't particularly
relish the idea of this party, anyway?"

"No, to tell the truth, I don't," said Felix.

"Of course not. What sane human being would want
to spend an evening talking to forty people without saying
anything to any of them? And yet ordinary people are sup-
posed to like that sort of thing."

"Rose-Ann promises that this will be the last one of this
kind."

"Hold her to her promise, young man!" said Rose- Ann's
father. "And be stem about it. Be ruthless. Rose-
Ann," he observed reflectively, "means well. But after all,
she's a woman. And when you know as much about women
as I do, you will know that they are the natural ally of the
world against the human soul. Now I have always had my
sermon as an excuse for getting out of everything I didn't
want to do. I always managed to make the writing of that
sermon last me nearly all week. I locked myself in my
study, and let the world rush past outside. In my study
I could read and dream and think; I could be by myself.
Aren't you going to write a novel or something ? A play, I
believe it was Rose-Ann spoke of."

"I'm — thinking about something of the sort," said Felix.
It was true, he reflected, he had not been able to get any
writing done lately ! One could not write with parties going
on all the time. ...

"Well, you'd better get down to work on it right away.
And get a room of your own somewhere to do it in. You're

1 204

The Briary-Bush

Ijust married, and your head is full of all sorts of romantic
Inonsense about Rose-Ann, who is a very fine young woman,
Ibut, after all, a woman; and the time to establish your right
Ito be by yourself some of the time is at the very beginning.
Il see you have two desks up there in front. Do you expect
|to work there?"

"Yes. That one is Rose-Ann's — "

"And the other is yours. And when you are in the
■middle of a sentence, you find that Rose-Ann has come over
Band put her arms around your neck. Very natural. Very
Icharming. But how in the name of Prince Beelzebub are
Byou going to get any work done under those circumstances?"

Felix smiled. It certainly was odd. to have one's wife's
Ifather take your side against her. But it was easy to see
Ithat he was thinking of his own case. He had doubtless
Bhad to lock himself in his study to be free from the encroach-
ments of domesticity. But Rose-Ann was different; Rose-
BAnn did not come over and kiss him in the middle of a
(sentence. , . .

A Fathcr-in-Law 205

Fdix, %ut I thought this was a studio, and that people in
studios did just as they pleased."

**Well," said Rose-Ann, "if you're not going to be a
preacher tonight, you can help Felix get things ready for the
cocktails. I have a million sandwiches to fix, myself.
Take off your coat and put on this apron. How do you
like our studio?"

"I was very much impressed by those desks up in the front
there," he said disingenuously, smiling at Felix.

"Yes, that's where Felix is going to write his play, and
I'm going to do— I don't know just what, yet. But isn't it
all — ^wondtfful, father!"

"Wonderful!" said Rose- Ann's father.

Whether it was the effect of that talk or not, all Felix's
recent social sophistication had vanished utterly, and the
party passed after the usuar fashion of such events to a shy
and bewildered person. He made desperate efforts to
remember people's names, and succeeded once or twice; at
other times Rose-Ann intervened and performed that pain-
ful feat for him; and once when he saw two people beside
him who had not yet been introduced, and whose names he
knew as well as he knew his own, but which he could not to
save his life think of, he slunk away in guilty crimson shame.
An old lady — it seemed to him that he was a favourite prey
of old ladies — got him into a comer and talked to him for a
long time about telepathy, and the life beyond tfie grave. He
could not recall ever having seen her before, and he wondered
what she was doing at his house-warming. **Yes," he said
earnestly to her — "yes!" So convincingly, that Rose- Ann,
who wanted him to meet Professor Hedding of the
University of Chicago, left him alone until at last she caught
his piteous glance of appeal and came and bore him away.
Howard Morgan was there, at ease as always, his leonine
grey head the centre of a phantasmagoria which he seemed to
understand, to rule with a glance, a smile, a word. He was
enjoying it all.

|2o6 The Briary-Bush

"No," Felix said to himself, "I shall never be like that!"

His father-in-law wandered up to him as he stood help-

llessly aside. He seemed to Felix to be about to ask, "And

I is this the kind of life you are going to lead?" But instead.

I he remarked, "Your friend Mr. Bangs is a very interesting

■ young man. We had a good talk. I like the way his mind
I works."

It struck Felix as the oddest aspect of his fantastic
J fortunes that he should have a falher-in-Iaw — out of all
I possible fathers-in-law! — who so heartily ap gigye d of him,
lapproved of his very weakness, and of his mjBbt friends!

■ What he might have expected was: "It I^fllere you, I
I don't think I'd see too much of that young man — he has
I queer ideas." But queer ideas, his own and Clive's, were,
lit seemed, not merely tolerable, but commendable. . . .

A h'tile before midnight, the Rev. Mr. Prentiss took his
I daughter and son-in-law aside and said, "I'm getting sleepy,
I so I'm going to my train and try to get a little sleep between
I now and morning. No, don't you bother about seeing me off.

XXIX. Interlude at Midnight

CLIVE stayed a few minutes after the others to give
them some news. Phyllis, it seemed, was desperately
discklEitented with the process of learning to be a
teacher. Ad4 he had been talking with Howard Morgan
about her — Howard Morgan had spent a summer in Woods
Point, and remembered her as *'the pretty girl who used to
drive a taxi" — and he had become interested in her problem
to the extent of offering her a position as his secretary ('*if
she can type manuscripts, and look up things in books'' —
he was at work now on a grandiose historical poem). That,
Clive had remarked, seemed to solve the problem of coming
to Chicago for her — if she accepted it. He wanted to know
what they thought about it.

Rose- Ann had said, a little wearily, that that did seem to
solve the problem for her.

"So you're in favour of it?" Qive had asked, insistently.

Rose-Ann had shrugged her shoulders. "It's not for me
to decide I" she said, and so Qive, thanking her in an
ironical voice, had gone away.

And as soon as he had gone Felix began— or thought he
began — ^to understand what it was all about. . . . And yet,
the fancy was so preposterous I ,

"I wonder," he said cautiously, "why Qive made such a
fuss about that offer of Howard Morgan's?"

"Well," said Rose-Ann. "Leave the door open a mo-
ment to let the smoke out. . . ."

"What kind of reputation has Howard Morgan, with —
with r^;ard to girls?" he asked point-blank.

307

I208 The Briary-Bush

"Oh," said Rose-Ann, "the usual reputation of i
poets, old and young. Why?"
"Then," said Felix, " — then that was what Clive was
^ thinking about!"

"I suppose so," said Rose-Ann. "I think the room's aired
out now. You can close the door."

I "But," said Felix, "It's monstrous!"
"What — oh, you're still talking about Phyllis? But why
be angry at me about it?"
"I'm not angry at you, Rose-Ann ; I'm disgusted with Oive_
for thinking of turning her over to that old scoundrel I . ,^^
You don't seem to care?" ^H

"Must everybody in the world t>e sorry for poor PhylHU
and anxious about poor Phyllis, and worrying about poor
Phyllis?" Rose-Ann demanded in a tone of exasperation.
"I'm tired of her problems, myself. Can't she decide what
she wants to do without so much masculine assistance?
After all, all I said was that it wasn't my affair. Let her
decide for herself. . . . And shut the door, please — it's get-
ting chilly. ..."
Felix shut the door.

"Well, this is over, an>iway!" s:ud Rose-Ann. walking
^^ back behind the screen, and kicking off her pumps.
^K Felix followed her. "What's over?"
^^M "This party," she said, letting down her hair. "A lot of
^^M cleaning tomorrow, and then — never again. . . . Felix, I
^H don't want you to be a perfect host, after all- You don't
^H have to be anything you don't want to be,"
^^P "But about Phyllis," he said. "Surely you aren't cold-
bloodedly considering her becoming the mistress of that
old—"

"Poets don't have mistresses nowadays," said Rose^Ann,
impersonally, "at least, in Chicago. They have flirtations —
and 'affairs.' An 'affair' may mean anything. Howard
Morgan hae been having 'affairs' for the last forty years.
I was surprised that he didn't have some pretty girl sitting
on his lap tonight. He docs it in such a fatherly way f-"*"

Interlude at Midnight 209

nobody can object, not even his wife. After all, I repeat, it's
Phyllis's concern, not mine."

"You mean that she might be agreeable to such an arrange-
ment?" Felix asked angrily.

"How do I know J" she said. "Put out the candle, will
you, Felix?"

"I can't understand you !" he said. "I thought you liked
her?"

"I do," she said. "At least, I'm willing to let her live
her own life as she sees fit."

"I'm not," said Felix, blindly.

"No," said Rose-Ann. "Of course you're not. You
want to save her from 'that old scoundrel.' But I don't see
how you can do it, Felix, except by divorcing me, and marry-
ing her yourself. And just because you're jealous of
Howard Morgan — "

"Jealous ! Rose-Ann I"

" — Is no reason for quarrelling with me. ..."

"I'm not quarrelling with you, Rose-Ann. But I think
you are trying to quarrel with me. You behave as though
you were jealous, yourself." The idea had seemed absurd,
until he stated it; then he looked at her wonderingly.
"Perhaps you are I"

"Perhaps I am, Felix. But I wish you wouldn't stalk up
and down while you're talking to me. Of course I'm
jealous, Felix."

"What in the world of?"

"Of Phyllis. . . . Oh, I know I'm not being reasonable,
Felix. But I'm tired, and I've been scolded by my father,
and made to feel like — like a wife. I suppose that's why
I'm behaving like one. And — ^and— damn it all, I'm going to
cry." And she did.

IXXX. Fathers and Daughters

FELIX, astonished and perturbed, came over and petted
her. "What's the matter, darling?" he asked.
"Oh, Felix," she said, putting her head against his
Bbreast, "do you love me ?"

"Of course I love you! Don't you know it?"
"I suppose so. But — al! this — I've felt separated from
I've felt — I don't know what — I suppose it was what
■my father said — that this was just going to be him and
my mother all over again. . . ."
"He said that!"

Fathers and Daughters 211

letting it get mixed up with our fathers and mothers?"
Felix asked sadly. -

Rose-Ann rubbed from her face the last vestige of her
tears. "That's why I didn't want father to come to see us,"
she said. **In-laws always mess things up, don't they?"

"Even when they are the nicest people in the world, like
your father."

"Felix — I'm so glad to be back with you again — I feel as
though I had been away from you, somehow. I don't like
it."

"Don't go away again, Rose-Ann-dear."

"I won't." She pressed her head closer against his breast.
"I'll never go away again."

Again the storm had passed, leaving Felix again wondering
how it could have arisen. Some of the things they had said
to each other were really incredible. How hard and hostile
they had been to each other I And — quarrelling over Phyllis !
Why, the whole thing was absurd, the product of fevered
imaginations. . . . Why had they both been so willing to
indulge those grotesque fantasies about Phyllis and Howard
Morgan? . . . And then, what of Rose- Ann's freakish ac-
cusation against him — for that was what it amounted to ! —
of being in love with Phyllis? Phyllis, whom he had seen
but once in his life, and that on the occasion of his own
marriage I Had Rose-Ann really been jealous? It was
too extravagantly farcical.

But oughtn't they discuss these things, and settle them,
once and for all? Wasn't that what their mutual candour
was for, to expose and kill these silly doubts and fears and
suspicions? Or— did talking about such things only give
them new vitality? Were these things too senseless to
talk about?

"I love you, Felix."

"I love you, Rose-Ann."

There was a true magic, it seemed, in words like those!
They brought happiness . . . and forgetfulness. . . .

"Darling. . . ."

"Yes. . . ."

12 The Briary-Bush

"Did we have a quarrel?"

"I don't know — did we?"

"Yes — but what was it about?"

"I can't remember 1"

"Neither can I !"

They laughed happily at their folly.

Yet Felix could not quite understand the turn of affairs
jwhich followed the brief and dynamic intrusion of Rose-
father into their domestic life. Rose-Ann had
Ichanged. The most obvious manifestation of that change
Jwas the complete abandonment of all her social plans.

She had intended to give a number of parties to her
J'bourgeois friends" that spring; but they were never given;
Itnd when Felix asked why, she only shook her head and said,
"You know you don't like parties, Felix."

'35 quite aware that he did not like parties. But
i definitely assessed that dislike as a species of coward-

Fathers and Daughters 213

"Then what," he insisted, "do you want me to be, if not
civilized ?*'

"An artist," she said.

He laughed. "That is too easy," he said.

"What do you mean?" she asked, looking at him with
incredulous wide-open eyes and parted lips.

"Rose-Ann, I've always been an artist. That's the trouble
with me. I don't say IVe been a good artist. I've nothing
to show for my art-ing except a barrelful of youthful
poems, an unfinished novel that I burned up before I came
to Chicago, and a few fantastic fragments of impossible
plays. But I've been an artist all the same, and I'll tell
you why I'm sure of it. There are two kinds of people
in the world — artists and human beings. I've never been
a human being; so I must have been an artist. And I
don't want to be any longer!"

She looked at him, frightened at this heresy.

"But Felix!" she said.

"And I thought you were going to help me," he said.

"To stop being an artist ?" she cried, starting up as though
a dreadful accusation had been flung at her.

"To be a human being," he said, laughingly.

She looked at him with eyes of alarm.

"I can't think you mean it !" she said.

"Perhaps I don't. . . . It's hard to tell what one really
does mean," he said, discouraged. "I don't mean that I
shan't keep on trying to write plays — ^if that^s what you are
afraid of."

"I'm not afraid," she said. "Only, FeHx— "

"Yes?"

"You must do what you want to do ; not what you think
I want you to do !"

"Why do you say that ?" he asked ; for it sounded cryptic,
as if charged with hidden meanings.

"Because," she said, "I think we've been going on a wrong
basis. I've— done things to you I didn't intend. I'm
sorry. . . . And from now on I'm going to— let you alone."

He laughed. " AU right !" he said.

The Briary-Bush

He thought he knew what she meant. Not in vain had
Jlozens of novels been written in which the young wife
Bubtly corrupts her artist husband into prosperous mediocrity.
%o that was what Rose-Ann was afraid of! She did not
Icnow that the artist chooses his wife in the profound uncon-
scious hope of being led down from the perilous icy heights
T)f lonely poetic ecstasy into the green valleys of everyday
liuman life. . . .

That Rose-Ann wanted him to dwell with her here in
Bhese green valleys he did not doubt. She wanted him to
isful. But she did not want to be blamed for his

(uccess !

He could understand that.

Well, he would take the responsibility upon himself.
: would become what, in her secret heart, and in spite
1 her protestations, she really wanted him to be.

XXXI. More or Less Theatrical

MEANWHILE, with summer coming on, Fdix had
wondered what an assistant dramatic editor would
find to do. He learned from Hawkins that the
management traditionally continued the Saturday dramatic
department through the season, though in a restricted space.
Later, in anticipation of the opening of the theatrical season,
he could print the news of what New York and London
held in prospect for the Chicago public. And for the present
a column or two once a week could be furbished up somehow
— ^the how of it being left entirely to Felix's own discretion
and ingenuity.

"Interviews — clip-stuff from the London weeklies of last
winter — anything to keep going," said Hawkins, cleaning up
his desk and going home on a formal leave of absence for
the summer to rewrite his play — which, it appeared, had
impressed a New York manager and only needed to be
"strengthened" in its second act.

Felix, according to his arrangement with Willie Smith,
was to write "something light,** every day if possible, for
the editorial page ; and that done, nobody cared what he put
in the Saturday "Plays and Acting" column. With Hawkins
away, he felt that he had a free hand. And the fact that
there were no new plays to criticize did not matter much,
for the kind of criticism that Felix liked to write subsisted
quite as well on familiar plays that everybody had seen
as upon brand-new ones — better, perhaps.

Felix was rather humble about the kind of dramatic
criticism he wrote; though that humility merely concealed,
from himself and others, a fierce egotistic pride. For his
attitude toward plays was different from that of any other

ai5

216 The Briary-Bush ■

dramatic critic whose work he had ever seen. It was, in*^^
sense, not a "critical" attitude at all. Perhaps that was
why his commentaries had been so well received, by the
management and the readers of the Chronicle. It was at
least an agreeable novelty. But Felix knew quite well
that lie did not have either the experience or the knowledge
necessary to do the job in the usual way. Truth to tell, he
both stood in awe of, and despised, the usual way, . . .
The regular critics were always telling you whether a play
was good or bad, and why, and assessing expertly the merits
of various hits of acting. Old Jennison, "the dean," as he
was sometimes called, "of the critical fraternity," could
remember the way Somebody had played Hamlet, and how
Miss Somebody Else had done the "great scene" in "Caraille."
and he told you all about it apropos of the latest play.
This, doubtless, was real criticism, but of a kind Felix
could not aspire to, for he had never seen Anybody in
Anything, On the other hand, Hawkins was gravely an
enthusiast for modernity, as represented by Ibsen and Shaw,
and took occasion to point out the duty of American drama
to bestir itself and deal with the problems of the time.
Then, of course, there was a third kind of criticism, for
which Felix had little respect — the enthusiastic pounding
of drums outside the tent of some favourite actor or actress.
And there was a fourth kind, for which Felix had no
respect at all, but to which he sometimes feared his own
work belonged — the smart-aleck kind of criticism-
He confessedly did not know very much about the art
of acting, and could not even say that some part was played
"in a masterly manner," let alone tell the poor devil of an
actor how he should have played it. He was, as a matter
of fact, not interested in the technique of acting, but only
in the effects produced. And, though he was a little
ashamed of it, he could not really feel that the stage had
any "duties," either to modem problems or anything else.
He still got a childlike thrill out of the fantasies enacted
behind the footlights — at least for the first few moments
after the curtain went up. And then, as that magic vanished

More or Less Theatrical 217

for him, and he became bored by the dull spectacle and
unconvincing dialogue on the stage, he became interested
in the audience, for whom evidently this magic still persisted.
He wondered why, and tried to see the play with their
eyes, to find the things in it that held them, if not breathless,
at least coughless, for minutes at a time. What emotions
were those that were so touched by the cheap tears and
tawdry heroisms of "The Witching Hour" and "The Third
D^ree"? Why was it that they liked to see the heroine in
distress, the hero unjustly accused? Felix set himself the
task of proving that he Imew why they liked these things —
and he described the commonplace predicaments and familiar
crises of current drama in terms which conveyed to his
own mind some real emotional excitement, with only a
touch or two of humorous satire as he resumed his own
proper character as a philosophic observer. He found that
he could translate the most absurd plot into something
authentically interesting to himself — as if the worst play in
the world were, after all, only a good play badly conceived.
And in this mood, seeing bad plays through the eyes of an
audience to whom they were interesting, he too became
interested. He discovered some at least of the secrets of
that wish-world of the theatre, in which what happens is
what we want to happen : and, only when conscience pinches
too hard, and reminds us that crime must be punished and
virtue rewarded, what ought to happen — but not at all, no,
never, a place where things happen as they do in everyday
life! A strange world of pseudo-realities, elaborately
persuading us at the outset that it is the same world of
houses and streets as ours, inhabited by people like our-
selves, wearing the same clothes and talking the same talk,
ruled by the same eternal laws of probability — and then
making come true for us for an hour our wildest, silliest,
loveliest, most impossible dreams I

It was fascinating, this imaginative insight into people's
minds. And — ^in the absence of a real play — ^a vaudeville

I
I

218 The Briary-Bush

act or moving-picture or burlesque show afforded him
same, or even a more profound and startling, enlightenment

One evening that summer he went with Rose-Ann to a
burlesque theatre on South State street. He noted the
people who went in — workingmen, toughs, sailors, young
men wearing the latest Arrow collar, and husbands accom-
panied by their wives. In the street outside, the wind
picked up a litter of dust and paper and Hung it into
people's faces. Over the roots of tall buildings a dim moon
shone in a cloudy sky. The brightest thing in this street
was the arc-lighted promise of the theatre-entrance : "Refined
Burlesque !"

in the front row, in an aisle seat, was a white-haired
man who seemed to be nearly a hundred years old ; he
sat there with an air of having occupied that seat once
every week since the theatre was built. Midway of the
parquet floor sat a placid matron of tifty. beside her fat
and complacent husband ; their views on all subjects must
have coincided exactly with those of Dr. Parkhurst — they
were solid blocks in the fabric of our American civilization
— and they had come here to find something which their
life required, not to be had elsewhere. About them was a
grey mass of padded masculine shoulders, with here and
there, in twos and threes, girls, making spots of colour on
the greyness. Above, the balcony buzzed — and the peanut-
gallery filled suddenly like the breaking of a dam. An
orchestra of seven filed in. And a hush, not of eagerness
but of religious certainty, filled the theatre. In fifteen hun-
dred souls there was the calm that comes of utter confidence
in the absolution (or, as Aristotle would say, kathorsisf)
which they were about to receive. . . .

No one had come there for novelty ; they had come for
the familiar and satisfying benediction of burlesque. The
old rite had changed a little with the changing times — it
pretended to be a "musical comedy" — but the heart of the
ancient mystery was still there. The tunes were those
invented by Jubal, father of all such as handle the harp and
organ — revised slightly, year by year ; the first chord awoke

More or Less Theatrical 219

dim ancestral memories. There was a trace of plot on the
program, and the name of an author; but no one was de-
ceived. For, to put any doubts at rest, and to make clear
that this was simply the ten millionth performance of the
seasonal festival invented by Adam (after a hard day's
work pulling eucalyptus stumps to the westward of Eden),
it was entitled, in the good old traditional manner, ''The
Jolly Girls.''

The orchestra played its immemorial tunes, the sons of
Adam leaned a little forward with a beatific look on their
faces, the curtain rose, and the festival, the sacred orgy,
began. The stage was filled with Beauty, in the form of
four dozen female legs, while in the right wing waited
Laughter, in the shape of a little man with a putty nose.
The legs burst upon the scene in a blaze of light and sound —
a kaleidoscope of calf and ankle, a whirl of soft pink
feminine contours, a paradisiac vision of essential Girl : the
whole theatre breathed forth a sigh of happiness, and the
sons of Adam leant back in their seats, content. The prom-
ise of the dionysiac god to them that toiled and bore harsh
burdens, was being fulfilled.

The legs, encased in pink tights, moved forward and
back, up and down. Somewhere above them were lungs
and larynxes that poured forth a volume of sound, in time
to the hypnotic throb of the music. Gradually, in the melee,
arms became visible, and, vaguely connecting the arms and
legs, pieces of colored cloth that finally became definite as
golden tunics, green sashes, scarlet bodices. Moreover,
there were faces — ^but not real faces of weariness or anger
or sadness, to disturb the illusion — these faces were masks,
painted to express an impersonal and disinterested pleasure
in the exhibition of bodily charms. Pink cheeks, bistred
eyelashed depths that emitted glances at the corners, car-
mined lips set in an imperishable smile — these served as the
perfect and sufficient symbols of a joy that never was on
sea or land. — But faces, after all, belong to another world,
the world of reality; if one looks at them too long, one
sees them, and the dream vanishes ; so they were extinguished

e becan^

220 The Briary-Bush

presently by a row of flying legs and anns — the scene b
a chaos of feminine extremities, the music rose to a climax,
and stopped, as the chorus left the stage. Entered the man
with the putty nose.

He spoke to somebody, in a rapid, monotonous, unintel-
ligible voice; it did not matter, he was only telling what
the plot of the piece was. His real function was revealed
a minute later, when two tramps— a tall one and a short
one — entered, and the tall one hit him over the head with
a stick. The victim fell on his putty nose. The house
rocked with laughter, and the gallery stormed applause.

What secret wish is gratified when we see man who was
created in the image of God falling bump on his nose?
Irresistibly, by a profound impulse, we laugh. The cares
of the day, the harsh realities of life, fade away when in
the golden land of Never-never a tall man enters with his
short companion and hits the third man (he of the putQi.
nose) over the head with a slapstick.

In the course of the evening, the small man was I
over the head fifty-seven hundred times : he rose but to t
again, more helplessly than before. He was also kicked —
in the nose, in the ear, in front and behind. His nose was
pulled into an infinite variety of shapes, being made to
resemble every object under heaven from a telephone wire
to a turnip. He submitted meekly, and upon him the desire
of the whole audience to see mankind made ridiculous was
visited times without number.

Genially, casually, the tall man kicked him in the face
whenever he happened to notice him. The tall man had
taken possession of the stage. Singing, dancing, clowning,
guying, arguing, wheedling, mocking, bullving— now as an
unshaven tramp, a few minutes later as an unshaven Turk,
then as an unshaven pirate — whatever a man could be and
do without first submitting to that odious refinement of
civilization, the clean shave; in a dozen different costumes,
always delightful and irresponsible and seductive, and always
accompanied by his short comrade, he pervaded the evem'

XD^H

More or Less Theatrical 221

He spoke, and the audience laughed; he refrained from
speaking, and the audience laughed.

His slapstick, that magic wand which had only to touch
things to make them funny, was like himself. He had slap-
stick shoulders, slapstick eyebrows, ears, nose, l^;s, poste-
riors; he acted with all of these, eloquently — and at each
gesture some ideal of human dignity was knocked on the
head and tumbled on its nose. He sang, walked across the
room, made love — and these actions, to the immense satis-
faction of the audience, were revealed as essentially absurd.
The precious gift he brought was a genial vulgarity, a hila-
rious cheapening of the values of normal life. When he
spoke, with irresistible drollery, about women, about work,
about marriage, about anything in the world, it became not
worth a — his abrupt gesture told what — and the stout matron
in the middle of the parquet became hysterical with laughter.
For a moment she was not a solid block in the structure of
our respectable American civilization — she was a rebellious
child, delightedly come into a dream world where all burdens
are lifted, all values transvalued. It seemed to do her
good. . . . Then two dimpled soubrettes sang another song.

In and out between these episodes floated the chorus,
shaking its immortal 1^. The legs and their owners
classified themselves into three ranks or hierarchies of fleshly
charm : in front, the "little ones," the "ponies" ; in the next
row, the "mediums"; and, last and most sumptuous, the
"big ones," the "show girls." The big ones were the piece
de resistance; no frills, no sauces, but a satisfying super-
abundance. All that the hungry eye desired was bodied
forth in these vast and shapely statues of feminine flesh,
tipping the scales at not less than two hundred pounds.
Two hundred pounds of arm and leg, bust and buttock;
here was riches, here was Golconda — two hundred pounds
of female meat I A thousand hungry eyes feasted raptur-
ously on the sight.

But this was not the ultimate magic of burlesque.

A storm of applause, and a young woman entered on one

222 The Briary-Bush V

toe, kicking the zenith with the other. A young wotoan?
A pinwhee!, a skyrocket, a slender feminine firework!
Feminine? Not with the obvious allurements of her sex.
Her figure was like that of a boy; boyish was the mis-
chievous face that sparkled behind the tangle of her short
curls. She was hke a sword-blade in this poppyfield of
easy dreams. Her soul was adventurous, like her legs;
she kicked open the zenith with her boisterous boyish laugh.
She defied the code of this tinsel dream-world, in which
women burn with the ready fires of miscellaneous invitation;
she seemed beyond sex. Nor was she a mere bundle of
graceful muscles. She had, shining in contrast to all this
impersonal eroticism, a hint of personality, a will of her
own, an existence independent of the wishes of the audience.
She smiled at them, but scornfully, indifferently, mis-
chievously, — and triumphed over them. That touch of
reality gave a momentary sharp savour to the too-cloyi
illusion. Then she left the stage — on her hands — and
dream- festival went on as before. -r^

The music pounded itself, with endless repetition, through
the senses, into the soul. The rhythm of legs became the
rhythm of the universe. The people of the audience were
absolutely at one with each other and with the genius of
the slapstick, who talked to them familiarly now, as his
friends. Cries and handclaps of applause mingled with the
rhythm. The heart of the theatre beat gigantically, joy-

isly, ecstatically. The play rose to its climax. To the
tune of "Yankee Doodle," the young firework appeared,
turning handsprings, an American flag on the seat of her
pants. Walking on her ear, she crossed the stage, vraving
the flag in the faces of the audience. The audience
applauded in patriotic frenzy. They would have died for
that Rag.

The curtain fell, rose a foot from the floor, and disclosed
a row of legs — legs — legs — twinkling across behind the foot-
lights. Into those legs was concentrated the infinite sorcery
of the theatre. . . . But it was time to go home. It was

More or Less Theatrical 223

time to re-enter the world of reality. — Another leg
appeared, the eloquent left leg of the tall slapstick comedian,
clothed round with heavy woolen drawers and clasped by a
Boston garter. It seemed to say: "After all, my friends,
a 1^ is only a Itg}** The spell was broken, and the audience
hegaia slowly to file out into the dusty street

IXXXII. Duty

FELIX, having torn up all his previous attempts, was
again at work upon a play. It seemed clear to him
now that plays were not written to please the author :
Khey were written to please the public.

There was plenty of lime to work, now. They were
hardly anybody that summer. Clive came occas-
!, and they spent a few week-ends at his place in
s Point. They did not see Phyllis, for she was still
t: the normal school, having heroically decided to shorten
term of her training by taking the summer course.
■othy Sheridan came once or twice to their studio before

Duty 225

"Why don't you write what you want to, in your own
way?" Rose- Aim would ask impatiently.

But he did not want to write "in his own way." The

things he had written to suit himself that spring, the

fantastic dramatic fragments which he had torn up in

disgust, were too utterly freakish, too whimsical and

absurd. He wanted to prove that he could write something

else — something that was not so damnably "different." He

wanted to write a r^[ular three-act play, of the sort that

audiences liked, and he was going to learn to do it if it took

five years. ... It had taken Hawkins five years to get to a

point where he could impress a manager — Hawkins, lending

him a book on play-construction, had confessed as much. . . .

And Hawkins was now on the verge of a brilliant success.

He had gone to New York to collaborate with the manager

on a few final changes.

It was slow going, this way ; but Felix was not discouraged.
It seemed good to struggle at an uncongenial task. Event-
ually he would conquer its difficulties. He might continue
to "get by" with freakish criticism ; but he was going to be
a writer of plays that ordinary people could recognize as
plays. It was not his business to please himself; Bernard
Shaw might do that — but he, Felix, was not Bernard Shaw ;
it was his business to adapt himself to the realities of
current play-writing. ... He told all this to Rose-Aivti, who
listened in hostile silence.

Rose-Ann had changed, become less poignantly restless.
She seemed to have discovered a new way of occupying
herself — or rediscovered an old way, long since abandoned.
"When I was a little girl," she said, "I used to read books
all the time. I found them so much more satisfying than
actual life. And then I stopped reading, and tried to live.
I've hardly read anything since I came to Chicago. ... So
there's lots of things I want to read."

She read, day after day, from the time Felix rose from
their breakfast of grapefruit and coffee and cigarettes, till
afternoon, lying curled up among the pillows of the window
seat; she went out for luncheon somewhere alone, and sat

kliuetoi^

r226 The Briary-Bush

in the Park all afternoon or wandered through the Mm
whose crumbling stucco porticos of nobly antique pattern
looked themselves like rehcs of some departed race; taking
with her a book, which she seldom opened, but which served
for companionship — and a notebook, in which she wrote
sentences and paragraphs which Felix found she would
rather he did not read. "They seem just to belong to me."
L she said, shyly.

I She had relired into some inner chamber of her self, to
f' think and dream ; and the books, the walks, the wanderings
among fragments of dead antiquity, the solitude, were all a
i part of this dream life. . . . The books which she read, a
chapter or two at a time, putting one aside to take np
another, were such as took the mind into strange worlds,
like "Thais" and "The Napoleon of Notting Hill"; or those
which told the adventures of a soul in contact with a new
world which it finds strange and perilous, like "The Dam-
nation of Theron Ware" and "The Red and the Black "
Or books of anthropology and of poetry, those two ideal
guides of the slay-at-home traveller in quest of strangeness.
So much Felix curiously noted, and reflected that he had
been at home in those strange worlds all his life and was now
trying a greater adventure — ^the discovery of the familiar
and commonplace world in which he actually lived. . , .

Wlien Felix left the office, having hastily written "some-
thing light" for the editorial page, or furbished up a few
paragraphs for the dramatic column, he would come hsi
to the studio and work fiercely and painfully for V
three hours.

"But. Felix, you work too liard!" Rose-Ann had t
him. "That isn't the way to work!" Whatever Ihc
to work might be, he had not yet found it ; but at li
could try. . . . And late in the afft—i-
pen with a sense of duty done, i
and find Rose-Ann waiting for I
and note-book ii "

to dine, and then i
lake, talking.

Duty 227

Yes, Rose-Ann had changed, become less fiery and im-
patient, more cabn. And coming at this hour out of that
inner chamber of self in which she spent her days, she
brought to him quaint and lovely thoughts, delicate and a
ironic fancies, things that charmed and allured his
imagination.

She told him one day the story of a "girl-goldsmith," a
figure that seemed to have captured her imagination, in a
book called "Klaus Hinrich Bass,'^ by a German clergyman
named Frenssen — a startling story to be written by a clergy-
man, Felix thought ; but, reflecting upon Rose-Ann's father,
he remembered that he knew very little about clergymen
after all. It was the story of a girl who believed in the
truth and goodness of her instincts ; Rose-Ann told it with
such zest and poetic feeling that he read it one afternoon,
when she was away in the Park, for himself ; and he found
that she had re-created it in her own imagination, giving to
Frenssen's idyl of sweet and fearless love some motives
and meanings which it did not seem to him to possess as he
read it in the pages of the book ; it was as if Rose-Ann knew
some things about that girl-goldsmith which Frenssen him-
self had not guessed. . . . And sometimes, when Rose- Ann
told some story she had read, and Felix asked her whose
it was, she pretended to have forgotten — and he wondered
if it were not her own. But he feared to demand the
truth, lest the shy beginnings of creative effort be frightened
by his questioning.

It was strange sometimes to feel that she was entering
the world of dreams just as he was leaving it.

One hot July evening, when he wanted to work on his
play, she insisted on his coming outdoors with her. "You
don't want to work," she said. "You know it!"

"Isn't that a good reason for working, perhaps ?" he said.
He had that day had a note from Hawkins in New York, and
Hawkins's patient plodding and prospective success were
making him feel ashamed of his own laziness.

228

The Briary-Bush

She showed a touch of her old impatience, "Has it
come to thisl" she said. "Felix, do you really think the
way to be an artist is to do all the things you don't want
to do? I wonder if you take our marriage in the same
spirit! Am I a duty, loo?"

"Ridiculous child !" he said, and went out with her.

"We're going to take a ride on the lagoon," she said, and
led him to the landing place, where a little launch presently
chugged up and discharged its dozen passengers. Felix and
Rose-Ann clambered in, and sat in the bow. The other
waiting people followed them, and the boat started slowly
out into the mysterious islanded waters, stabbing with its
searchlight into the warm thick darkness and revealing with
that unearthly light, here and there, some place of trees
bending to dip their boughs into the water — the edge of one
of the islands around and past which they steered slowly,
turning and winding about until they seemed to be exploring
a vast islanded wilderness. The breeze stirred faintly the
hair of their bared heads. The others of the party appeared
to be lovers happily entranced with love and with the myste-
rious beauty of this realm which it seemed could hardly exist
in the confines of a mere park. No one spoke, except in
whispers.

"Life ought to be like this," whispered Rose-Ann. taking
his hand. "Not arranged and planned !"

A little later, she whispered fiercely : "Felix, are you
thinking of that damned play? Then stop itl"

It was true. Felix had been thinking of his play. He
became annoyed with her. She wanted him to write plays,
to be a personage—and now, when he tried. . . .

As if in reply to his thought, she bent and said in his
ar, "Felix, if you write a conventional play like Hawkins's,
and make a success of it, I shall leave you!"

He was inwardly dismayed.

"1 wonder — " said Rose-Ann aloud, and then s
if startled at hearing her voice.

"Yes?" said Felix,

Duty 229

"Nothing," she whispered. "Ill tell you afterward."

And afterward, in a cafe where they had stopped for a
cool drink before goii^ home to bed, she told him that
she did not want him to be successful — that she meant it
quite seriously.

**It would spoil everything," she said.

"Never fear, I shan't be so successful as that/' he said
glumly.

"But that's just what I'm afraid of — that you will I" she
said. "I looked at your scenario the other day when you
were at the office; and it's — ^well, I've seen that play a
hundred times; it's what they call sure-fire stuflF."

She said this reproachfully, but Felix was elated. That
was exactly what he had been tr3ring to make it. "Do you
really think so!" he asked.

"I do," she said. "And I know that if you keep on
long enough, you'll succeed. But I wish you wouldn't"

"Why not?"

"Because, Felix, that play isn't true — ^not as we see truth.
It makes people behave as people think they ought to —
not as we know they feel. You deal in conventional emo-
tions entirely. The only interesting person in the play is
the wicked woman — and you know she isn't wicked at all,
Felix, you only pretend to think so to please your audience."

"You mean the woman who tries to take the other
woman's husband away from her? Oh, I know — ^it's stupid
StuflF, but—"

"Well, then, why do you do it? If you want to write
about a girl who's in love with another woman's husband,
why don't you do it honestly? You and I don't believe in
those silly old notions. Why pretend that you think she
is wicked? Just to make money? I'd rather we starved
than have you write plays like that."

It was at once an immense relief to be told that he need
not try any longer to write that stupid play, and a profound
humiliation to be scolded by his wife. He did not know
whether to be angry or ashamed. His eyes filled with

■230

The Briary-Bush

Itears, and he reached across the table and laid his hand in
I hers in silence.

"What was it you were going to tell me there in the
|Park," he said afler a while.

"I was thinking about 'duty,' " she said. "Your attitude
I toward life reminds me of a little story I read the other
Bday — I think it was in Anatole France ... a curious
1 little story. . , . If you want to hear it?"

"Yes, tell me."

XXXIII. A Parable

FELIX ses^rched afterward through several volumes
of Anatole France for that story, but he never could
find it, and he suspected that she had made it up
herself ... or perhaps it was a story her father had told
her — it sounded rather like it . . .

"It seems," she smilingly began, "that there ¥ras a young
Roman nobleman, in the early Christian days, who was
rich and handsome and beloved; and he had a slave who
was a Christian. And Julian — I think that was the young
nobleman's name — used to discuss Christianity with this
slave. It seemed to him a barbarian superstition, but he had
heard of some intelligent people becoming converted to its
doctrines, so he wanted to know more about it. The slave
explained. And Julian laughed, saying that these doctrines
were even more absurd than he had supposed.

"But Julian, who was a perfect young Roman gentleman,
always doing what was expected of him and what everybody
else did, became more and more bored with the life he was
living. He continued to talk with his slave about Christian-
ity, and finally became converted. And he said, 'I see now
that this life of mine is a tissue of vanities in which there is
no real joy. I will renounce my wealth and my title, give up
my old habits, and then receive baptism and b^n a life of
true Christian happiness.'

" 'Good,' said the slave. *I will go and tell my brethren.'

"Now Julian kept a stable and had been fond of racing.
He had a favourite mare which he used to hitch up to a
small but elegant chariot, and drive very fast through the
streets of Rome, wearing a chaplet of flowers. But all

231

232

The Briary-Bush

this looked very silly to him now and so he went first 3^
all to his stable, and said to his headgroom: "I have wasted
enough time with these soulless brutes. Sell them!"

"The head-groom was thunderstruck. 'But,' he stam-
mered, 'there are the big races next week !'

'"What of it?' said Julian,

" 'Well.' said the head-groom, 'all your friends are betting
on your mare, and they'll think — '

" 'I don't care what they think,' said Julian.

" 'I've put all the money I've got in the world on her
myself,' said the head-groom, sadly. 'I've been very proud
of that filly!'

"Julian was touched. This loyalty deserved an explana-
tion from him. But how could he explain? This good-
hearted simple man would never understand. He would
simply think his master had gone crazy, and would hold
that against Christianity. It did not seem fair that
Christianity should get a hlack eye through such a well-
meaning but hasty action as this that he had contemplated.
He realized that he must go about the matter of becoming
a Christian in a more practical way,

" 'After all,' he said, 'there is nothing very wicked about
horse-racing. I will keep my horses' — and he cotmier-
manded his order to the head-groom — 'and go' and give up
Leila instead.' Leila vras a Persian girl, and the most beau-
tiful of his three mistresses. Once he had given her up, it
would be easier to dispense with the others,

"He went to see Leila, and told her about becoming a
Christian, 'Is it the thing to do?' she asked, 'Then I
will become one, too 1' Dear, sweet, simple soul ! He tried
to explain, but she understood nothing, until he said that
it meant that he would have to part with her. Then she
burst into tears, and cast herself at his feet, and cried out,
'Is it true, then, that you no longer love me?'

"He told her that he loved her more than ever, but in a
different way : now he loved her soul. 'You have a soid.
Leila,' he said, 'an immortal soul — and it is high time j
b^an to think about saving it, tool'

A Parable 233

** 'Stay with me/ she begged, 'and explain all tfiese things
to me. I think if you are kind to me I can understand
you, and learn to save my soul, whatever that means. But
do not look at me coldly, for that frightens me.'

" 'After all,' he thought, 'she has as much a right to save
her soul as I have to save mine. Perhaps I had better
break it to her gently. In the course of a few weeks — *
And so he kissed her and stayed to explain.

"It was harder than he had realized to become a Chris-
tian. His other mistress was angry at him when he proposed
to leave her, and said that it was because he preferred that
Persian hussy with her silly doll-face! It pained him to
have his motives so misconstrued, but why, after all, should
he discriminate against this girl? She, too, had a soul.
As for the third one, he put off mentioning the subject to
her; he was discouraged with the results of his previous
efforts, and besides, he felt that women did not understand
these things very well.

'"At least,' he said, 'I will receive baptism; and these
other things will go easier after that.'

"But on the day set for the ceremony, his mother re-
minded him that it was the day of the festival of Diana,
her favourite goddess. It had been his filial custom to
escort hift mother to the temple, and sprinkle with her a few
grains of incense in the fire which burned before the statue
of tfie goddess. He had never believed in the gods and
goddesses— no cultivated Roman did — but it had seemed to
him a harmless and pretty custona. . . . Now he endeav-
oured to explain to his mother why he could not accompany
her. Of course the dear old lady could not understand.
It seemed to her that her child had fallen under the influence
of godless men, and she wept bitterly. 'To have this happen
to me in my old age I' she wailed.

"He could not bear to see his mother cry like that And
it seemed to him that there must be some mistake: how
could this new religion of kindness and gentleness and love
command him to break his mother's heart?

"He comforted her, and said he would go with her after

tS^

234 The Briary-Bush

all, and sent word tliat the baptism was to be postponed
a while.

"Julian pondered this situation in the silent hours of
night, when Leila was asleep. And il seemed to him
perhaps he, too, was a martyr — a different kind of martyr
than any his Qiristian slave had told him about, but a
martyr none the less. Upon him lay tlie burden of seeming
to be a mere pagan profligate, sunk in idleness and debauch-
ery, while in truth he was carrying out the precepts of
kindness and gentleness and love which he had learned from
his slave. He was a Christian after all — too much of a
Christian to hurt anybody's feelings. And nobody would
ever understand! That was the saddest part of all, and
he shed a few tears, waking Leila, who was frightened by
these tears, and had to be comforted. . . ,

"He continued to live, in outward seeming, the ordinary
life of a young Roman profligate, while inwardly his heart
was dedicated to the austere practices of virtue. He wished
that he could go to the desert, and wear sackcloth, and go
hungry, like his more fortunate brethren. But, no— duty
compelled him to bear the burden of meaningless riches and
idleness and pleasure. Eventually, he was appointed gov-
ernor of a Roman province, where he distinguished himself
in a quiet way by the economy and orderliness of his ruler-
ship, and by a moderation of the severities currently prac-
tised against new sects. Nevertheless, strange to say. the
Christians of that province hated him, and spread scandalous
stories about him. He bore all this meekly, but in his
breast was a profound sadness. None of those martyrs
whom from his cushioned seat at the gladiatorial games he
saw go, pale but erect and proud — rather spectacularly
proud, he thought, to meet the hons (for after all, in spite
of his moderation, he had to sacrifice a Christian virgin or
two now and then to satisfy the mob) — none of them, year
by year, would ever know that he too was, in his quiet
unassuming way, also a martyr."

XXXIV. Journeys

AGAIN Felix tore up his unfinished play. Rose-Ann
had shattered his philosophy of compromise. But
still he hesitated to accept her philosophy of freedom.
Throughout the summer he idled and dreamed.

Late in August he took his vacation. Part of it they
were to spend in paying their long-due visits to their re-
spective families ; the rest was to be given to a walking trip.
They went first to Spring^eld.

Rose-Ann's father lived, under the mismanagement of
an unmarried sister, a fussy, well-meaning woman, in the
rambling old house which Rose-Ann had described to Felix
— the house in which she had been born. It was filled
with vexatiously new furniture, except as to the old man's
study — ^a shabby, comfortable, low-ceilinged, book-lined
room at the top of the house. It was to this room that
Rose-Ann had once stolen, in the dead of night, to get the
Dan-Emp volume of the Encyclopedia, to read about
dancing.

The Rev. Mr. Prentiss seemed more subdued in his home
surroundings — a picturesque and mildly eccentric clergy-
man, but by no means the disturbing force he had been
during his brief visit to them in Chicago the year before.
. . . And Rose-Ann's brothers were not at all the terrible
persons he had been led to imagine — interested only in
money-making. They were quite obviously proud of their
father; and Felix felt that they were rather proud of him,
too — pleased, at least, to have a "writer" in the family.
They— or tfieir wives — had severally subscribed to Ac

a35

236

The Briary-Bush

Chicago Chronicle in order to read Felix's draniatic cifl^
cisms, which they took very seriously, and sometimes clipped
out and saved for their guidance when the plays of which
he wrote reached Springfield. Felix had expected to find
them aJien and a little hostile ; on the contrary he was rather
embarrassingly deferred to — treated distinctly as a per-
sonage.

He enjoyed his brief visit, and could not understand the
relief Rose-Ann showed when they had bade her family
good-bye and were on their way to visit his own parents on
the farm further down in the state. It ought to be easy
enough, he felt, to get along with such people as Rose-Ann's
relatives. It was the thought of seeing his own parents
that filled him with uneasiness.

"But, Felix," she explained impatiently, "it's because they
are my relatives, I feel their criticism all the time."

"I don't think they criticize you any more," he said^,.
"You've had a struggle with them — and you've
They've accepted the situation now. I think they've <
accepted me." _

"You're not their property, and I am," she said. "But
it isn't my brothers that count so much any more — we
look prosperous, and that's about as far as they can judge
us. It's my father — I feel as though he were seeing right
through me . . . and smiling."

"Smiling at what?"

"At — my pretences. I can't explain very well, but I fee!
as though I were a — a fake, a fraud, when I'm with him."

"But what about?"

"I don't know, exactly. But he stirs up some childish
confusion in me. ... I think I have all my life been trying
to live up to my father's expectations — not of me, for I
don't think he expects anything of me — but of womankind
... if that seems to you to make sense. It's as if !
were trying to prove to him that women could be — I don't
know what, but perhaps . . . different from my mother.
For instance, I want to be a certain kind of wife to you,
Felix — ^not possessive, not interfering, and all that. I go

■■^

Journeys 237

along thinking I am that kind of wife — and then I see
him looking at me and smiling, and I have the feeling
that it isn't true . . . that I'm just Woman all over again,
the only kind of woman he knows, the kind he hates. Yes,
I feel that I am just that kind — and I wonder if tfiere is
any other kind — and I get desperate and want to prove
there is. I couldn't have stood it there much longer.
I should have done some crazy thing! ... I don't suppose
you can understand — ^you aren't a girl!"

He couldn't understand; though it was true that as the
train carried them nearer and nearer to his own parents, he
became more and more uncomfortable. . . . The situation
was diflFerent enough; Rose- Ann had felt that their pros-
perous air secured them against family criticism ; Felix felt
that same appearance as a reproach to his conscience. . . .

"I've felt for years," he said, "that I was an ung^teful
child. I hate to go there to exhibit my prosperity to thenL
Of course, it isn't so tremendous a prosperity — ^but it's
enough to make me feel ashamed. You know how hard it
is for me to write to my mother; and I hardly ever can
bring myself to write except when I can send her a little
money — ^as if, yes, as if in penance for my desertion of her!"

"Would you like to have her live with us?"

"No — I wouldn't. I owe her too much, I couldn't bear
to be always reminded of the debt. It's a debt that's too
huge — I never can pay it, and I try to forget it."

"The thought that she loves you more than )rou love her
— is that what makes you feel ungrateful?"

"I suppose so. I do love her — "

"Of course you do, Felix!"

"More than I want to, perhaps ! I can't forget her, and
I resent that. I want to get away from her. . . . She petted
and spoiled me when I was a child. She wanted to keep
me a child always. She kept me in skirts, she kept me
wearing long curls — she made a baby of me. My whole
life is in a sense tryii^ to get away from that. . . . You'll

238 The Briary-Bush ^H

see — she'll wait on me, "hand and foot,' as they say — try
to make me her baby again. She'll anticipate my wishes,
and jump up from the table to get something for me, and
follow me about with her eyes — and I'll get to feeling help-
less, and then furious — and then I'll say something cross
to her, and be ashamed of myself. . . . Oh, well !"

"So you have queer feelings about your parents, tool"

The visit did not justify all these forebodings. . . . The
house was the same as Felix had remembered it, only
smaller : the same boxes of moss-roses grew beside the door,
and peacocks as of old screamed in the yard; there was a
little porch, with a wild-cucumber vine trained up to screen
out the light, and on that porch his father and mother sat,
the Sunday morning of their arrival, in rocking-chairs, his
mother reading a paper through spectacles that sat slightly
askew, his father smoking a fat pipe. , . . They were not
so old as he had in several years of absence begun to pic-
ture them ; his father's plump little body looked surprisingly
sturdy, and there was a youthful humour in his mother's
smile as she sat talking, unaware of her son's approach, . . .

The first greetings over, Felix's two aunts appeared
from within the house — really old people these, Felix
thought, but still wearing their air of aggressive self-
dependence. They had looked after their little farm for so
many years, without any masculine assistance except from
an occasional hired man, that they resented, somewhat Felix
thought, his father's presence there, as a slur on their own
capacity for taking care of themselves. They treated him
a little scornfully, as if, being a man, he were a rather help-
less person, and more of a nuisance than a help. He un-
derstood this, and smiled genially and tolerantly at their re-
marks, he being secure in the knowledge ihat it took a man
to run things and that the real boss of this establishment
was himself. . . . Just before they were seated at Sunday
dinner, he led Felix to a cupboard, and smilingly produced
a bottle of whiskey. "Have a httle something to imprc
your appetite ?" he asked.

Felix poured himself a drink, and his father did the s

Journejrs 239

carefully raising the tumbler so as to let the light shine
through the golden liquid, and smacking his lips after he
had poured it down his throat — while Felix's two atmts
stonily ignored this masculine nonsense, and his mother
looked on with an air of mild disapproval.

At dinner they talked about tfie crops; his father was
happy in being a farmer again; happy, after years of
increasing uselessness in town while his children were
growing up, in being master of a situation, the real head of
a household; happy, and boyishly active, despite his spells
of rheumatism, of which he also discoursed seriously and
uncomplainingly. He had had a bad spell this last winter —
in fact they had all been bothered with it — but they had
found a liniment which seemed to do some good. ''Pretty
powerful stuff!" he said. "I sometimes wondered which
was the worst, tfiat liniment or the rheumatism — ^but it
appeared to do the work!"

With the dessert they came to the fortunes of Felix —
briefly alluded to before, but saved to the last for thorough
consideration. They wanted to know all about Felix's job,
or rather all about how important a personage he had
become. Felix's shame in his good fortune gradually dis-
appeared as he realized how immensely proud they all were
of him — how they hugged his success to tfieir hearts and
enjoyed it. It was as tfiough his good fortune were their
own!

Rose- Ann liked them immensely, and that night reproached
Felix for never having told her what lovely people they
were. She entered into their domestic life, busied herself
in the kitchen, and displayed qualities as a cook which he
had never, in their studio-life, realized that she possessed.
Their little studio-dinners had been masterpieces in their
way. But to see Rose-Ann coming in flushed and trium-
phant from the kitchen with one dish after another of an
old-fashioned coimtry dinner in her hands was a new expe-
rience.

240 The Briary-Bush ^|

Rose-Ann had smoked surreptitiously during her visit T^
her own home, merely wishing not to offend her aunt by
any ostentatious indulgence of what that good iady regarded
as a reprehensible practice; but here she did not smoke at
all, even in their room at night. She did not want to do
anything that Felix's folks would not like, and was seriously
concerned to secure their approval. , . . .\nd she secured
it — for who could resist Rose-Ann in her most buoyant
mood?

The visit had not been as disturbing as he had expected ;
and yet he was glad to go.

"Felix," said Rose-Ann, as they took the train back
to Chicago, "I think I understand why we feel this way.
It's because all our lives — and this is the truth — we've
scorned the older generation. And we are ashamed, coming
back to face them, because we've nothing better — really—
show for our lives than they have."

"I wonder?" he said.

"But we can be happy in a way they knew nothing alx
Felix. We can. And we shall!"

Then came their real vacation — a week's walking trip
in Wisconsin.

The night-boat carried them from Oiicago to Milwaukee,
and from thence, early in the morning, dressed now in their
oldest clothes, and with packs on their backs, they set out
happily on foot. They stopped by the roadside to make
themselves a breakfast of eggs and bacon, cooked in the
ten-cent frying pan that dangled from one comer of Felix's
pack; pausing again at mid-day for a luncheon of black-
berries and raspberries gathered in some bramble -patch. At
night they reached, in a drizzling rain that had accompanied
them for the last hour of their journey, a town with an
ugly little hotel, where they could at least dry their clothes,
eat a poor dinner with a good appetite, and sleep, dog-tired
and happy, from ten o'clock till dawn.

And thus onward, in the general direction of "the del

aba^l

Journeys 241

Most of the time they did not know just where they were
going next, nor care; they took the most promising road.

The "dells'* at last — steep ravines, miniature canyons, up
wMch they went in the guide's leaky little gasoline launch,
landing to explore the quaint caverns in the rocks, dim-
lighted by the daylight that sifted through the openings
above. . . . And so back, by new roads, glad they had no
map to take the surprise out of their journey.

Felix had never realized how much robust strength and
endurance Rose-Ann had until they tramped those Wisconsin
roads. They were not above taking a lift in some farmer's
wagon or passing automobile, if it promised to get them to
a town with a hotel before nightfall; but, having come in
sight of the town, if the night promised to be clear, they
hunted up some promising spot and encamped there: for
what W2LS the use of carrying two heavy woollen blankets,
if they were not going to sleep out under the stars by a
camp-fire?

Felix's old corduroys, splashed with kalsomine in all
colours, caused him to be taken for an "artist." At first
this displeased him — but he soon discovered that all the
world envies the artist, loves him, and wishes to take care
of him. Old farmers, burly truck-drivers, delivery-boys,
tourists, wanted to give them a lift, and offered them their
best counsel as to where to go next. Hotel-keepers, grocers
at whose shops they replenished their food supplies, and
farmers' wives at houses where they stopped till a shower
passed over, talked to them with friendly eagerness. Felix
perceived that a pair of foot-loose vagabonds with enough
money in their pockets to pay for their bread and ^gs
and bacon, are fortunate beings, the world's darlings, beamed
on and approved by those who sleep under roofs and hold
steady jobs and stay day after day in the same place —
approved because they are living life as all men and women
know it should be lived : if everybody cannot live that way
themselves, they are glad to see somebody else who can!

As they tramped, Felix's mind went back to the songs
of vagabondia which he used to cherish, and then had

1 242 The Briary-Bush

I rejected as romantic and fcxilish ; and at night, beside their
■ dying camp-fire, when Rose-Ann demanded poetry before
I she went to sleep, he would say for her the little fragments
I that he remembered :

"Down the world with Mama,
Tkafs Ike life for met
IVandcring with Ike wandering rain
It's unboundaried domain. . . .
"Mm — I forget. Anyway —

". . . . the joys of the road are chiefly these —
A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees. . . .
A vagrant's morning, wide and blue.
In early fall, when the wind walks, too. . . .
A shadowy highway, cool and brown.
Alluring «/> and enticing down. . , ,

crap of gossip at the ferry.
And II comrade neither glum nor merry,
ing ndhiiig. revealing naught,

Journeys 243

used to trust in myself. I used to believe this sort of thing:
— it's by Bliss Carman, the man that wrote the vagabond
poems. —

"Keep thou, by same large instinct^
Unwasted, fair and whole.
The innocence of nature.
The ardor of the soul —

"And through the realms of being
Thou art at liberty

To pass, enjoy, and linger.
Inviolate, and free! "

"And don't you believe that now, Felix?"

"That I can do as I please, if — "

"If it's what you really please to do! Yes, Felix. You
can have any happiness you ever want, if you really want
it — ^not cynically, nor because other people seem to have it,
but because it belongs to you. I believe that. I don't
intend ever to keep from doing anything I want to do. And
I shan't be ashamed of myself, either. Do you remember
the girl-goldsmith I told you about, in the story?"

"I remember her very well," said Felix. "I know one
of her speeches almost by heart. 'The only sins are telling
lies, and not keeping one's body clean, and being careless
about one's work — ^ugly things. Beautiful things — the things
people sometimes call sins — aren't sins at all. Being in love
isn't ever a sin.' "

"Yes," said Rose-Ann dreamily. "I want us to be like
that — not afraid of life, or of any of the beautiful things
life brings us."

Well . . . yes ... it sounded simple enough. To live
life beautifully, and not be afraid! He had believed in
that once. But now— or had he really ceased to believe it
possible ? At this moment, in the moonlight, it did not seem
so absurd. . . .

"Good night, Felix."

"Good night, Rose-Ann."

XXXV. Civilization

THEY came back refreshed to civiliiation — to
studio, lo a whirl of exciting parties, to books
ideas, to the problems of ambition, to the Chronicle
office and a theatrical season just opening with hectic
annoiincements of "Alias Jimmy Valentine," "The Case of
Becky," "The Pink Lady" and "The Chocolate Soldier". . .

Hawkins was still in New York, assisting in the selection
of a cast for his play — which to Felix's complete astonish-
ment (for Hawkins had not confided anything to him as to
its theme or character) was announced as "Tootsie-Wootsie."
A farce! — with, as it further appeared, honeymoon couples
and wrong bedrooms. . . . What? Hawkins, the serious
Hawkins, who had so often called upon American drama
to do its duty and deal with "the problems of the time" —
he the author of a play called "Tootsie-Wootsie"?

The news of Hawkins's play brought up in Felix's mind
a practical question which so far he had refused to consider.
It had been exciting enough to be the acting dramatic critic
of the Chronicle; he had not wanted to look ahead any
further. But when one day at lunch he ran into Jennison
("the dean of the critical fraternity"), jennison asked him,
"Are you going to do the plays for the Chronicle?" "Yes,
while Hawkins is away," Felix told him. "Does Hawkins
know it?" "Yes — he asked me to." "Well," said Jennison.
smiling, "then he's a damn fool!" That was old Jennison's
way of paying him an extravagant compliment. It was in
its way an accolade. It was an initiation, by the grand past
master, into the "critical fraternity." And now Felix felt
obliged to consider the question of Hawkins and Hawkins's
play in its bearing upon his own career.

Civilization 245

If Hawkins's play failed — and most plays did fail —
Hawkins wquld return and resume his post on the Chronicle.
In that event, Felix would be relegated to doing the odd jobs
that Hawkins did not want to do. He might even be put
back to regular reporting. After all, the present arrange-
ment merely provided for a dramatic critic in Hawkins's
absence; it was not likely they would want two men
continuously on the job. They had given Felix another
raise that fall; and when Hawkins came back, he would
have to earn his salary doing regular reporter's work again,
doubtless — if he could earn it that way. It was rather a
dismal prospect. . . . Felix hoped fervently that the serious-
minded Hawkins would somcliow, improbably, turn out a
success as a farceur.

But if it was a success, and Hawkins resigned his position,
how could Felix know he would get it? After all, he was
only twenty-three years old. And though by a fluke he
was actually being for a while the dramatic critic of a great
Chicago newspaper, the idea that he should retain this
position and be confirmed in its title was incredible. He
wished that he were not so fatally young. . . .

Well — he could only wait and see what happened.

It was at this period that he b^^n wearing a moustache —
a short, well-defined moustache, aloof from the upper lip,
trim and straight Nothing boyish, certainly about tfiat
motistache I

Felix and Rose- Ann had come back to Chicago eager to see
Qive Bangs again. They had been away just long enough
to discover, in apparently all human beings except them-
selves, a fundamental lack of interest in all the ideas
which most occupied their minds. Talk, with people in
general, was limited to an exchange of views, if not on the
weather, at least on things equally obvious. They felt the
need for talk, and so did Give ; and all at once, after what
now seemed to them these months of merely casual friend-
ship, they became inseparable. The three of them lunched

I246 The Briary-Bush

Itogether daily at a comer table in a little Hungarian
Irestaurant where they found what they considered the best
Ifood in Chicago — a fond trio, laughing, talking excitedly,
I arguing with the mingled gravity and extravagance of
■youth, sometimes rehearsing passionately in private the
Bopinions which they would state tomorrow somewhat more
Bsoberly in print, and again discussing each other's characters
■with ironic humour — perpetually criticizing and taking
Bdelight in each other's criticism of life.

XXXVI. "We Needs Must Know That

in the Days to Come

THEY had come back to civilization. But — ^unwit-
tingly, at first — ^into this life of talk, of ideas, of
theory, of vague ambition and of self-congratulatory
superiority to the mere plain facts of life, they brought some-
what more than a memory of their vagabond adventuring.
In their brief and joyous return to nature they had surren-
dered themselves to its purposes more deeply than they had
been aware. But presently Rose-Ann announced that she
would have to visit the doctor of whom Dorothy Sheridan
had once told her. Rose-Ann did not say that she was with
child — that phrase was never used between them in their few
discussions of the incident. For that phrs^se would have
implied that she intended to bear a child. It was discussed
rather as an accident, an annoying but not serious interrup-
tion to their plans. Rose-Ann took the matter, not lightly,
but in a soberly practical spirit And so convincing was her
tone that it did not occur to Felix to question the sincerity of
her apparent attitude.

Secretly he was troubled. In spite of Rose-Ann's
confidence, he distressed himself with what appeared to be
needless forebodings. It seemed to be true that real life
was, in this matter as in others, different from fiction. In a
story, this would have been a desperate situation; but in
actual fact it appeared to have no such gravity. He hoped
that was indeed the truth ; and, afterward, it appeared that
she had been right ... He wondered why he had been so
absurd about it I

She would never know how absurd. ... He would never

247

1 248 The Briary-Bush

Itell her how, one night, walking alone along a dark stretch
I of lake shore, his courage had failed him utterly ; how all
I the terrible things of which he had ever heard had rushed
linto his mind, filling and flooding it with a kind of nameless
|remorse, until he had ceased to be a man, and had become
L mere terrified child — and how in the influence of that
Iguilty terror he had sunk on his knees in the wet sand,
Ipraying to a God he did not believe in, whispering like a
Ichild to a kind Father: "God, don't let anything happen to
Iher!" He had not thought of her then as a free woman
lacting wisely in her own right — no, but only as a helpless
land lovely girl, his beloved, given him to cherish and protect,
■whom he had let go down to the very gates of death — in
Ivain! Not in the terrible triumph of creation, but mean-
linglessly. . . . And he prayed: ~

lAnn!". . .

"Give me back Rose-

, he would never tell her what a fool he had been.

XXXVII. Symbols

ROSE-ANN had become restless again. Once more
she threatened to go out and get a job. Books no
longer contented her; and if she had secretly
cherished, as Felix had thought, some dreams of writing,
they had vanished, like her notebook, which was no more to
be seen. They gave wild parties, extended the number of
their friends, and went to dinner-parties, where Rose-Ann
shone as always, and even Felix began to be able to take
care of himself. She went to the theatre with Felix and
took down his criticizms on her typewriter from dictation,
as she had a year ago. But these activities did not quite
content her volatile spirit.

Her restlessness expressed itself, delightfully enough, in
a resumption of the endless midnight talks which had marked
the first period of their married intimacy. Their daylight
hours together now seemed never to suffice them for talking.
Those hours were too filled up with work, and play, and
friends. During the day a thousand ideas, observations,
comments, stories, had been stored away by each for the
other^s benefit. A glance at dinner had meant: ''Did you
sec that? Yes — ^well talk about it tonight." In these
gatherings, however friendly stnd outspoken, something was
always left unsaid, reserved especially for each other. The
heart of every occasion was in its midnight aftermath, in
the long wakeful hours in bed, remembering, criticizing,
laughing, talking, talking. . . . Marriage had come to mean
above all else the peculiar magic of that intimacy. Some- *'
times her voice would come mysteriously out of the dark
at his side, and again the moonlight would creep in over

the roofs and tease the scene with its glamour. Their

249

250

The Briary-Bush

I beds, in summer two little oases of coolness in the sultry
I night, became in winter warm-coverleted citadels against
1 the cold— two little fiiendly islands, with two voices floating
I pleasantly back and forth. "Light me another cigarette."
1 Rose-Ann would say sleepily. Tired, but kept awake by all
I they had to tell each other, the mere thoughts and incidents
I of the day made precious by this re-living of them together,
I they lay and talked out their hearts.

"Felix strikes me as rather paintable. Could you spare
I him a few afternoons for a sitting now and then ? I mean,
I some time this winter? I'm getting interested in doing
Iportrails again."

"I'd love to have you !"

Dorothy Sheridan had come back from her fishing village,
■ and a little trip abroad to boot, and she and the Fays were
J in a little restaurant to which she had taken them —
very far from their studio, a little Italian place

Symbols 25 1

ings were, with one or two exceptions, m a vivid, splashing
style that Felix liked. "I've changed my style since going
to Paris," she said. "These things are what they call over
there Post-Impressionist. Ill do you in my best Cezanne-
Matisse manner, Felix, with some variations all my own.
You won't know yourself!"

Rose- Ann had been most impressed by some of Dorothy's
old sketches, particularly a series of lovely nudes done in
pencil with a hard, vibrant line. Dorothy picked one of
them out and gave it to Rose-Ann. "Here's one that looks
like you," she said, appraising Rose-Ann's figure with a
judicious eye. "You can use it for a book-plate if you like."

It was like Rose-Ann, Felix thought, when she pinned it
on the wall that night — ^it had the same firm and delicate
contours, the same sweet livingness of a body that is made
for movement, for action, for intense and poignant use.
The figure in the drawing was poised in the hesitant instant
before flight, with head turned to look backward, and the
whole body ready at the next moment either to relapse
again into reassured repose or to put all its force into some
wild dash for freedom. And somehow that too reminded
him of Rose-Ann— of Rose-Ann's soul.

Rose-Ann was looking at the picture with eyes in which
some purpose fulminated darkly.

'What are you thinking?" he asked.
'That I shall never wear corsets again I It's really absurd,
isn't it? To imprison one's body in such a thing as
that. . . . I'm going to bum mine up— now!" And pres-
ently, in her chemise and stockings, she solemnly knelt before
the Franklin stove and laid the offending article upon the
live coals.

"The last of my conventions!" she said, as if to herself. *

And then, as it commenced to smoulder, and an acrid
odour of burnt rubber emerged, she wrinkled her nostrils
and put her thumb and finger to them. "It thmells bad!"
she said. And reflectively: "I suppose conventions always
do, at the end. . . . Well, it's gone now, and my body is
free. — Gone forever, leaving nothing but a . . . faint un-

252 The Briary-Bush

Ipleasant odour, shall I say? — behind. . . . Felix — would you
ind if I cut off my hair?"
"Cut off— !"

"Short, you know. Like Dorothy Sheridan's. I've al-
■ways wanted to. And 1 never quite had the nerve. Living
Ihere, it seems only natural. You wouldn't mind?"

She loosened her hair and it fell about her shoulders.
■ like a flame. "I think it would curl if it were cut. It did
Iwhen I was a little girl."

"We've no scissors," said Felix, practically — deferrii^ in
Ihis own mind the question of whether he would like her
|hair cut short or not. He did not know. It would look
—there was no doubt at all of that. He had always
[wondered at the foolish vanity of women, in putting up
vith the inconvenience of long hair. He had felt that long
I hair was in some way a* badge of woman's dependence on
Iman, a symbol of her faihire to achieve freedom for her-
And yet . . . when it came to Rose-Ann's hair —
ise-Ann read his face as a wife can. "No, I suppose

Symbols 253

*'Rose-Annl^ he said angrily. She should have let him
make that coffee. . . .

She knelt and offered him the cup, with the air of a
page-boy. Then it was that he saw that her hair was shorn.
Short bronze locks fell clustering about her face in tiny
curls, making it boyish, and yet, it seemed, more girlish
than ever. She turned sideways as he stared, and tilted her
head. For the first time its proud contour stood fully
and beautifully revealed. "Isn't that better than an old
top-knot?" she said.

"But how—" he b^;an.

"Borrowed scissors from neighbour," she replied. "What
are neighbours for, if not to depend on in an emergency?"

"Why is this an emergency?" he demanded, still with-
holding his approval. "Couldn't you wait and go to the
barber?" Some of the edges, he noted, were rather jagged.

"No, Felix. Don't you remember Browning's poem about
the Statue and the Bust? One puts off things. 'So days
grew months, years.' Moral: do it now. — But do you like
me this way, Felix?"

"Of course I like you." And then, since he did, he added :
"Tremendously !"

"You — you approve?"

"Yes, but what of that? Can't you do what you like
whether I approve or not? Aren't you a free woman?"
he teased her.

"That's what I said to myself. And so I did it But—
I'm glad you like it, Felix, because — ^because I'm not sure
whether I do or not!"

He laughed. "It will grow again."

"No— I shan't let it grow again. I'm going to like it, I
know — eventually ; perhaps very soon. It's just at first. . . .
But I suppose that's the way with freedom! . . . Drink
your coffee, Felix, before it gets cold. Ill bring mine over
there, too. Do you love me — very much ? Look out — ^youll
spill the coffee !"

I XXXVIII. The Portrait of Felix Fay

ROSE-ANN'S bobbed hair was generally applauded.
There were more studio parties, Felix frivoled,
theorized, and wrote jocund dramatic criticisms, with
■the thought of Hawkins always at the back of his mind.

Hawkins's play had been cast, re-cast, rewritten, and
Ifinally tried out "on the dog," that is to say, an audience at
BAtlantic City. And something was still wrong. So the cast
Thad been dismissed, the scenery stored, and Hawkins was
■desperately rewriting his play for the seventeenth time — this
Biime in collaboration with an expert farce-builder. And
" c remained for a while longer the acting dramatic critic

The Portrait of Felix Fay 255

"There! Keep tfiat! Just that wayT Dorothy Sheri-
dan called. "That's very good. Very characteristic. No,
just as you were. That's right — relax a little."

She gave him these orders from half way across the large
studio room, where she stood in a brusque commanding
attitude. Felix obeyed.

"One minute!" And she ran up the steps to the mez-
zanine behind and above Felix, and presently he heard from
overhead the swish of falling cloth. He half turned, and
saw that she had flung over the edge of the mezzanine rail-
ing a long piece of rose-coloured silk, which reached the
floor behind him.

"That's for a background," she said, and Felix resumed
his pose.

She came back, pushed out an easel not far from him
and a little to one side, and then took up a position at a
distance from both him and the easel, amned with a brown
crayon. She looked at him intently, with wide eyes, bend-
ing a little, with head forward and face uplifted. "Mm,"
she said, reflectively, and walked swiftly up to the easel and
commenced to draw upon the blank canvas with swift,
vigorous strokes of her crayon. After a little, she walked
back to her former place, resumed her wide-eyed stare, and
then returned once more to the canvasL

After half an hour of this, looking at her subject and
drawing on the canvas in turn, she threw down her crayon.
"Can you remember that pose?'^ she asked.

Of course Felix could remember it. It was a pose into
which he fell naturally. "Yes," he said. "May I look?"

"If you want to," she said indiflFerently, taking off her
apron.

Felix strolled over and looked at the crayon sketch on the
canvas. It was a bold caricature of himself, poised hes-
itantly with stick and cigarette, blithe, debonair, and above
all a figure of indecision. Was that himself ?

"That's all for today," said the painter. "Same time,
same day, next week. Don't forget."

He went away, startled and puzzled.

2.-6

The Briary-Bush

Next week, as he came in. eager for one more look at

Ithat disconcerting caricature, he found the artist painting it
(out with a thin grey wash.

"Why do you do that ?" he asked.

"Oh. that was only to get the pose," she said. "This
Itime I want to get the likeness."

The portrait seemed to Felix completed at the end of an

■ hour, when she declared the sitting over and took off her
It was utterly different from the crayon caricature

Iwhich had preceded it on the canvas. Out of the misty
Bgrey background emerged a face and two hands, dehcately

■ painted, and catching the quizzical expression of mouth and
Beyes and the rather limp gesture of the hands, but in a

■ manner which did not carry more than a few feet from

■ the canvas. Moreover, this painting was utterly unlike the
Bother things of hers that he had seen. He wondered, but
Bthe painter had hung up her apron and was lookii^ at a
■portfolio of drawings, indifferent to his existence, so he
■withdrew.

The Portrait of Felix Fay 257

ery, and a face with dark blue eyesockets and a pale blue
jaw. . . . ''Lines of force/' explained the painter, and he
went away not knowing whether to laugh or not.

This skeleton was obliterated at the beginning of the
fourth sitting, as the other stages of the picture had been,
and Felix wondered, what next? Colour, it seemed, this
time ! Great splashes and daubs of colour, put on anyhow,
spread out with a palette-knife, or the painter's thumb — 2l
riot, an orgy of rose and green and purple-brown, with
only a suggestion of Felix amid the chromatic swirls. . . .

Felix described each of these stages to Rose-Ann with
zest, and went with infinite curiosity to every new sit-
ting. . . .

The fifth time there was a blank new canvas awaiting him,
and when he asked what had become of the other, she
replied : "Burned it up. All covered with paint. Always
use a fresh canvas if you can afford it."

She emerged from her preoccupation with her palette
long enough to become aware of his surprise, and to explain
further:

"All that was just getting acquainted with my subject.
Now we're ready to begin."

And taking up her position, a little closer this time to
him and the easel, she bent upon him that wide-eyed,
impersonal stare . . . Felix was rather in awe of her by this
time. She had ceased to seem to him the careless, slangy
bohemian girl that he had first known. She was an expert
and delicate technician. Those four portraits in succession
had stunned his imagination. She seemed to him almost
superhuman — with a little of the flavour of black magic in
her. That wide-eyed impersonal stare was part of the effect.
At first she seemed merely a pretty girl lifting her face to
yours and looking at you, steadily ; and if one was not used
to returning the wide-eyed stare of a pretty girl, one became
a little embarrassed — ^there is something so intimate about
this meeting and touching through the eyes; one seems to
be let in, unreservedly, to some mysterious depth. But, as
the stare continued, piercing you, probing you, seeing you

I258 The Briary-Bush

Iwtth calm indifference, you became uneasy and almost
■aid — you wanted to look away, and that seemed cowardly
land evasive, so you kept on staring back as long as you
Bcould . . . until those dark blue eyes of hers seemed
■profound gulfs over which you hung, dizzy, tottering, about
Ito drown. . . . And then, saying "Mm," she went over to
Bher canvas again and put on a little dab of paint. She had
■probably been considering carefully whether or not she had
Bmade your nose too long !

3
Felix raved in this fashion to Rose-Ann, who heard him
|with interest and in silence till he had finished.

"And what does the portrait look like now?" she asked.

"Well — very much like any other portrait, I must say.

BA little bolder, and lots of colour, but nothing startling.

srhaps I've become so used to startling things by now

t this seems a Hitle tame."

e last sitting was a prolonged one, in which the painter

XXXIX, A Date on the Calendar

<f ■ iHE memory of that portrait left Felix bewildered

I and irritated. It seemed that no one else saw in it

-*► quite what he had seen. Rose-Ann praised it — but
with some reserve which made him feel that she did not
really like it. Give was delighted with the certainty with
which the painter had captured his characteristic gesture.
. . . Only he himself, apparently, saw it as a criticism,
profound and harsh. . . .

The painter herself least of all saw it as a criticism. "Is
that what you really think of me?" he had asked her.

"I don't think when I paint pictures," she had said. "I'm
too busy working out the problems of form and colour.
Don't you like it?"

"I like it as a picture. I don't like it as a — a prophecy,"
he said.

"A prophecy? Oh, there you come with your literary
interpretations. Can't you forget that stuff, and learn to
look at a picture as a picture ?"

She had ceased to be the Sybyl, and become again the
careless bohemian girl-artist, talking the talk of her tribe.
. . . Pictures were just pictures — ^yes, he had heard that
before.

Morose and fretful, he walked up and down in the studio
in the evening, rejecting Rose-Ann's plans for other en-
tertainment ; or sat at his desk, exasperatedly trying to force
himself to begin work on some half-formed idea for a play.
He was angry at himself for being the indecisive, inadequate
figure of that painting. He saw now what being an artist
meant — ^the calm energy, the technical erudition, the vast
patience that was needed. He wished to be that kind of

259

26o The Briary-Bush

person. And the more he wished it, the more i
petulant he seemed to himself. And what must he seem to
Rose-Ann? She must despise him in her heart. . . .

For a week he fidgeted and fumed about the sludio.
ashamed of his childish behaviour and yet unable to control
it. He wondered why Rose-Ann did not tell him what she
really thought of him. ... It was as if he were trying, by
a more and more outrageous parade of his weakness, to
force her to break silence and speak out,

Late one afternoon, when he had crumpled up the sheet
of paper on which he had been trying to write, and thrown
it on the floor with a silly gesture of failure, she put down
her sewing and came up to him.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

"What is the matter. Felix, dear?" she asked.

He drew himself away. "I wish you would let me aloi
he said.

"Very well," Rose-Ann said gently, and went and ]
on her hat and cloak and left the studio.

aloi^H
idp^

For a moment he sat there, looking at the door through
which she had gone with a sudden sense of utter desolation.

They had had quarrels before, but this was different.
He had driven her away, ... It would serve him right if
she never came back. . . .

Why had he been making such a fool of himself? Why
had he been behaving like a silly child?

And all at once he felt that he knew the answer. ... He
was worrying about that damned job of fiis.

Rose-Ann had taken it for granted that he was secure in
his position. He had pretended to weigh his chances, pro
and con. . . . And all the while he had been deeply
convinced that he was about to lose his momentary distinc*
tion. Hawkins's play was being tried out again, tfiis week.
It would fail, he would give up his foolishness, return to
Chicago, and Felix would be back precisely where he had
started. That, of course, though he had not told Rose-Ann.

A Date on the Calendar 261

was why he had felt she was right in not wanting to have
children right away.

It was this impending crisis in his career that secretly
worried him. For nearly a year he had been a dramatic
critic — ^and he was about to lose his job. It was a degmdaL-
tion intolerable to contemplate, but impossible to prevent.
How could he prevent it? In romantic novels, tfie hero
wins his spurs. But there were, so to speak, only one pair
of critical spurs at the disposal of the Chronicle, and they
belonged to Hawkins I In a magazine story, Felix would go
over to another paper and get a better job. But Felix
disbelieved in his ability to hold with any distinction any
ordinary reporter's job. By some fluke he had made good
as a dramatic critic. He saw people on the elevated tumipg
the paper inside out to read first of all his column about the
new play. He knew he had made good. But— dramatic
editorships do not grow on blackberry bushes; dramatic
critics die in their shoes at an advanced age. Hawkins's
folly had given him such a chance as would never happen
again in a hundred years.

A chance? A brief hour of glory. An hour for Rose-
Ann to be proud of him, to believe that he had risen by
force of character to these heights, that he would continue
to rise. . . . She would find out that it had been mere luck.
She would find out that he could not even keep a job as a
dramatic critic, let alone become a playwright She would
discover him for what he was — a weak, helpless, scared child.

That was why he had been behaving like a fool before
her — ^to show her beforehand that he didn't amount to
anything.

Suddenly he commenced to laugh. The mood of the last
week had vanished — it merely seemed funny now. Another
attack of moon-calfishness, that was all I That painter-girl
had awed him with her astounding technique, made him
feel incompetent and helpless — ^thrown him back into a state
of adolescent self-distrust. Yes, it was her fault, the preten-
tious hussy! And what, after all her fussing, did that
picture of hers amount to? An ordinary portrait, that was

1 262 The Briary-Bush

I all, with a touch of easy caricature in it. , . . Damn her!

And what if Hawkins did come back and take away his
llaurels? There were other jobs in the world. If not in
I Chicago, then —

Yes, in New York. . , .

It didn't make any difiference what happened.. He had
Ibeen silly to worry about things. He would never worry
lagain about anything. Rose-Ann was right. One must live
■ fearlessly. . . .

He wished Rose-Ann would come back. . . .

3
The door opened, and she was there. He sprang up.
She shut the door behind her and put her back against
lit, and her hands, as if to support herself.

Felix stood staring at her in surprise. She was pale,
land she had a heroic air, somehow. She tried to speak —
Itwice^and made no sound, only a movement of the throat
pnd Hps.

A Date on the Calendar 263

been acting crazy. I know I have. But it's a different
kind of craziness. I was worrying about — my job."

•'Your job?" She looked up from his shoulder. "Have
you heard already? I just left Clive at the comer."

"Qive? Heard what? I don't know what you^re talking
about."

"He was coming down to tell you the news. You don't
know it? Well — a telegram came this afternoon. From
Hawkins. He's resigned. And you've been appointed in
his place."

"ReaUy!"

"Yes, of course. I knew that was what would happen.
But Felix — ^are you sure?" She meant about Dorothy.

"You're crazier than I am, Rose-Ann — ^that's all."

"Well — " and she dried her tears. "I guess I am a
fool. . . . But Felix — I left Qive at the comer drug-store.
I was very mysterious, and said he mustn't come here to the
studio, but that he was to wait there for me."

"What for?"

"I — ^told him I wanted him to help me celebrate an —
occasion. But — "

"What kind of occasion?" Felix asked sternly. "Did
you tell him any of this nonsensical — "

"No, Felix, I didn't tell him anything. But — but we can
still celebrate an occasion, Felix."

"You mean my job?"

"No — I mean the — the anniversary of our marriage. . . ."

"You poor abused darling! What an idiot I ami" And
he took her in his arms again.

"Ill wash my face, and be sensible now," she said. "You
go and get Clive, and — and we'll celebrate I"

I XL. Celebration

THERE was something puzzling to Felix about that
celebration. . . .
_ Surely no marriage anniversary had ever before

Ibeen marked in quite this fashion — by a wife's offer to give
lup her husband's love to another woman!

Already Rose-Ann appeared to have forgotten that in-
I cident, as she sat, flushed and happy, at the table with Felix
land Oive in the gay restaurant they had chosen. Or no,
Inot forgotten it; for it might perhaps be that very memory,
Jeven more than the occasion itself, which made her so
—that secret. i:iving to a commonplace occasion a

Celebration 265

ever been, he tfiought. . . . And by what bond did he hold
this strange and lovely creature by his side? Not by the
tie of any promise. She had made him no promises. . . .
There was no security in their relationship; she did not
want security I She wanted adventure ; and so long as their
marriage was an adventure — !

That was what they were celebrating — ^not the mere pas-
sage of one year of a lifelong marriage, but the beginning
of another year of rash adventure. . . . And in what curious
and fantastic ways would their love be tested in that year
to come? He wondered. . . .

''Have you heard about McQuish?" Give was saying to
Rose- Ann.

"No? What?" she asked.

"I told you/' said Felix, "that he had had a row with the
Old Man over a book review he wrote."

"Oh, yes, so you did. And that he's talking of leaving
to write a novel."

"Chicago moves in a mysterious way its wonders to
perform," said Clive. "Do you remember, Felix, when you
came on the paper a year or so ago? — McQuish was the
Marvellous Boy, then. The Old Man was proud of him.
He could write whatever he liked. . . . And now the Old
Man reads every word he writes with a suspicious eye.
They had this row last week ; and it's the beginning of the
end. ... I know: I had my day a little earlier than Mc-
Quish; now it^s all I can do to get along. That's what
happens to young intellectuals in Chicago. They are fed
up on praise and petting for a year or two ; and then they
get thrown out on their necks. And a dam good thing, too !
Otherwise we would stay here and write fiddling things for
the daily papers all our lives. But now McQuish will
quit and write a novel; and if I have any sense, I will
do the same."

"And my turn will come next, you mean?" Felix asked

"Not for a while. . . . I've been trying to figure the

The Briary-Bush

266

I out. Felix came here, you know, scared to death of Chica-
I go ; he can't believe yet in his good luck ! He didn't really
I believe he was going to get Hawkins's job. Everybody else
I knew he was slated for it. . . . When you go back to the
I office tomorrow, Felix, the Old Man will give you a cigar
I and tell you what a tine fellow you are. And it will take him
I all of a year to discover that you aren't a fine fellow. . . .
1 We are a deceptive lot, we young intellectuals ; the powers
I that be think they can use us in their business; and it's
le time before they wake up to discover that we are
I playing a game of our own. . : . I give you a year at least
Ito flourish in, Felix! And make the most of it — for about
Ithis time next year you will be pulling up stakes and depart-
ling elsewhere. What do you think, Rose-Ann?"

"I don't care," said Rose-Ann. "So long as things keep
B happening I"

They had said good-night to Clive and came back to the
1 turned to Felix suddenly, just inside the

Celebration

267

her utterance. He wanted to believe it» and at the same
time he feared to believe it.

She read the doubt in his eyes.

"You don't believe me?" she said. *'If the time ever
comes to prove it, Felix — "

He smiled. "Well cross our bridges when we come to
them/' he said.

Book Five
Garfield Boulevard

XLI. Changes

THE second year of marriage began for Felix witfi a
sense of uneasy anticipation. It was as if things —
strange, unknown things — ^were about to happen.

He tried, by taking thought, to discover the reason for
his vague anxieties. But, viewed rationally, they seemed
absurd. He attempted to dismiss them.

He was happy. And Rose-Ann, in her own restless
fashion, was happy, too. What could the future bring to
disturb their happiness? Nothing!

His economic status, moreover, even upon Qive's calcula-
tions, was secure for another year at least. And he was
writing again, this time to please himself. Rose-Ann should
have no cause for complaint upon that score. . . .

And yet the vague anxieties persisted in the background
of his Noughts.

It was as though he had in some way lost confidence in
Rose-Ann.

He told himself that it was only that he knew her better
now. He had been foolish to assume that he could trust
utterly in her instincts for guidance. She was, like him, a
bewildered wanderer, not knowing the right path. She
was more like himself than he had ever dreamed.

He could not rely blindly upon her. He must decide
things for himself.

It made him feel a little lonely, a little frightened — as
one might feel in the woods, discovering that one's guide is
a romantic ignoramus like oneself I

That was one reason why he did not want to show Rose-
Ann the new play upon which he was working. It would

271

272

The Briary-Bush

have pleased ber — perhaps all tcm well I In Ihis pby, a
variation upon the familiar triangle »ituatton, the hec ttBe
kept her husband because she wa% not afraid to lose him. . .

Yes, that would have plcaiicd Rose-Ann. Then wfajr <H
Felix (eel ab&urilly guilty of sotne kind of spiritoal A-
loyalty to her in writing it?

lie did not quite know; but it was true thai when Rote-
Ann was in the studio he could not with any frcedotn mi
on that play. . . .

Ro^'Ann felt this, and prescnlly suggested that he Vj
the experiment of working in a rcntsed room soowwhere not
too far from the studio, lie was surprised lo find that •
talking with Ro!«-Ann he indignantly repeOed the idai ■•
totally objectionable. He was absui^ly angry at her for
suggesting iL

It would have been intolerable if Rose-Ana had bm
jealous of his writing ; and yet he was brfiaving as though rfK
ought to be jealous of it ... A stranj^ qaiiic of iht
imagination!

Was he disappointed in her for not being the meoior
and guide be had tried to believe her — angry at her far
in!ii<'ting upon his finding his own pathway T
woods?

When Rose-Aim brought up for a second time the
ject of a work-roan. Felix admitted thai it might be «
considering. And that same day he went oat roonHhoB
He had not admitted to hinuclf that he really wanted
a place — but when, in a hou»c on Garfield Booleirar^
found a little room with a table and a ccc he
he must have it. He told the landlady he waald
need it only a »hon time, and paid two weeks' rent,
option of renewal . . .

He did not want to tell Rose-Ann about tt. He nid
himself thai he wanted lo wail until he found whether
tiked it or not. And he did wait until he fand spent
afternoon there writing, before telling her.

Changes 273

It was curious, the feeling of being in a room of his own
that nobody in the world knew about, not even Rose- Ann!
That afternoon he seemed to throw off some impalpable
burden. He felt — free I He could sit there and write, or
dream, as long as he wished, ¥nth nobody to call him to
account for the way he spent his time. Not that Rose-Ann
ever did call him to account in such a manner; it was the
last thing in the world she would ever have done. But now,
as never since his marriage, he felt utterly by himself. . . .
He sat dreaming for a while, and then commenced to write
swiftly a little play, something he had not thought of at
all before, a light, bright, rather cynical and pretty little
play that seemed to flow out by its own energy — a play
dealing ¥nth characters as unreal as those of Congreve or
Wycherly, inhabitants of the same polite and ¥ntty realm of
the imagination as Millamant and Mirabell.

He told Rose-Ann that he had rented a room, but not that
he had written a play — for it was a short one-act affair of
twenty pages, which he had practically completed at a sitting.
He took an inward satisfaction in this harmless secret ; and
he was pleased that Rose-Ann did not ask exactly where
his room was, but only cong^tulated him on being so sen-
sible.

It was only a few days later that Rose-Ann came home
¥nth the news that she had carried out her long cherished
intention of getting a job. She had learned by accident
that there was an opening in a moving-picture magazine.
She had gone there, made an impression, and been engaged
as assistant editor.

Felix had a guilty sense that his desertion of their
studio, if only for an occasional afternoon, had been
responsible for her action. Certainly he was no longer in
a position to oppose her ¥nshes in this matter. His plea
had been that a job would deprive him of her society. He
had — though, it is true, at her suggestion— entered into
an arrangement which threatened to deprive her of much of

274 The Briary-Bush

his society. But, if ibere wa> any spirit of reoliatioQ bf-
bind her decision, it was not apparent from her muner.

She was dclighlecl with the new scope that this work gvc
her superabundant energies : and thm^ it consisted ctoed;
of rewriting illiterate press-agent i<>h articles. K ykhW
her a renewed senae of self-respect. .\nd after obierviB^
3 little uneasily, for a week or two, its rScct upoa her, ^
found himself rather pleased.

Her office hours, though fixed, were not arduooa. And if
they had leii^ time to spend together, that time had come n
scan more prFciaiis. . . . They would be sitting tocctbcr U
breakfast in their studio, Rose-Ann in a Aame-colorcd iS
kimono that matched her curls, poaring coffee for btm : ri
the more delightfully his, because he redizcd that when te
occasion had Iicen prolonged another five mimne«. stv
would glance at the clock, and run behind the trreen, V
emerge dressed for l»er day's work — no longer hij, but be-
longing to some impcr&onal enterprise for which be ani
less than nothing. . . .

They would meet again at luncheon at the little Hnn^
rian restaurant. Give would be there. And the fact litf
they were all three of Ihem snatching this hour ol fMm
talk and comradeship from the midst of a woriting 4»y, pm
a special lest to the occasion. . . . They were, it acnei
happier than ever before.

"I've always something I can do for my old magstaK is
the e^-cning," said Rose-Ann. "I won't be lonriy. Wjr
don't you go to your work-room ?*

T«ro or three evenings a week he took her at her wad
and in those solitary hours it seemed V
fancy had begun to bkxmi again.

XLII. An Apparition

HE had occupied the room on odd afternoons and
evenings for a month, when a strange encounter
occurred — if seeing somebody could be called an
encounter.

It was a warm evening early in April, when he did not
feel in the least like working. . . .

And besides, he had been looking over the three little one-
act plays which were the fruit of his month's work, and
they seemed to him trivial and silly ; if this was all he could
do, he had better stop trying to write plays. He was glad
he had not shown them to Rose-Ann. They were car-
icatures of life — ^not without some grace, touched ¥nth a
queer, decadent, heartless beauty, but essentially worthless.
Why should he write things like that? One's work was a
reflection of one's mind, of one's life, critics said. If he
had judged those plays as a critic, he would have drawn
from them certain inevitable implications with respect to the
author's philosophy and mode of life; they were apparently
the work of a man who did not believe in anything, and ^
who found in reality no true satisfactions — otherwise why
should he turn to this unreal realm of modernized Pierrots
and Columbines for solace?

Pondering this enigma, he sat in the open window and
looked out on the street. And in the distance he saw a
figure that he knew — a girl.

It was Phyllis, the girl who had been at their wedding.
She was coming toward him, and he recognized her with
certainty despite the fact that he had seen her only once
before in his life.

She was coming down the street, on the opposite side;

27S

276 The Briary-Bush

at the comer, she crossed over, coming toward the I
where Felix w»s sitting perched in his third story 1
She came straight to the frunt door of that very t
and then, after the slightest interval, Felix heard the <
siam. She had entered the house.

Felix concluded llut lie must have been oitstakm as to be
identity. It was somebody el>e who kiolced like Pbylli»~
that was all. I%llis was still at the Teachen' butitiile
Give had spoken only the other day of rccetvinf a letttr
from her. But —

He listened ; some one was coming up the second Msir-
way. Was it she? And if so, wlui in the wurid was die
doing here ? It was too late to be calling on any one ; b
^ had not nmg the bell ; she had entered, as if she fa
here. If it were Kliyllis, she munt be livii^ in thia 1
And that was impossible.

Felix, li.Mening at the door, heanl the perwm, wboeverft
was, cross the hall — and it .seemed to hint that abc lai
stopped at his door. Uut no — there was a jingling of kcyit
and he realized that the room next to his own was bei(
unkicked. He opened his door tiuietly — uiKTrtain now if
he would be able to rccogniie f^yllis. and anxiofu tMN '
make any fooli^'h mistake. She was standing al the dc*--
with her back to him, turning the key in the k>ck.

Of course it was I'hyllis!

But if he were w> certain, why didn't he kpeak to hn^
He was so close that he could have touched her. "Wf
did he let her go wiibaul a word ? . . . She went t^ «^
he stood staring foolislily at the ckned door.

It was Fhyllts. without the slightest doubt . . . And fit
— it wouM be awkward to knock at a yoonf wuuibii** 4tV
at midnight and, if die turned out to be the wrafli| pHMh
stammer oat a lame and unconvincing *po\ogf. WI17, 4
was probably some one whom he had seen, in hb ■
way, on the stair« a dozen time*, some one who 1
him so often that his explanation of r
sound very hollow indeed. . . .

An Apparition 277

The next evening, coming to his room, he heard the girl
moving about in hers.

He had decided, with that part of his mind which dealt
with questions of practical fact, that she was not really
Phyllis. He had not mentioned his queer notion about her
to Rose-Ann. But if it pleased him to think his neighbour
was Phyllis, why shouldn't he?

It did please him ; and in some odd way helped him in his
work. She seemed to bring with her into his- place of
dreams some breath of sane and kindly reality. Her unseen
presence there in the next room took some of the fever out
of his strange dramatic fantasies, made them more human.
He wrote more easily, with greater zest ; and in the intervals
of his writing it was comforting to hear her movements, her
mere steps across the floor, the sound of paper rustling in
her hands, and sometimes the bubbling of coffee over an
alcohol lamp.

When she made the coffee the pungent fumes of it found
their way through the locked door which separated his room
from hers. ... He smiled, thinking how startled she would
be if he should knock on that door, and demand a cup of
coffee. ... At this point he had to remind himself that it
was not really Phyllis there on the other side of that door.

But it really was Phyllis! — that was the strange thing
about the whole affair. . . . Give had at last confided to him
that Phyllis was in town, but told him nothing more ; it was
Rose-Ann who told him that Phyllis had come to Chicago,
unknown to Clive, and got herself a job, before letting him
know anything of her plans.

"He's finding her quite too much for him," said Rose-Ann.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean — she's been his pupil, as it were, all along. Now
she's demonstrating her independence."

**Where is she living?" he asked, and when Rose-Ann

278 The Briary-Bush

said she didn't know, he told her of the girl be im6 1
who looked Hke Phyllis.

"Why didn't you speak to her and find out ?" the ■
impatiently.

"Why, I thought it must be a mistake," he said ]
wardly,

"You really don't care anything about people al all,l
you. Felix ?*' she said.

"Why do you say llial ?"

"Because it's true. You're interested only m i
girl who was at your wedding coines and lives in the 1
hou-se with you, and you never even speak to berl Yab
are a strange creature. Felix. For heaven's sake, knodt ■
her door, and bring her around to see us. Just bfnuw a te
wants to be queer and not see anybody is DO 1
we shouldn't be friendly."

I who looked like Phyllis. ^H

"Why didn't you speak to her and find out ?" she a^^H
impatientlv. ^^M

I Yni
lodia

oscabt

Yes, it was Phyllis: he saw her again, bte tfaM 4|^H
from the window, plainly revealed by the glare of an ^^H
l^tit, walking with Clive along the street toward the hoo^^
he had an impulse %n shmil to them. Init he refrained, anj
only looked on while they came slowly over, and Mood
talking hi front of the door. It was Phyllis, but she had
changed ; or was it only some con^tratnt in her maimer f H*
wonder he had not been certain of her idenlity. She had
a different air; all the qnietoess was gone from U 1 ih
seemed the embo<Iiment of a defiant restleuness. There m*
a reckless impudence in (he whole pose of her body, the tdl
of her head as she stood talking to Clive. in the very gcanvt
of bcr arm as she held out her hand to Clive In {ood-bye.
. . . Give went ahruptly ; she was entering.

Felix could hear her running up tlx stairs. He oa|(> to

go out and speak to her. But Ite did not want to. He W

a aenw of her having changed, bcmg a new and diffen*

peraon that he did not like. He warned to keep the cov^aa-

^^ ionship of the Phyllis whom he had known ihew paat w«k>

^K in imaginatioo— he did not want for a neighboor Uas fcfOEM

An Apparition 279

girl whom she had become in actuality. He heard her un-
lock her door, and enter; and he said to himself that his
refuge was spoiled — he would have to find another place to
work in. . . .

It was true, what Rose- Ann had said; he cared nothing
for people— only for ideas . . . and dreams. He cared for
his dream of Phyllis. He was sorry to lose that.

Well — he would have to see her.

He heard her walking restlessly up and down her room;
her light firm step sounded clearly tfirough the door which
separated their two rooms. She paused, walked the length
of the room, and paused again. She was standing just on
the other side of that door. . . .

He went over to that door and knocked.

XLIIL Nocturne

THE next moment he called himself a fool for
about it in this way ; but he might as well go throng
with it now. He knocked again* more loudljr* and
called out her name, cheerfully. ^'Phyllis?*'

''Who is it?** she asked, in a startled, questioning vokc

He called his own name. "I've just discovered we are
fellow-lodgers !" he added. "Can I sec you ?*'

She fumbled with the lock, and opened the door. She
had just taken off her hat and coat, and she was wearing i
black dress that made her seem pale. She looked older ; her
face was not so untroul)ledly serene as he had remembered
it But the sight of her gave him just such a momentar>
unreasonable panic as on that winter night when Qive had
brought her into the room at Woods Point She seemn!
again the impossible person of his secret dreams. . . . And
then the illusion vanished. She was only — Clivc's girl-
problem.

"What are you doing here?"

They both asked the question of each other at once, and
then both laughed. **You first," said Phyllis.

"Pm using this as a work-room occasionally,** he ex-
plained.

"Really!" She looked past him into his room. *•Rl?^t
next to mine. How cxld! . . . You and Rose-Ann haven':
separatwl or anything, have you ?"

••Why. no!" he laughed. "Why should you think- '^

"It's absurd, isn't it? But that was what came into im
head. Pm glad it isn't so. . . . You work there? I sec**

"And you ?" he demanded.

"Me? I've run away at bst!"

JB6

Nocturne 281

"I heard something about it. . . ."

"Yes, run away — from school — from home — from every-
thing! And come to Chicago to make my living. Even
Clive didn't know. I've been here three weeks, and I've a
real job. Not much of a one; just working on a trade-
joumat. It pays for this room, and my meals — and I'm
glad I've taken the plunge. . . . Isn't it curious, our being
neighbours like this ! . . . But come in 1"

They were still standing there, one on each side of the
doorsill. He entered, and looked about her room. It was
almost as bare as his own, but larger. A cot, with her coat
and hat tossed upon it, a bureau, a writing table, an old
trunk, and two chairs, both of them much repaired and one
of them still rickety, were its furnishings.

"Not much to look at, is it?" she said. "But waiti Some
day I shall have a grand studio like yours 1" She sat down
on the cot, and motioned him to draw up the less rickety
chair. "The first day I was in town I slunk past your
studio and peeped in. Some one was going out the door,
and I got a glimpse of the inside."

"Why in the world didn't you come in and see us?"

"I don't know. ... I thought perhaps you wouldn't
remember me. And besides, I wanted to get established
before I let any of my friends know — even Qive. I wanted
to prove that I could do something by myself." A curious
smile lit her face as she added : "It annoys Give that I
should have got a job without his help I"

"But why?" he wondered. He remembered what Give
had once said about the "battle" between himself and Phyllis.
It had seemed absurd at the time. . . ,

She did not reply, and so he asked : "Why shouldn't you
be willing to be helped by your friends?"

"Well — one sometimes isn't," she said defensively.

All at once he felt the pathetic helplessness behind her
masquerade of independence. And, moved by an odd im-
pulse, he wanted to make her admit the truth to him.

"Is it just because it's Give?" he asked.

For a moment she looked at him coldly as if about to

282 The Briary-Bush

rebuke his presumption, and then kxiked down and nid:
"I suppose so. . . ."

"I thought you were in love with him." he taii bfantlj.

She btighed.

"But aren't you?" he insisted. ^^_

"What a question 1" she retorted. "Are I or aren't I ? l^H
talk like my mother! . . . (low do I know?" ^H

"And you talk like Give 1" he said. ^H

"ProbaJjIy I learned it from him. . . . I've learned 'mort
everything I know from him.**

"You're an odd giri." he lold her.

"So Qive says. . . . You're very like Qive youndf. do
jnw Icoow?"

"I wi»h I were more like him. in some ways ; but in oAb
respects — **

"Tfe*— you're very much like him. Only— more joP

"What do you mean? You rather alarm me."

"Oh, you needn't be alarmed. My roemntng is vcy
Battering. I think a lot of Oive I"

"Then why do you run away from him?" Felix desaodel

"Ii coming to Chicago running away frDm him?"

"He wanted you to come to Chicago three yean a(o—
didn't he?"

"Ye», but — Oh, it's very involved. Are you raly
interested? I'm not sure that I understand it myidf.'*

He was quite sure that she wanted to tell him the wbclr
story. And he wanted lo hear it.

"I'm very much interested." he said. "And perftaiv^* be
hazarded, " — perhaps 1 could help you to underttaod."

"I wish you could. ... I don't know where to bep*'

Yes — she did want lo tell him. And it would be intcre»^
ing to know the tnith atnul Clive and Phyttu — at last!

"Begin with yourself — before Clivc came iloq^' *r
comnmnded.

"Oh— you think he changed me?"

"I'm sure of it"

"Well— f>erhaps. Oh, of course I ww a

Nocturne 283

goose before he came along. And yet — ^that isn't so, either.
... I was hard-headed, in a way. ; It was I who made my
father go into the taxi business and save the family from
complete poverty. I did know some things — ^better than my
father."

"I've wondered about your folks," he said. "Tell me
about your father."

"He wanted to be a farmer. He wanted to go out west
and take up government land, but he didn^t have the nerve.
And his own farm was no good. He slaved himself on it
year after year and was always in debt. Then he quit and
took a job on the railroad. But he doesn't like machinery ;
curious, he'd rather dig in the ground than anything else
in the world. But what was the use? We actually didn't
have enough money to buy shoes. I quit school and clerked
in Wilson's store, so I could have decent clothes. And I
sewed for my sisters, so as not to be ashamed of the way
they looked. I used to hate my father — and my mother, too,
for never complaining, for always putting up with things.
'Your father is a good man, Phyllis,' she would say. 'He
doesn't drink, or play cards, and he's never used an unkind
word to me or you children. And he's terribly patient'
That's it — he was so terribly patient! If he'd been a
drunkard, there might have been some excuse. . . . Tell me
—does all this bore you ?"

"No, it doesn't bore me. Go on."

"I wanted to be a teacher. . . . Qive thinks I went off
to become a teacher just to spite him. But it was an old
ambition of mine. I wanted to put the family on its feet —
and I wanted to do something that had to do with books.
It's silly, isn't it? But teaching was all I could think of.
Only, how was I to do it ? I kept up with the school studies
at home, nights, besides helping mother with the house and
making clothes for Bess and Emmy. I got one of the
teachers to bring me a copy of the final examination ques-
tions, and I wrote out my answers at home. I did it fairly,
too— and he marked them for me.''

The Briary-Bush

284

•■Who was 'he'?"

"The teacher. Mr. Andrews — the science
was all right. He lent me books, and talked to me.**

Felix smiled to him^H. So Clive Bangs had not bai
the only one who had lent books and talked to Fliylii!
He had only been the latest one to minister to on mtTTiaT*
hunger for new knowledge. He liad not, as be so cfttti-
tically thought, changed the current of her hfe : or |i rfl >»; «
he had : Phyllis' story would show. But already il wa-
diflferent personality from any suggested bjr Cltve's miu-'
or Felix's own dreaming, that began to appear.

"Only — how was I ever to get to school? There wen ■
boys in the family— 1 often fell as though I were the n-_

of the family — 1 had to raise some money myidf ^

last I thought of the taxi idea. I talked falber imo it. . .
It was the hardest battle I ever had."

"How old were yoii then?"

"Sixteen. . . . You maii'tn'l think my father wu »-«
bad father. I really loved him very much. He wauled ■
take care of his family, but he ju*^ didn't know horn. 1
had to take tilings into my own hands. I persuaided Ub
to borrow the money for our first car. That year w« faM
for it, and I made him borrow the money to buj i-'^trr.
ai>d let me run it. Well — vre made lots of money, and MV
we've five cars — so that's aD right. ... 1 don't know 1^
I got off the track and told you aU this stuff. You WMtri
to know about me and Clive."

*'Ye», then Oi^e came along?"

"He had been there all the time — only he ne»rr caw r~
Why should he? I don't think he ever would have tf.
me, if one night when I was driving him boow I faatt
noticed thai he was carrying an intrresting-loolunf b>>
with a white label. I glanced at it rather obviously. H
held it up, and asked me if I had ever read any of Bcno'
Shaw'i pUy». 1 was scared to death — I had wanted to 1.1''
to him for two years, and here wa.« my chance. I had '
make good. Of coorse, I'd never read anythtof of Ska<*'-
Init what did that matter? It was my chuice lo pra«e :■'

Nocturne 285

him that I was worth talking to. So I swallowed hard, and
said, yes, I'd read everything I could find of Shaw's. I
knew if he asked me any questions, I could say, no, I hadn't
been able to get hold of that yet . . . Well, it worked.
And that night — ^the library was closed, but I knew the
librarian and I made him go there with me and open it up
long enough for me to get the only two volumes of Shaw
the library had. I read one of tiiem that night and the
other the next day. I liked them, too, though they did seem
a little queer to me at the very first. . . ."

"What were they?" Felix asked.

"The 'Three Plays for Puritans,' and 'Man and Superman.'
I read them all, prefaces, appendixes and everytfiing. I
said, if these are the things he likes, I can like them too,
and I will I I got a liberal education out of those two books.
I was a different person when I saw him three days later
and he lent me 'Cashel Byron's Profession.' . . . And yet I
wasn't, either. I told you that I was a romantic little goose.
... If there's one thing I have learned, it's — ^not to be
ashamed to tell an3rthing. So I don't mind telling you what
a little fool I was. Think I I had just stocked my brain
full of Bernard Shaw, and yet — it is hard to tell — I was
carrying on a romantic fairy-tale at the same time, with
Qive as the hero-prince ! I thought — in spite of everything,
you see, I was only a silly girl — ^that he wanted to marry
me. I even commenced secretly to sew things, to get my
clothes ready for the wedding. . . . And at the same time —
It's queer — but I think I should have despised him if he
had wanted to marry mel . . . My mother warned me
against him. Poor dear father, he didn't even know what
was going on. But mother was very much worried. Well !
she needn't have been. She was just as much mistaken
about Clive's intentions as I was! All he wanted was to
modernize me. Heavens ! the trouble we took, the stealthy
meetings, the secret rendezvous — to discuss the Life Force !
It's really funny!"

"I don't think it's so funny," Felix said soberly.

"No," said Phyllis, "the worst of it is, he did modernize

286 The Briary-Bush ■

me. I don't know why I should complain — but somehoi^P
resent his power over me. He's always told me what to
do ; and in the end I've always done it. But I've hated
to. He told me to go to Chicago three years ^0. He told
me that what I needed was work, and adventure, and love.
And yet, for three years I tried to work out some silly plan
of my own. I didn't want to admit that lie was right."
"Are you sure thai he is right?" Felix asked.

■■Of ^'ifmr^i;'' Ar**"^ — ""■ f \^/r.^^_;lHvp[^^.■.■^— 1»..^>

Why notP This is the twentieth century — and I'm twenty-
two years old, Why shouldn't I have all those things?"

"No reason — if you really want them. But — "

"Yes?"

"Well—"

"You aren't going to tell me that woman's place is in the
home, and that I ought to get married? That would sound
strange, coming from you !'*

"Why? I am married."

"Yes. . . . You're lucky," she said looking at
sombrely.

"I know I am. But what do you mean?"

"Your marriage. You're /ii*tng your theories."

Felix smiled. "What theories do you mean ? You dii _
take seriously everything Clive said at our wedding, did
you ?"

She looked at him earnestly. "Oive wrote me you ivtrt
living up to your theories — you and Rose-Ann. Isn't
true?"

"Oh— that."

He knew that she meant the Dorothy episode. Rose-
had told Clive about it, and Clive had used the anecdote
more than once to point a modernistic moral, Phyllis was
not the only young person who had heard strange tales
this wonderful "free" marriage.

Phyllis's eyes questioned him fiercely, anxiously. _

"I see you've heard the story," he said. "Well, somethii^
of that sort did happen, But — "

'So it's true!" She said it triumphantly. "I'm so lire

ound

did

Wirt
in'tjM

»-aIP

dote

Nocturne 287

of all this talk that never gets anywhere. You don't know
how much 3rou and Rose-Ann have meant to me — ^your
marriage. It convinced me that there was something to
modernism after all."

'So you doubted it — in spite of all Qive's talk?" v^^^

'Yes — I did. Because it was just talk. . . . Look at me ! |
Do you doubt that I wanted everything Qive told me about ? |
wor k - — ad venture — love, . . . I've wanted them all along. I
If clive had only saii, *Come with me to Chicago — M"^

"Whatrfirfhesay?"

"He left it to me to decide. . . . That was fair enough.
If I didn't have sense enough to decide by myself — . Only,
I think he should have dropped me, let me alone. He's
been too patient. I've lost my respect for him." ^*^

"What do you want him to do— woft^ you marry him?" J

"Not now. Three years ago I was foolish enough to [
believe in marriage. I couldn't marry anybody now — least l
of all Qive: the man who taught me not to believe in J
marriage !" ^

"But you believe in — ^Rose-Ann's and my marriage, don't
you?"

"Oh, yes!" There was a wealth of devoutness in her
utterance, and her eyes opened wide as if in astonishment
at her belief being questioned. "Of course. But that's
different. . . . You two," she said, a little sadly, "are the
only people in the world that I do believe in, — ^you and Rose-
Ann. If you went back on me, and I felt that I was making
a mistake in becoming a modem woman, why — " She
laughed, and added, "No doubt my modernism seems ridic-
ulous to you. I admit that it's only talk, so far ! I — why,
I don't even smoke cigarettes. Qive has been to immense
pains to educate my mind ; but my habits are still those of-»
of my middle-western childhood. It's going to be strange.
... I am a queer person. Restless, discontented, fed up
on radical theories for three years. ... Do I seem ridic-
ulous to you?"

"No," Felix said gravely. "Not ridiculous." He hes-

288 The Briary-Bush

ttated. . . . There were things he wanted 1o sajr to her; ta
he urould be ridiculous, saying those Ihingt. And ytt It
did want to say them. . . . Her hand by ncsr htm <» At
cuuch. He covered it with his own. The toodi gave hn
the encouragement he needed ; but when he spoke it wu is
unpremeditated word«.
"I'm awfully sorry, Phyllis," he said.

For a moment her flippant hardness dmppcared. Sht
became for a moment, in response to his tone, the pri te
had first known — the real person, simple and genttine, thtf
still underlay all her pretences. . . . She let ber hand rr*
in his for a moment, and tlien withdrew it, "Why sorry"
she asked quietly. 'Tm sorry for myself; but why shotM
you be sorry for roe, Felix?"

"I don't know," Felix »aid. "But — I tike ym, and I
want you to be happy. And dive's roodcnusin dacfli\

t s aem to me to \k what you want."
I She frowned at him. "\Mat Jo I want ?" abc aaltcd
I "Not a hectic, experimental kind of extsienoe," be a?'-
I "I don't r
' "No. Not for j-ourself. You may warn to be tfaM > -
of person to please Give. Bui you don't want it. V. .
want — nt tetl you wliat you wam." He spoke oDofidestJ
"It's very simple. You want a husband, and cfaddiu, v-'
a home, and you want to stay there — yon want to be w»i
* to stay there."

She stirred restlessly, and seemed about to speak, bat te
motioned her abruptly to keep still, and went on mu tfcir-
itati%-ely. "Oh, don't deny iL Yon want snmebody ta
lake you in charge — some one in whom yon really bcfinc
thai you can really depend tipon, somebody who can bam
the job. Don't you I" he finished rather imperKMuly.

She smited at him quizxically, and then said, "Yea. MajiW
I do. How did yon guess 1"
*'! knew."* he said.
*^dl, don't ten anybody (hat I'm soch a

Nocturne

289

person I" she said. And suddenly she slipped down from the
bed to the floor, and put her arm across his knees, and
laid her head against it, without speaking. After a while
she looked up, and asked timidly, ''Do you mind ? I wanted

to.

290 The Briary-Bush

Felix caressed her shoulder with his hand,
feeling in some queer way that she was a child and that bt
was some infinitely older and wiser person.

They sat there a long time, she with her head restinc
against his knee, and he with his hand touching her shookkr
At last she took his other hand and held it against her face,
with an apparently unconscious and instinctive gesture, is
if she were in truth a child. He had a deep conviction thst
this was not love-making in any ordinary sense. There vis
some blessed healing in these contacts for them bolb — tfatf
was all.

Yes — for him, too. For as he bent over her, with !»
hand nourished against her check, he seemed to be findinf
rest, finding some quiet peace which his spirit needed, Thi
touch was enough. It was balm for a weariness of whicb
he had not !)een aware. It was rest, it was peace, it mai
his dream of her come true.

She lifted her head at last, like some one who has wakf»i
from a refreshing sleep. **You are very good to me." *hc
said, and rose up.

He stood up. suddenly conscious of how long the} hi:
been together, and wondered what time it was.

She glanced at her clock on the mantel, and his Vxi
followed hers. It was three o'clock.

**Gracioiis !" she whi^^pered.

He started to walk across the floor, and a board creaVei
he finished the journey to his door on tiptoe, half ashamr:
and angry at taking such a precaution. It gave an air *
the illicit to the occa^ion. .\i the door he turned.

She had remained standing beside his chair. He o>-*:
not shake hands with her without going back. But w*"^
was he hurrying away in such a frightened manner, 1* '
he had done something wrong? He recrossed the ixcc
and held out his hand.

•'Good night. Phyllis."

"Good night. Felix Fay."

Nocturne 291

He walked boldly back to his own room, and closed the
door with a defiant bang.

It had been very beautiful. . . . And why, now, must it
be so awkward, the task of finding a place for this beauty
in his ordinary life?

Explanations! . . .

Rose-Ann would understand, of course. But, even so,
the telling of it was difficult. He could think of no words
to convey the simplicity and naturalness of the incident

It was all very well to talk of telling the truth to one's
beloved; but the truth was not such an easy thing to
tell! . . .

So Felix was reflecting, as he put on his coat and hat to
go home, when there was a knock on the door he had
banged shut, and Phyllis entered.

"I want a breath of fresh air," she said. "I'll walk
over to your place with you if you don't mind."

XUV. Aubadc

THERE'S a light burning in your studio,** die said
as they turned the corner. They had been silent
all the way, Phyllis happy to be out in the mooo-
light, and Felix rather moodily uneasy at this proloagitioo
of an incident that had already had its due eodii^.

•*Yes, Rose-Ann is still up," he said.

He unlocked the door, and Phyllis ran in eagerly. Roft-
Ann sprang up from the table where she had been workixif:
over some magazine proofs.

"Phyllis!" she cried, and the two girls embraced like oW
friends long parted.

"I've been keeping Felix up, listening to the story of
my life." said Phyllis.

"Is it late? IVe been fixing up the dummy of the
Motion Picture World. I'm just finished. I have to prt
it down at the printer's at eight in the morning." She
went over to the t.ible. and swept the scattered proof*
into a portfolio, laying the dummy upon them, and t>inf
the strings. "How about some coffee ? Or are you sleepy *"
"Wide awake!" said Phyllis. "It's so nice to find you up
I did want to sec vour studio."

"Felix, will vou make some coffee?"

Felix came l>ack in a moment and sadly reported that the
coffee was "all gone!"

"Oh. I forgot — I used the last of it this evening. . .
What a pity!"

Felix, returning into their presence from behind the
screen, had a airious sen<e of being a third, an intrudff
into a friendly intimacy. He had had, in the very mocnrfit
of their meeting, a startled impression of their beinc
the oldest friends each other had. far more deeply acquainted

Aubade 293

with each other than he with either of them I And now,
in the mere two minutes in which he had been out of their
sight searching for coflFee, they had b^^tm to talk for
all the world like two old schoolmates who had, after a
long separation, much to tell each other. His entrance
had, or so it seemed to him, the eflFect of an interruption.

"I'll look again," he said awkwardly. "There may be some
left of that G. Washington coflFee. I think there is." And
he went behind the screen again.

There was no "G. Washington coflFee." He found the
empty can at once. But he sat down on the bed, grinning
sheepishly at himself, instead of returning. He could hear
them out there talking in the swift, breathless, low tones of
confidential feminine narrative. Now Phyllis's voice ceased
on a note of inquiry, and Rose-Ann spoke without inter-
ruption to a hushed listener. Her voice became louder,
and there was a ring of pride in it. Both girls suddenly
laughed and then Rose- Ann went on talking. . . .

What on earth could they be talking about ? Felix found
himself listening curiously, with decidedly the feeling of
an eavesdropper, but he could distinguish only an unrevealing
word or two now and then. "Clive's house," he heard, and
after a while, "scissors," followed by another laugh; but
that was all.

If someone had assured him, beforehand, that Rose- Ann,
in spite of what had seemed to him an ungenerous hostility
to Phyllis, would have instantly taken her to her bosom
like this, he would have been pleased; but now, with that
fact before him, he was not so much pleased as astonished.
He was even a little annoyed.

Why should he be annoyed? It was doubtless natural
enough for these two girls to want to talk together. Phyllis's
having been at Rose-Ann's wedding constituted a bond
between them. . . . And Felix remembered that when they
had first met they had seemed to like each other at once. He
was behaving rather ridiculously in staying out here; they
could talk just as well in his presence.

He returned to them and again reported failure. And

294

The Briary-Bush

ofjce more, as he entered, he had ihe feeling of I
inlruder. This time it was as if they had forgoiteDl
existence, and were rather startled to find him there, i
puzzled for a moment to know how to get rid of him I

"Oh t" said Rose-Ann to his news of the toul kbscni
«ny coffee whatever.

"I've some coffee over at my place," said PtiySk
"Won't yon come over there? I'd like to show yoa H^
room. And we can talk." ^H

Distinctly her glance at him tt^d Fetix that he wu l^H
wanted along. ^1

Rose-Ann jumped up. "Lei's I" she ukL And riMB ■
Felix, "you needn't boilier to come with us. Phyllis aad 1
want to talk."

"All riglitl" lie said, smiling. But as he saw them iit
IMirt together out of llie door of the Mudio into the moov-
light, he had an odd feeling of being a tittle boy felt «■
of the coorersatioit of his elders. . . . And |
iherc was a stnmgc feding of jealoiis i

He look a book, went to bed. and tried to read I
to steep. But at six o'clock he was »till awake, mod I
Ann had not returned. At seven he rose, and «
perhaps not exactly to look for her. but to his i

ITirotiph the inner door be could hear their ■
animated conversation. He went to the dour, Btutf H nfm.
aitd cried,

"My God, are you girU still tatkirq; T'

They looked up. stanled. and then laughed. "What lintr
is it?" asked Roi«-Ann. "I've been tcUinc PhyUb tSr
history of oar marriage. ..."

So that was what they were talking about t Half-appoBol
at having been after all included in the conver mi o^ t«
looked at htf watch. "Scvcn-ihirty," he «id-

"I have to have my dummy at the printer's at d(b( '

" " e-Afm. "I wonder if you wiQ lake it [*

Aubade 295

me, Fdix, while I take a bath. And we'll all meet at
breakfast. Clive and Phyllis are going to have breakfast
at Henrici's, and well join them. Will you ?"

Felix went back to the studio for the dummy. As he
went, he carried in his mind the picture he had seen when he
opened the door of Phyllis's roqm — Phyllis sitting on the
floor at Rose-Ann's feet precisely as a few hours earlier
she had sat at his, with what must have been the same wor-
shipful expression on her face as she listened to Rose-
Ann's words. Rose-Ann had also probably been deciding
her young destinies for her.

Felix laughed. It was certainly odd enough!

Yes, but what ideas had Rose-Ann been putting into her
head? What kind of story had Rose-Ann told her about
their marriages? Had Rose-Ann talked about their mutual
"freedom"? That theme would have accounted for Phyllis's
rapt and devout attention. It was what Phyllis wanted to
hear, what she wanted to believe — ^that love could be like
that!

Anyway, he was glad that Phyllis and Rose-Ann were
friends.

The four of them breakfasted together at Henrici's, and
at noon Phyllis was inducted into the magic circle of their
mid-day comradeship at the comer table in the little Hun-
garian restaurant; and that afternoon they took the train
for Woods Point — whither Phyllis had to go as it were in
disguise, or at least stealthily, for her family must not
know that she was spending the night at Qive's : an ironic
precaution, for their relations were still as vexatiously
and chastely intellectual as they had been in the earliest
days of their clandestine meetings.

In spite of their need of sleep — and fortified by the
thought that tomorrow was Sunday and they could sleep as
long as they liked — they sat up until all hours, talking.
It was like a reunion, and the memory of their first meet-
ing here touched it with romantic suggestion. The promise

296 The Briary-Bush

of oomradeshsp wUdi had been implicit in that fint
iagt obKored at tfie time by the anxieties and diacomfom
of a tribal ccr e n io n iaK had now, after so loqg an intcml
oome true. They f ek that diey had discovered each oihrr.
to a new extent, in this new grouping. It is not often ditf
two couples can happily coalesce into tfiat infinitdy tmt
and various arrangement, a group of four. But it had
unmistakably and thrillingly happenedl

XLV, Foursome

THE conversational permutations and combinations
of this new fourfold intimacy inevitably threw new
light for each upon the character of the others, and
led to endless discussions.

"But why," Felix exclaimed to Rose-Ann, after an evenr
ing spent in the company of the two others, "doesn't Phyllis
make up her mind about Clive, one way or the other. Why
should she keep on tormenting him this way?"

"Why doesn't Qive make up his own mind ?" Rose-Ann
retorted. "It's he that's torturing her. I understand
Phyllis's attitude perfectly."

"We both seem to have rather changed our views about
them," he observed. "You used to blame Phyllis."

"I don't any more." said Rose- Ann. "I blame Clive."

"For what, precisely?"

"For not knowing what he wants !"

"He wants Phyllis. That's simple enough."

"No, he doesn't. It would be simple enough if he did.
He could have her in a moment. She's crazy about him.
She wants nothing else than to be really his sweetheart"

"Then why isn't she?"

"Because he won't let her!"

"What nonsense, Rose-Ann !"

"It's perfectly true. I was going to tell you; while you
and Clive were over in the comer tonight taUcing about that
novel of his, she was explaining to me what she was angry
at him about She had proposed to him that they rent an
apartment together in Chicago this fall."

"And he refused?*' Felix asked incredulously.

397

I298

The Briary-Bush

, unless she would marry him first. And she

"Yes .
wouldn't."

"But why not?" he asked,

"Don't you understand, Felix? . . . Before, when they
Ififit knew each other, she would gladly have married him —
|but he wouldn't ask her. He wanted her to be a 'free-
woman.' And now that she's ready to be, he insists on
J'protecting' her wilh a marriage. Can't you see? he wants
I her to admit that she's not in earnest, that she's afraid. . . -
|And she won't. I quite agree with her!"
"Rut what a fuss over nothing." said Felix,
"Over nothing? Aren't ideas anything? Isn't pride any-
B thing?'

"Not in comparison with happiness. They've been making
Beach other niii^erable for two years wilh their ideas, and
(their silly pride. The important thing is to get them — yes,
1 it! — into the same bed together!"
:-Ann laughed. "They've tried even that, Felix 1 and
in good."

Foursome 299

Again, CUvc and Felix were at the "Tavcm,** across the
street from the Chronicle, sitting in front of their afternoon
ale.

"Phyllis," said Qive, "talks about .nothing but you, now-
adays — ^you and Rose-Ann. I gather that you are the most
wonderful two people in the world, with the possible ex-
ception of Bernard Shaw and Ellen Key."

'*I hear much more extravagant reports than that about
myself," said Felix. "Bernard Shaw isn't in it. I gather
that I am almost as wonderful a person as Qive Bangs I"

Clive shook his head. "I am a deserted altar," he de-
clared, with mock mourn fulness. "You are tfie new
divinity. How does it feel?"

"It's — slightly embarrassing sometimes," said Felix.

Qive grinned. "You just hate it, don't you? It makes
you bored to be adored !"

"Not exactly," said Felix. "But Phyllis does have a
disturbing way, when we are alone together, of seeming to
be a — well, a child, a very young child with a ... a beloved
parent I"

"Or why not say, a worshipper in the presence of a god!"
Give laughed. "You find it embarrassing, do you?"

"And also agreeable in a curious way !" Felix confessed.
'Tve never been regarded as a supematurally wise being,
before. I find I rather like it I"

"I know," said Qive. "The truth, is, it's tremendously
gratifying to one's ^otism. It's nice to be a god. But I
fell off my pedestal early in the game. And what I'd like
to know is, how do you manage to stay on yours so
serenely ?"

"It comes naturally to me, to be a god, I expect," said
Felix modestly. "I was probably bom tfiat way. I've often
been told I'm not human. But I imagine the trouble with
you was that you made love to her. That was a mistake.
You should let ber make love to you."

300 The Briary-Bush

"It sounds all right. Felix — not to make lore to her: be
do you really fmd it so terribly eaxy ?"
f ^■I'^," uid Felix, "I just keep in mind that I an ^
o be calm, benignant, Olympian inttJItgcim I fai
really, you know, there's nothing in the world leM caodaoK
to romance. A gesture betrayini; anything inore dai i
condescending jialenuil affet-lion would shaner the pkom.
An imporlunate lover is merely bunBW, you know, OhtT

"So I've found!' said Clive.

"But it's your own riamned fautL I mean Ihis
Give. You taught her this preposterous rvutvcne
only learned your cliaracteristic attitude — or your
trick, whichever it la." 1

"I must say she's learned it well. ... So 3rt>a thiafc il^ I
all a mask. And whatdoyou tmagiitcisundcnieaA?" Or-
asked carelessly.

"I don't itttagine — I know,** Felix said eamestlf, thnL..
of the real person he had evoked from under her incr
lecnuU disguises that fir^t night of talk in her roooL "Somb'
thing so simple. Clive. that you'd never briicvc rt."

Clive yawned. "1 might not Iwlieve it. but I c«a ^^
what you're about to say. Felix : a Woman. Gad Ueai IK
with a capital \V I . . . Come on. Fdix, you've f^iM
the maudlin stage ; let's go back to the oflice."

3
"PhylEt," said Clive to RowAnn one aftcraooR -

Field's where they had met by chance at the tTatfiw"
counter, and bad gone together to the tea-rootn for tea tM
ulk. "complains to me that Felix hasn't been to his wert-
room all tliis week : she seems to think he is idling away hi
time in the society of his wife, when he ought to be wrMl
plays and letting her moke cofTec for him."

Rote-Ann laughed. "Wlinher it's Phyllii's coffee « **■
he docs seem to be getting some good woric done. I it.
like that new play."

"The Dryad'? A lavtiy Utile thing. Why dr
yoa make him send it to Gregory Storm?**

Foursome 301

Gr^iory Storm was an enthusiast who was organizing
a company of amateurs to give plays by Schnitzler and
Wedekind and other modems, and Felix had vainly been
urged by Qive to submit some of his one-act plays to
them.

"I'm not going to 'make* Felix do anything/' Rose-Ann
said impatiently. ''Make him yourself, if you want him
to ! I wof^t manage his career for him."

"Afraid hell blame you if it fails?" Qive asked
maliciously.

"No— afraid he'll blame me if it succeeds !" she laughed.

"You're right," said Qive. "I never saw any one so
afraid of success."

"Oh, it's not success he's afraid of. It's rather, I think,
that he's afraid of enjoying himself! You know, Qive,
he really is a Puritan!"

"Harsh words, Mrs. Fay! On what grounds do you
accuse Felix of the horrid crime of Puritanism?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean, Qive! You
were saying that Felix hadn't been to his work-room this
week. And you know why. It's because he's afraid of
Phyllis. Isn't it absurd !"

"Absurd? Not at all! I'm very much afraid of her,
myself!"

"Well, I'm not! Felix ought to know that I'm just as
fond of Phyllis as he is, and that I can perfectly
well understand how nice it is to have her around. I like
to have her make coffee for me, and sit at my feet And
suppose he did kiss her — she's very kissable; I wish he
would, and get over being afraid of her."

"No use, Rose- Ann; he never will. And what's worse,
she never will, cither. She's just as much afraid of him
as he is of her. I'm afraid theirs is a hopeless passion!"

They both commenced to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Phyllis and Qive had quarrelled again, and Phyllis felt in
need of encouragement in her Qive-less way of life. She

1 302 The Briary-Bush

I leaned on Rose-Ann for philosophic g;uidance, and the two

I girls spent many evenings together in the studio; while Felix,
I without the sustenance of Phyllis's coffee, worked at revising
I "The Dryad," which he had decided to submit to Gregory
I Storm. But one evening Phyllis came in disconsolately, and
I said to Felix;

"I've been to the studio and Rose-Ann isn't there!"

"She's at the printer's," said Felix, "reading page-proof."
I He pushed back his manuscript. "Do you want to make rae
I some — ■"

"Coffee ? No," said Phyllis, "but you can take me out and
I buy me a cocktail or something; and — and give me some
I spiritual guidance. I need it!"

They went to a quiet restaurant in the Loop which Clive
Ihad discovered, a foreign-looking place where people sat for
Ihours over one drink: a place to talk. It was almost empty
his hour, A table across the room was occupied by an
-ly Swede or Dane, who sat moodily sipping a liqueur.
(Vhat." Phyllis demanded, fingering the stem of her glass.

Foursome 303

"Not a bif*

"Many, you say?"

"Yes."

"And Fm not to ask why?*^

"No."

"Then — whom ?"

"A man."

"Any man?"

"Any man you happen to like,**

"But I don't happen to like many men.**

"Marry one of those fortunate few."

"I suppose you mean Clive?"

"Hell do."

"No, he won't."

••Why not?**

"He doesn't believe in marriage. And, Felix, one of the
two people must believe in a marriage, for it to be a
marriage !"

"Then marry — Herbert Bond."

Herbert Bond was a staid young business man with
whom Phyllis had flirted outrageously during her last quarrel
with Qive.

"You said — ^any man I happened to like,*' she protested.

"What kind of man do you happen to like, then?"

"Clive's kind !"

•*I suspected as much," he said. "Well, then, marry one
of Clive's kind — ^but without Qive's fatal weakness."

"Not believing in marriage — is that his fatal weakness?**

"Not being able to believe in anything! — ^in marriage — in
love—"

"Or in me," said Phyllis sadly.

Felix was silent

"Can any one — ^any one of Qive's kind — ^believe in me?**
she asked.

'Yes," he said, avoiding her eyes.

'Are you sure?" she demanded, leaning across the table.

'Quite sure," he said quietly, meeting her gaze.

304

The Briary-Bush

She looked down. "Tlicre's only one other nn-^
cure's kind — thai I can think of," she ntd. "And hcV
out of my reach."

"Then you must look annnd for some othen," FA
said, smiling.

"Arc there others?" she asked incrcduknisly.

"Of course. It's only youth and ignonmce that odn
you imagine ihey are scarce. Yoa don't find them by te
dozens in little country towns, of course : but yoa ut ■
Chicago, now. They are a type familiar in all great bBft
How long have you been here? A few mootlut A^
because you've only found two, so far — "

She sighed. "You think there may be a third?"

"Oh, ye»."

"And you think 111 find him?"

"If you look."

"And will he like tif, do you think?"

"I shouldn't be surprised if he did, father f*

•miank you!" she wid mockingly. "It b awftaDy
yoa to say so!"

At this moment they noticed the man who mi
across the room, the elderly Scandinavian, rising and
ing in their direction. They looked at htm in *m pr i». Mt
he came over to their table, and bowed agaia^ He wtt
drunk, but none the less a gentleman.

"Pardon me," he said, .tpeaking quiedy. in a vc-
which had only the trace uf an alien accent, "lor ^
liberty 1 take tn addressing you. But I have be^ flnv J
there, seeing you — seeing your happiness — and it gn»tf J
»uch pleasure thai I wanted to tdl )rou — to thank yan lb i
to thank yuu T* He put his hand on his breast. {

"1 felt sure," he said, smiting alTeetionaidy at tboB, *— 1 <
said to mysdf. these Iwo happy lovers will forgive a loai^
old man for telling them how miKh it has meant galf ■
look on for a moment at their happi nes s th eir jn^ t
happiness I" *

He bowed agaJn. "I^rdon me." he said,
agahi bowed, and went out the door.

Foursome 305

Felix and Phyllis stared after him, and then looked at
each other, and burst out laughing.

But, interesting as such incidental discussions might be,
the heart of their fourfold relationship was in the mid-day
discussions at the little Hungarian restaurant They named
it the Rendezvous. There they talked of everything in the
world that interested them. . . . Two people talking together
tell secrets ; three people talking are a conspiracy ; but four
talkers are a world. They told the truth ; they were hard in
their sincerity; and nobody flinched. They were proud of
their robustness. The theme of a tete-a-tete confession
might at any moment be flung into the stark publicity of that
arena. They no longer had secrets ; or, if they had, it was
because these were secrets of which they had not become
aware.

One day Qive said laughingly, "If anything ever happens
to us, of the sort that 'can't' be discussed, we'll come here,
and discuss it in the teeth of God and Nature I'

They had planned a vacation together, but Phyllis and
Give had quarrelled once more, and Felix and Rose-Ann set
out disappointedly by themselves on the appointed day,
through Gary and beyond to "the Dunes." But, after a little
having pitched their tent and wandered out over the great
wastes of sand by the Lake, they were conscious, both of
them, of a sense of release. In this wilderness of sand-
hills, they seemed to be a million miles distant from all the
world they had lived in.

"It's good to be away from people," said Rose-Ann.

"Even from Clive and Phyllis," said Felix.

Rose-Ann's lips pouted mutinously. ''Especially from
Qive and Phyllis!" she said.

"Yes. . . ." Felix said hesitatingly. "But— why?"

"They're family all over again," said Rose-Ann. **I

3o6 The Briary-Bush

thought I had tacaptd from familicn. • • . Bat one
does.''

They cooked and ate and slept and kissed and bathed c
the lake, and lay idly on the sand. They did not discuss am-
thing all week long. And when die end came, and it n
time to b^n the miles*long walk back to the nearest meo-
car line, they stood looking back lingeringly at the pcKt
they were leaving behind.

''It would be nice to have a house here,'' said Rose-Aaa

"Yesp . . ." said Felix.

''Only — the lake and the sand are sort of wmsted, «ii^
out children to enjoy them."

A burning flash of memory lighted Felix's mtad, sri k
saw himself and Rose- Ann, the summer before,
a park under great trees that lifted their shivering
to the sky. . . . "Everything is all right now/' she h^
said — now that they were to have no child. . . .

He felt, again, forces that he did not understand hnrlir^
themselves on his heart, crushing and stunning it. . . . Ke
looked at her, questioning her with his eyes.

"I hope/' she was saying, *'that Give and PhyDis mix
up again — soon. We are rather dull without them, area^
we?"

XL VI. The Rehearsal

COMING back to town, Felix forced himself to ask
for another raise in salary. It was less because he
needed the money than because he wanted to assure
himself that he really was what he was supposed to be
— a person of some importance. He got his raise — one
which made his pay now commensurate with his position as
dramatic critic of a great newspaper.

And the same week he received word that the Artists*
Theatre had accepted his play, 'The Dryad." It was to be
presented on the opening bill, along with Schnitzler and
Wedekind !

The acceptance of this play, taken in conjunction with
such a realistic fact as his raise in salary, seemed to mean
something; he wanted to believe that it did — but he vras
rather afraid to believe it. Instead, he began to tell him-
self that in sober truth it meant nothing at all.

He went to see Gregory Storm, the director, and was
urged to attend the rehearsals. "At all events," he said to
himself, "I can look on and learn something practical about
the mechanics of the theatre."

Rose-Ann refused to accompany him to the rehearsal.
"You are getting into a terrible habit of having me on your
mind whenever I'm around," she said. "I've noticed it when
you write; I bother you. I'd rather stay away. Besides,
if I went, I should want to be in it myself I"

He went alone, reflecting that what Rose-Ann had said
was true. If she were in the room he was more self-

307

308 The Briary-Bush

coiLsciius, by reason of being so consduiu o{ her. He ■
get over it. . . .

He found the players a!>Mnibled on their liny (tagt; li
Urger than the one in the children's theatre ai Coama
House. The house would %eat ninely-nine people only; «
more seat, and tiie Artists' Tlieaire would tnvc come witte
the theatre ordinance and been required to pay a Ibertie-
tax. Officially then, as a theatre, it did not exist. Tk
actors, Felix knew, received no pay ; they vrere lawyen ai
doctors, painters and poets, businus men's wives and aaAt-
tious young women just out of school. The authors ol Ik
plays would receive no royalty ; the income from inT miki
would not cover the rent of the theatre itself, and Ik
deficit would have lo be made up by emhusiasta. ... la
a manner of speaking, it wasn't a theatre at all — it wa* ;
dream.

As soon a.s he entered the theatre Telix felt its irreabti^il
dream quality. Upon the stage, walking up and down, va»
tlic Alight, striking, dramatic figure of Grcgoiy Stoiiu ik
dreamer who^e dream all this was. the man who stHl. iB A*
years of maturity, was trying to achieve a chikliah. wimmi
and delightful impossibility. It was he who had named iSb
cntcrpriw "The Artists' Theatre"; no ooe else in Oucac
would have Iwcn so brave, or so foolish. . . .

He turned, saw Felix, nodded at htm, ai>d c lap ped ^
hands. "Cast of 'The Dryad'!" he cried.

Three men and a girl stood up. The others left the aa^
Felix clambered up o\'er the place where the footlights «v«U
have been if Gregory Stonn had not passkmately diabde*^
in footlif^tits.

Gregory Storm shook Felix's hand hastily, and tnrncd <>
the others. "Tliis is the auilior. Mr. Fay. Mtas MacUk
Mr. Ferguson. Mr. Whipple. Mr. Deedy." FeUx hemeL
"Well have the scenery." He clapped his bands t^m-
-.Set for-ThcUryad'!"

A man whom Felix recognized as an cnlcrprtsiag JVMK
architect speared at the back, ttrugglinf with a Ml) paivd
onvas frame. ... As the set was pot together, Fc£x Wt

The Rehearsal 309

a genuine thrill of pleasure; it was so completely, and so
startlingly, in the spirit of his play. He had feared that
he would be given a realistic woodland setting — and that
would have shown up the utter artifice of his play. But
this was a wood as some artist of the Yellow Book in his
gayest mood might have pictured it — a wood that was, after
all, a fashionable drawing-room or a perftmied boudoir, set
for the graceful and heartless loves of shepherds and shep-
herdesses dressed in silks and satins. . . . The young ar-
chitect grinned at him. "Like it?" he whispered. "I did
it myself. Pretty good, I think I"

"We had a good deal of difficulty with that little song in
your play," said Gregory Storm. "The one the fat man
sings." He smiled appreciatively. "We set it to two or
three old ballad tunes before we got the right one. Would
you mind, Mr. Deedy, trying it for us ?"

Mr. Deedy, who was to take the part of the Banker in
the play, stepped forward and sang in a mournful voice:

"Do you remember when first we met.
How, in that April weather.
Chasing a butterfly, xve ran.

Over the hills together f"
"Good!" said Gregory Storm. "Now the last stanza.^

"But shall we then withhold our hand^
And stay our foolish feet
When next illusion flutters hyf

I wonder, O my sweet !"

The effect was quite as droll as Felix had desired.

"Mr. Whipple," said Gregory Storm, "is the Advertising
Man. Mr. I)eedy is the Guide. And Miss Macklin, of
course, is the Dryad. Are you ready?" He ckipped his
hands again.

Miss Macklin stepped back into the wings ; the three men
lay down, in attitudes of sleep, beside what was supposed
to be a camp-fire in a forest, and Felix's play had b^jun.

Felix was looking at the girl in the wings. He had never
taken the performance of his play very seriously; he had

1 e««^|

310 The Briary-Bush

never supposed that any group of people would <
able to enter into iL<i spirit. )Ic ha<] misiudged (
Storm. No fantasy was loo quaint and absurd for Imi M
understand, it seemed : and tnoreuvcr, he had conveyed w
these men on the stage his own zest in the fantas y tibe;
really succeeded in transitorting one into lhi« rcafan «f
pseudo-realiry in which anything might happen. . . . Aai
that girl : she was. of all persons in the world, the oar »
play that part. She had an elviih look, the very air mi
gesture of one of those soulless, ever-living creatures of Ihi
wood, who have in one form or another haunted m4
lormented the imagination of masculine mankind. Tbot
was something about the shape of her mouth, a ■M^'*'
sharpness of contour, which nude it look inhuman, as ibaa^
not made for mortal kisses ; and the way her ffirrhnwi «eM
up and back on each side in strange receding plane* Id i
roots of her tangled hkck hair — there wu f
remoteness, and mystery, in that face. . . . He 1
eyes from her.

lliese men were doing very wdl indeed. But what soiM
an audience think ? That was a difTerent matter.

He wwted for the I>ryad's entrance. He wanted to hnr
her speak — she had not as yet uttered a single wocd. . . .
Yes, her voice was all that it should be — low, deep, oooL
dear, and as if from far away, beautiful and emobonl^
the voice of an elf. . . . And really, it was annuiii^ 6m
absurd discussion of morals that ensued, when the Dryml
offered to accompany these men tu Chicago — the <l
of what their wives would think, and \
and their laboured explanation* of marriage, and t
and ckithes, all the civilized things which a poor DrrW
would find it so hard to understand and a Banker and m
Advertistng Man so diflkult to exptaiiL And then ik
Guide, (he very Shavian Guide with a philoMphy of t^
own — not a bad touch I

When Felix left the Artius' Theatre that night, he tv.
a feeling that he had been away from the real wortd (or .
long time— tike Rip Van WiaUe coming back fran a hnti

«1

The Rehearsal 311

stay in the Troll's Garden to find his friends all dead or
grown old. ... It was too deep an allurement. He must
not go to any more rehearsals. They could get along well
enough without him.

'How did the rehearsal go ?" Rose- Ann waked up to ask.

'Beautifully," he said. "But the theatre is too much for
me. I feel as though if I went behind the scenes again I
would never come back."

'Would that be so terrible?** she asked.

'Yes,*' he said.

'But — I might go, too. ... I'd like to play a part like
your Dryad — if I could."

He remembered her suddenly as he had seen her among
the children at the Community House Theatre. Yes, she
could play such a part. But ... he didn't want her to —
for some reason which he could not understand. She must
stay here in the world of reality — and keep him here.

"They said something about a ball — ^to make some money
for the theatre," he remarked. "I suppose we'll have to
go?

"I'd like to go," she said, and commenced planning their
costumes with enthusiasm.

«1

XXLVII. The Fortunate Youth

ON the occasion of the opening bill of t
Tticatrc, a young man who had jint joiaedl
slatT uf ttic Chrr>iude was delegated to atiesdl
criticize the performance; what he said in pnuse or t
would not mancr citlier way. . . . The play came off wy
well, was generously applauded, and therr vta an i iiiMj
little supper afterward at which Felix and Rose-Am mi
Clive and Phyllis and the cast of "The Drrad" drank a gmi
deal of wine, and many compliments were baixlied back vrf
forth. And that. Felix thought, was the end of the mttr.

But it seemed not. Of course, the young nu vka
criticized the play for the Chronicle had to make a fool rf
himself and Felix by hailing him as "our new Bani^:
but that did not do any real harm. Moat nf the rritio weff
sensible, and treated the event with casual indifTerence. Bi*
old Jennison, the "deao of the fraternity." had gOBc Ac
second night, and given the pLiy a moM aaftmiahtaf ca■^
nwndalion, well-calculated to turn any yoang plajrwriflc^
head — besides remarking prirately to Felix on the MraS
that he was wa.Ming hit time fooling with amateur* — m^
didn't he aim (or Broadway, he had the stuff in htn. aal
so forth. . . . And the bill was going to well, on accsai^
it was said, o( Felix's pby, itut the orifftiuU ma of tw
weeks had been extended to three.

Success? So hi* friends called it lightly, and thoocli k
made an effort to sec it in its true perspective, Fckx teit
a glow of elation. Perhaps he had really shown ifaat ^
coutd do sotnething !

In this frame of mind, on tlie final night of the K~
which had managed to dee out a four wedu' nv. be «c^

The Fortunate Youth 313

to another little supper party, with Rose-Ann, Qive and
Phyllis, and the players, and heard — with somewhat less
sense of being "guyed" — their extravagant praises. . . .
Besides, he knew something that they did not know — ^not
even, as yet. Rose- Ann: an actor-manager-playright from
New York, who happened to be in town, had seen "The
Dryad," liked it, and said that it could be made into a suc-
cessful three-act play — had, in fact, offered to collaborate
with him upon it! That sounded like the real thing.
Perhaps these praises were not the absurdities they
seemed. . . .

That evening Qive was in a difficult mood; he and
Phyllis had been tormenting each other of late to the point
of exacerbation. Give's ironies lacked tonight the quality,
whatever it was, that made them agreeable. He managed
by some satirical remark to offend Miss Macklin, to whom
he had been paying special attentions. He commenced to
drink recklessly. Phyllis refused contemptuously to speak
to him. And then suddenly he disappeared.

Phyllis came home with Felix and Rose-Ann. At the
studio they made coffee, and talked about the ball and their
costumes. At last Felix told them about the actor-manager
and his offer.

"Well," Phyllis asked, "how does it fed to have every-
thing you want?"

"It feels," Felix said, "unreal — disturbing. It can't be
true. Do you remember the story of Polycrates?"

"No," said Phyllis.

"Herodotus tells about it — and I was thinking about it
only today, and I made up a little rhyme about it I'll tell
you the story. . . ."

Phyllis, sitting on the floor, with her coffee beside her,
was looking up at him with eager eyes, eyes full of pride
greater even than Rose-Ann's. Rose-Ann was a r^ist.
She knew all this did not amount to so much. This story
was addressed to Phyllis. Rose-Ann, reclining on the settle.

The Briary-Bush

seemed a little outside the circle of iu tntentian. i
[tally looking on.
was a Persian king — very rich, very
happy. And there came to visit him a Credc pbite>
optier. The Persian king asked him, 'AArliat is the me o<
philosophy?' And the (ireek philoMphrr answered It
serves to reconcile us to the unhappiness of our lot.* *T)a
what me is it to me?* the king asked. '1 am txit imhaffT
1 am the happiest of mortals.' 'Yei.' Mtd the philaMflMt,
'you arc too happy. You had heitcr beware t* *0( irtm^
asked the king. 'Uf the jealousy of the gods.* said Ac
philosopher.

"That sounded reasonable enough to the Icing. He M
nothing to fear from men; btit the gods — they migfat «d
be jealous of him. 'What shall 1 do to appease Aeir
wrath ?' he asked.

"Take the most precious thing you own, and throw it ■*•
the sea I" was the advice of the philosopher.

"Now the king had a certain ring, which at the i
of his reign he had taken from the lutnd of a «
monardi, and which he had always cherished as the syf
of hi5 victorious career. It seemed to him the most |
of all his possessions, and so he went and thicw k i
the »ea.

"But the next evcnii^ as the king and the phfloaoffea*
■at down lo dinner, the cook came running in with the ra(
which he had that moment found in the entrails of a U
which wa<^ going lo be the king's dinner. The kn^ took t
with great satisfaction, saying. The gods have gms ■•
back my ring,"

"But the philosopher turned pate, and said. *The ga^
have rejected your gift.* and immediately went home, («l^
ing to be in that Icingdoni when the wralh of the gods
deKcci>ded upon it

"And when he had returned to Greece, he heard ri wf Ifct
king's enemies had descended upon the kingdom and lx'•^
thrown it, and sacked the palaee, and carried away the kiar''
wives, and built a great pyre of the palace fumisfaiqp a»

The Fortunate Youth 315

set the king on top of it on his golden throne, to be
burnt. . . .

"The story ends happily after all, in Herodotus. But it
was a narrow squeak, and the gods only relented at the last
minute, by softening the hearts of his conquerors and send-
ing a rain to put out the fire. But the gods are capricious
— and perhaps the next time they wouldn't change their
minds."

'And the rhyme you made up about it?" Phyllis asked.

'Well, it points the moral of the tale :

"When there is nothing left to wish.
And Earth's too much like Heaven,
Throw away some lovely gift
Of all the gods have given / .

"Too happy, like that king of old
Who gave the sea his ring —
Find out if there's in store for you
The fate of that old king t"

Rose-Ann sat up and smiled at him. "But Felix," she
said, "you've got it all wrong I You don't understand the
moral of that old fable at all I"

"No?"

"No I" said Rose- Ann. "The gods were angry at that
old king because he didn't appreciate what they had done
for him. ... It was because he threw away some of the
loveliness that they had given him, that they punished him.
He was a coward — and the gods don't like cowards I"

"No ?" . . . Felix was realizing now consciously what he
had meant by the story. Those evenings in his work-room,
with the door open between him and Phyllis, and Phyllis
come in to sit on the floor beside him in some interval of his
work — intervals that grew longer and longer — all the sweet-
ness of that friendship, so much more than friendship that
it was almost like love ... it was this that he was going
to throw away. He was going to give up his room, and get
another, or return to the studio to work. It was this
intention tliat he had unconsciously in mind when he wrote —

3i6

The Briary-Bush

''Throw away some lovely gifi
Of all the gods have given f*

'*No, Fdix,** Rose-Ann was saying, "there's no use Inc
afraid of good fortune. When the gods give us beun
we must take it — ^not run away from it/'

''Sol . . .'' he said 'Tm afraid the Greeks thoi^fs
differently."

''They were so much less Greek, then,** said Rose-Am

''It's late/' said Phyllis. "I must go home. WiD m
take me, Felix ?"

He put on his hat and went out with her silently.

They walked along the empty streets without a word nnb!
they reached the door of the house in which she lived. The
she lifted her face up to him, and said,

"You know that I love you, Felix."

XLVIIL Dream-Tryst

foundations of Fdix's existence seemed to crack
and fall apart, the whole edifice of thought and
emotion in which he lived to topple and tumble in
ruins.

"No," he said slowly, "—I didn't know."

They turned, and walked down the street toward the cor-
ner, side by side. At the comer they paused, and looked at
each other helplessly.

"Yes, I do too know," Felix said. "I must have always
known."

They stood looking at each other for a moment, and then
turned back, walking along the street in silence, past the
door of the house, to the comer, where they stopped again.

"I couldn't stand it," Phyllis said, "not to tell you. It
hurt so — to have to keep it a secret, as if it were somethii^
to be ashamed of. And I thought — if there is anything in
this modernism — ^this talk — if it really means anything, if
it isn't all just a damned fake — I could tell you. I wanted
to. I had to, Felix."

Yes. . . of course. That was the meaning of it
all. . . .

"You aren't angry at me, Felix, for telling you?"

No — he wasn't angry. It seemed to him magnificent —
the simplicity, the bravery, the candour of that confession.
She was to him in that moment a person more quietly sure
of herself, more nobly honest, than anything in all this
tangled insincerity of modem life — a creature out of some
poem of the world's youth. Beside him, as she walked, her
very person seemed magnified — ^her soft brown hair, her
dark quiet eyes, her serene mouth, seemed the features of an

317

3'8

The Briary-Bush

epic heroine, who faced life strong-limbed, dear-cycd
unafraid. She was the cmlKxltment of that calm, acr
strong girl-goddess who liad been with htm a r cc ur r ta g l
dream since childhood. I'he beauty, the siinplici^, o(
confession of love Mirred him to the depths of his
. . . And he realised that he had something to caaftm m
return — something that this honesty of hers r rq ui rei •!
him. But they had turned again and walked back m
other corner before he could say it. It came with >
with an effort that took all his courage, all hts
And yet it mu>t be said. . . .

"I love you, too. Phyllis."

She looked up at him, as if punled. startled.

"I didn't know it till just this momem — boi it's timT

"But — why?" She put her hand as if defnunclf ■
her bosom, to ward off a danger she had not apprakeaM

"Why should you love mer'

He pondered. "I don't know. Why do people low ad
other? I don't know."

"You toi't me!" she repealed, as if it were a pniis
for which die were seeking the answer.

"Yes," Fdix said soberly.

"But therv— "

She did not ftni^ her sentence, and they turned r^
walked again slowly back to the other comer.

"Thai makes a diffcrciKc." she said. "I never thee
of that. It was all so sim]>lc liefore."

"Are you sorry 1 — bve you ?" he asked.

"I don't know. I don't know what to think.
dare realize it. Of course I'm glad — and mttj.
frightened. Oh. Felix, what shall we do?"

She looked at him with grave, awed eyes.

"I — " Felix began, and flopped; and they
walk, not touching each other. . . .

Felix had no »efue of iIk i^treet upon whkh he wafr-
He was detached from everythitig. except the kno wfa^t
what bad happened — that little cleared q»cc o{ muMU

I d

Dream-Tryst 319

about which was a whirling chaos in which all things fell
confusedly into nothingness. . . .

He realized that he had to adjust this thing that had hap-
pened, to all the rest of his life, to Rose-Ann, to his mar-
riage, to his career. The sense of those things, even of
Rose- Ann, came slowly ; his mind was reluctant to face them.
He wanted to stay here, in this cleared space in which one
thing was beautifully true. But already that moment was
passing. With the sense of those other things, this that
had happened was no longer beautiful, but terrible — a bur-
den, a problem. . . .

He shook his head as if to free it from heaviness, the
intolerable weight of thought. But he must think. . . .
Was it true that he cared for nothing but this moment of
mad beauty? Rose- Ann, his marriage, his home, his plans,
his future — was it true that these things meant nothing to
him? Could he forget them all in an instant? Had a
word, a phrase, shattered the whole edifice of his life?
Was all this elaborate structure of plans and ambitions, this
sober adjustment to the world of solid reality, a bubble
that vanished at a touch ?

That was what he had been afraid of, that day in the hos-
pital, when he had tried to tell Rose-Ann about himself.
He had wanted to tell her what a fool he was. He had
wanted to assure her that he would be such a fool no longer.
And he had not had the courage. She had taken him as he
was. She had exacted no promises. . . . Well, this was
what he was like — ^this !

No— he must be sane. Just because this moment seemed
the only thing in the world worth holding to, just because he
wanted to stay in this dream-world, just because he cared
about nothing else, he must fight his way back to reality.
He must not surrender. This was the test : whether he
could be a sane man, or must spend his whole life in the v
following of disconnected impulses, a vagabond and a fool.
He wanted to keep this beauty : well, then, he must give it
up.

320 The Briary-Bush

They had stopped ^ain, at the other comer,
garded him quietly with troubled eyes. "Rose-Am-
she said.

"Yes, I know. Rose-Arm. And CTerythinj.**

"No. We can't," she said.

"No. We mustn't."

They looked at each other bravely, and a 0ttk pkihi^
and recommenced their silent promenade along the dcMrtri
street.

At the door, she stopped firmly, and held oat ber taii
"You must go," she said. "Good night. I'ln — gbd, ■
spite of everything. Good night."

He held her hand in his, de.spenilely anxious to kef
this moment's beauty a little longer, before be returned ■
the world of reahly. "Will you — kiss me?" he aslnd.

She shook her head.

"Not even in good-bye?" he urged.

She laughed, with a sudden retumption of Bghtneaa. '^
good'byc kiss? There's no such thin|C, Fdixl A ki«*
always the beginning of things. — Good nightr* Sfae kr
his land a moment, and added in tiie most frietiuljr waj. :
if they were almost strangers, "I shall see yoa at tfac tari
tomorrow nigjii?"

He turned away, glad that *be had
sorry. Angry at her, for no reason. Happy that he
going home to Rose-.^nn — to Ro^c-.\nn, lovdy and real
in his mind — out of all this madi>cssl

He commenced to whistle tunelessly. . . .

And then, as if brought by the niglit-btveze, « becMl
dteam-nostalgia overwhelmed him, making him Axxy
faint He stopped, trembling all over. . . .

Ry God, he muKt get over this. ... He imtat get I
to reality.

And Rose-Ann miin help him. He
thing. ... He opened the door of the studio and

Dream-Tryst 321

her name, like a frightened child come back to its mother.

"Yes?" she called back. She was sitting up in bed,
sewing spangles on her costume for the ball tomorrow night

He suddenly realized that everything was all right —
that there was nothing to tell.

XLIX. A Matter of Convention

NO--nothing to tdl ! . . . They talked about the bdL
and the costumes they were to wear; and in tbt
profound reassuring consciousness that life is ioar-
thing that need only be lived, that need not be diacasad
and understood, he fell asleep.

The next morning he was sorry he had not told Rest-
Ann. But the moment to tell had passed. ... Life
going on as usual, ignoring these private crises. Yt
and Rose- Ann and Phyllis, just as if nothing had happened
were going to the Artists' Theatre Ball ! Rose- Ann »x»
going in a Spanish dress with a wonderful shawl for whid"
she had long awaited the proper occasion, and Felix a> i
pirate, in green sash and orange shirt. . . . They wtrt
going to dance — instead of, as would have seemed mcts,
fitting to Felix, to discuss their destinies.

It was precisely this mere matter of dancing that vcm
incongruously troubled him.

Felix was not a dancing man. And that would have brr
all right, if he had not wanted to dance. But he did was^
to dance ! Even at this moment, with so much more impi^-
tant things to think about, it began to occupy all his thoag^t^
He wanted to dance. It was annoying not to be able tw
. . . He had more than once gone through the excruciitmc
agony of trying to learn. He had. in fact, learned, so ?'*'
as one can learn anything against which there operates *«*
mysterious inward paralysis. He knew the steps as wcl
as he knew the multiplication table. But just as so t urtig o
in school there had come upon him a fatal bdpless esmh-

A Matter of Convention 323

sion in which he was unable to remember whether nine
times seven was eighty-one or sixty-four, so it was when
he tried to put his knowledge in practice in a ballroom.
He reminded himself of nothing so much as the hapless
hero of that old joke, who said, "Yes, I can dance, except
that the music bothers me and the girl gets in my way!"

And he might have accepted his inability to dance as a
fact, and let it go at that:--except that it wasn't a fact!
Somehow, heaven only knew how, half a dozen times in
his adult life he had been able to dance — and not badly.
But what were the circumstances which magically operated
to liberate him from this mysterious paralysis, he did not
know. He never knew whether he was going to be able
to dance or not. He always went fearing the worst, and
generally it happened. Rose-Ann could not understand it,
because once when there had been impromptu dancing to
a phonograph after a dinner party at some one's home, he
had danced with her without the slightest awkwardness;
but when, while dancing with her a second time, she whis-
pered to him to ask some of the other girls to dance, he
became embarrassed, and made protestations of his inability.
She knew that he could dance, and she at first regarded
his attitude as a kind t>f stupid stubbornness. But no
scoldings, nor any patient gentleness for that matter, was
able to change it

Tonight Felix knew from the beginning that he was not
going to be able to dance. He sat in the box with Rose-
Ann and Phyllis and Clive and several of the players, utterly
miserable. They had arrayed themselves for the ball at
the Artists' Theatre, and that preliminary part of the affair
had been, as it always was, delightful. He wished one
could dress up to go to a ball, and then not go. The
dressing, the showing off of costumes, the banter, the
laughter, the drinking of cocktails and black coffee, all the
preparations, had been good fun; but now commenced the
evening's misery. Rose-Ann looked at him inquiringly as
the orchestra struck up a two-step, and he shook his head.
No— he couldn't do it tonight. And so she stepped off in

324 The Briary-Bush

th« arms of Qi\x. Phyllis— he had never dmnd wA
Phyllis — was wailing, he thuughl, for htm to uk her. He
doggedly leaned over the edge of the box and waidKd Ht
dancers. Why, he a&ked hinuelf, had be come? He tr»
Phyllis a minuie later, dancing with a man in a pm^
monlcish coHtumc. one of the actors. Elva Macldio — kil
she taken that name Elva because she knew the w«i chidu
or had (he previnioii of parents bestowed it upoa bcrf—
was dancing with Gregory Storm. The box was vmotoi
except for Felix, who sat lookii^ on the Kene wid >
jealous and ai^ry eye.

A few pieces of coloured cloth, a bangle. Mine mop; a
military coal, a ^wl, a sash, a bit of lace, a stnia a(
music, and these people were transformed, one and *l.
out of their accusdmied workaday mood. gor>e happily irt>
an atmo^phc^e of fantasy such as with infinite labour «■
created in the theatre. They were acting, all of (hem— M
paying any attention to what p-nrt any one else was mx^
but content to be in an envirunmcnl in which their o«»
play-impahes were released. They went as in a dft^^-
»>miling, moved by the music as the leave* of a tree an
moved by the wind, surrendering them^tves utterty to ik
influence. They were not here, not here in ihti pindi md
gilt room, amid commonplace munals decorated wi*
coloured cloth, but in sonte dreamland, some (airyiand t^
their own wishes. The person whom one held in ooc't arw
was not a real person, in whom one was realty tntrretfei
not a person to love or hale, but a part of the diCMB. '
wand had been waved over this assemblage, c w u —ad-.
(hem to forget, lo dream, to be free and h^py and jne^
And all of them, except himself only, had obeyed. V'
could he not surrender himself to this inftueiKe? V'
most he remain, in spiic of his sash and coknred ■h"
to obstinately and awkwardly and unhappily himself? Wh
did not (hat imi«ic touch some »ecret spring in fail smL
too. to nuke him its creature, a leaf wind-blown on the tfft
of life f Why did hta eyes still aee tlie persotu uwk i mrf

A Matter of Convention 325

their costumes — the girls not as dancing partners but as
"personalities"? Personalities, indeed! — these men and
women had left their personalities gladly behind in the cloak-
room ; they were free of them for the evening ; tomorrow
they would go back to being lawyers and wives, clerks and
poets and college students ; tonight they were —

Well, what were they ? If one chose to think so, bodies,
merely that, bodies surrendering themselves to each other as
shamelessly and frankly as to the music which swayed them.
. . . But no, he knew better than that: they were — if ever,
now, precisely now — immortal souls ; this spectacle was spirit
triumphing over flesh and using it for its own beautiful
uses, the magic uses of a dream. These arms and bosoms
and bodies were the instruments of a poetry which these
couples created in a magnificently impersonal way — the
poetry of beauty met with strength; it was not Didt and
Jane, it was essential man and woman, in love with some
eternal beauty in themselves and each other of which they
were, as persons, the fleeting and mortal agents.

But why the devil couldn't he feel that way ? Each time
that the girls of his party returned to the box, flushed and
laughing in an interim between the dances, he felt their
presence as a demand upon him, a demand which it was
disgraceful not to meet. Every glance of Rose-Ann's was
a look, or so he interpreted it, of inquiry or reproach. She
knew he could dance ; that was the worst of it. He could
dance — with her — easily enough; he would dance with her
now, if there was no one else around that they knew. But
if he danced with her, he would have no excuse for not
dancir^ with the others — his last defence would be gone.
, . . He fled from the box in the direction of the bar,
was pulled down into a chair by Eddie Silver, who was
buying drinks for a group of men and girls, and asked
what he would have. "Whiskey straight," he said humbly.
why, after all. should he despise this time-hononred reft^e
from the hardships of life, from problems too complex to
be solved and responsibilities too great to be borne ?

316 Tht Briary-Bush

Me could not. it seenicd, gel dntnk. The whiikcy oalf
node him think with a pretenuiunt titames*; »nd Ika
more dearly he thought upon hitmclf, u a Mraggkr bcR
in the bar-room from the battle-fidd of life out there oa It*
dandi^ floor, the more he despised himsdf. . . . But br
seemed to be despising !tcme one else named Felix F^r.
from whom he felt utterly detached and for whom he fdl
no responsibihty. Funny Fdix ! In a way he could nndo*
stand the poor devil ... He had been brought op io a
puritanical way. and then had acquired a lot o{ raoiilic
notions from poetry-books; and in spite of all fan te
intellectual theories he was siil] just a rooiantic Tioj {tfuk.
to whom the idea of taking a strange girl in his ama wd
walking her around the room to muMc would oamraOy he
upsetting. ... A funny boy, that Felix Fay ) Why, he ka4
been thinking quite seriously of making love to anadM
girl besides his wife — and he would be quite equal to )U
too . . . after arguing it out theoretically and finfisK tttt
it was his sociological duty or somethiiig of that sort I . . .
He wanted things to be plain and straightforward, btacfc aad
white ; cither he was making love to a girl or he wa»V—
it was the in-between thif^ that conftued and appalled Imb
To this Fdix Fay person it would be simple eoo i^ ph to 6dlj
the conventions ; what he couldn't do was adjurt hiiiiwIT la
them like everybody eUe. He could intenectuaDjr c oo caiw.
and if it came to that, undertake to carry into pnctin;
some preposterous theory of (ree-love that he had read aboM
m Havelock Ellis or Ellen Key ; but he couldn't dance w*k
a girl he liked I No, that was too diflkull; k «n«i\ a
theory, and he hadn't read about it tn a book, ... If peofk
didn't dance, and some one wrote a book and proved M
they ought to. Fdix Fay would bdieve it. and arfise^aA
it. and finally do it in a motxl of stem coi tt c icitt iotta fi t i r i rff
morality—if ihcy killed him for itt But do ""fhing ttat
everybody dse did — no. Not Fdix. Somebody dsc «o«V
have kissed Phyllis kxig ago, and said nothing about iL I

A Matter of Convention 327

somebody dse had thought of having a love-affair with
Phyllis, the last person in the world he would have thought
of discussing it with would have been his own wife. The
world forgave people who kissed in comers, who had secret
love-affairs while pretending to believe — while actually
believing — in the ten commandments and the laws of the
state of Illinois. If you accepted what everybody belie ved,
you could have the same freedom as everybody else. It was
only if you believed in freedom, really believed in it, that
you couldn't have any. Why couldn't Felix Fay understand
that? . . . Poor devil, he was going to get in trouble some
time. . . .

The being who thus in a state of utter detachment scorn-
fully and sadly criticized Felix Fay, floated back airily,
or at least with no sense of treading any actual floor with
mortal feet, to the ballroom. Across the room he saw some
one coming toward him, smiling. It was Elva Macklin;
but it was not by that name, nor as the actress who had
taken a part in his play, that he identified her ; it was rather
as a childhood playmate — a girl with whom he had once
danced, long years ago, in a garret. She was dressed as
a dryad, disguised in a leafy covering, but he recognized
her well enough. It was clear to him that they had an
engagement to dance together — an engagement that had
waited all these years. The music struck up, he held out
his arms, and she walked into them without a word. They
floated off across the rocmi, into the maze of dancers, thread-
ing their way among the others with that ease which comes
of senses quickened with music, pausing and turning, draw-
ing upon the floor an intricate pattern of movement bom of
fancy. The others in the room did not exist for him, save
as shadows, bright shadows cast by the music. They were
alone, in a dream, in a soft wordless dream; they did not
so much listen to the music as create it by their own move-
ments. They had left the world of reality, as if for ever,
they were in some realm of golden light, a land of fruits
and flowers, a place of quiet, triumphant happiness. This
girl with him was no real giri, but a part of the dream ; he

328 The Briary-Bush

had always known her ; she was the companioa of nu;
wanderings through the lands of reverie; tSey u ndoUPP*
each other too well to need words; she was his dnm
comrade. Not a girl, not anyone that one tniut love or ■■
love, fight for and work for, but a shadow like hinudf ta
this place of bright shadows, in this peaceful and hi||f
realm beyond life and beyond death. . . .

The music stofiped, and he awoke with Mime asbai^
ment to 6nd that he, Felix Fay, had been dancinf. Ehi
Macklin smiled, gave his hand a graleftil presntrc. mi
turned to the young man who came up asserting that At
next dance was his.

Suddenly alarmed, Felix turned tn flee from the baUraOB;
but it was too late. Phyllis had detached hcrwlf (ram IV
partner, and came over to him. "Aren't yon goin^ to ten
with me ?' she asked. 'I~hc handclapping died away m Ac
musicians took up their instruments again. PhjAis teel
him confidently — a lovely and to him at this nmwM a t a
terrifying figure. All the swcetDCss of the kive Qmt nigM
have been — that might be — his, kindled for him n bcr (me
eyes. Dance with her? No, he cooldn't. Bot he ntf.
Self-consciously, asliamed of hitnself, hating her, be HSk
her hand, put hLs ami about her, and Usteotng 'iHtiiflj i ft
the music, stepped off. But eomethit^ was wraof ; he oM
not get t)ie rhythm ; he stopped. She had surr en defw i fan*
self to his guidance utterly, but now llial that was at faiA
she bet;an to try to guide him. That made hira aagry ; he
paused once more, listened to the music, and said. 'Ok.
confound it — it's a waltz. I'm sorry — I can't wahs." 9a
regretfully walked back with him to the edge of ibe
floor, where be tried desperately lo think of
say to her. It was shuneftil to be thus at a loss. EM ibt
dopiMhim? She ought to. . . . Some one dse cane aleai.
and she danced off, leaving Felix farious and rdacfvl
He went back to the box.

Rose-Ann was tliere, rutins; from tnn m nerable dnn\
talking with Oive. "I see you've been dancinf T Ac ■mi.
"Yes." he toM her. "I doat know bow it happcBed. WS

A Matter of Convention 329

you try the next one with me?" At least, if he made a
failure of it with Rose-Ann, she would forgive him.

"Yes," she said. "J^* this one more dance, and then
we'll go home."

Because it was the last dance, because he need fear nothing
more tonight, and because he had secretly resolved never to
subject himself to this torment again, the demon in his
mind that argued and discussed and made him awkward
and afraid, went to sleep. His last dance, his last dance
ever — and then . . . back to a desk, where he belonged!

"Why!" said Rose-Ann, "you dance beautifully!" She
said it in a puzzled tone.

Felix was annoyed. He lost the rhythm and stepped on
her foot

"It's my fault !" she said. But he knew it wasn't Why
did he try to dance when he couldn't ? Wouldn't that music
ever stop ?

He wanted to tell Rose-Ann about — ^about Phyllis. She
would understand.

L. Babes in the Wood

HE told her that oigfit ; they talked titl dawn.
understand; and so, it ftcemd to him, did I
ttic tirsi lime. Evcryihing became sunjile and dar
again — a final proof, if the duubting mind reqoired ndi
proof, that candour was a medidnc for all the lUi of love

Things like this — anotional upsets — occurred ia al
marriages ; the trouble was that the disturbed ero o t ion t sen
left to fester in secret. Talking with Ko-«-Ann had poi tfat
incident in its true light Yes — of course he and PlgrBi
loved each other; that wa» not strange. There wu m
element of love in every friendship between man and wo-
man : and that it should be here in this friendship of his and
Fhyllis's was right and natural It was not a diinc to he
afraid of. to run away from — it was sooiethiiif rather to he
glad about. It had been there between them aQ this wfaia.
enriching their two lives, his and Pfayllts'*. nnkhif their
friendship one full of tenderness and understanding ; it hid
done them no harm, certainly I Civilization tneaat lh>
po^MbiIity of sach friendships, instead of a timid njti i tfl u
of the emotions to a single person. The world was fnl al
men and women friends who were in this sense k>vers; a^
they did not usually confess it to each other. Somctian
they were af r«id to let each other know the truth ; aDOXSiBa
afraid to face the (ruth themselves. But was there ^ll|ll■^
terrible in such a truth ? Phyllit and he had (and it. that
was all They had spoken out what waa usually leh M-
spokeo. And why should that chaise their hires ?

It was the fault of Romance, that suave peddler of
spirrtual potsons ; and of Puritanism, that maniacal p
of chains and padkKfca— it was the fault of thew I

Babes in the Wood 331

the situation should ever for a moment have seemed alarm-
ing. Over the scene, as he and Phyllis had stood together
telling each other a secret that any one else in the wodd
could have read at a glance, there had brooded these two
antique and ridiculous fantasms — Romance and Puritanism.
Romance had whispered to them : 'This is a moment such
as comes only once in a lifetime — a moment beautiful and
tragic ! You were bom for this ! You cannot escape I You
are Paris and Helen, Antony and Cleopatra, Lancelot and
Guenevere, Tristram and Iseult! You are the hero and
heroine of all myths, all dreams ! Your love is doomed and
beautiful! Some death will run its sudden finger round
this spark and sever you from the rest. . . . Kiss now, and
die!" And on the other side that gibbering lunatic
Puritanism had cried out: "No! no! Put on these chains.
Blindfold your eyes so that you cannot see beauty, stop up
your ears against all sweet voices ! Tie your hands together
lest they touch what is not yours, and put a chain upon your
feet lest they stray from the accustomed path. Padlock your
lips, lest they say what is in your heart, and seal up your
heart so that no tenderness, no generous faith, no natural
affection may escape! Be blind and deaf and dumb, be-
come as one dead, for only in this is safety !" And between
these two fantastic ghosts they had stood and trembled,
finding it hard to discover of themselves the obvious and
simple thing to do, but reading it at last in each other's
eyes — to go on being in love with each other and behave
exactly as before !

So it seemed to Felix as he lay and talked with Rose- Ann
till dawn. ... He felt that he was something of a simple-
ton, but that life itself was easy enough to live if one could
only learn to deal with it directly and see it as it was.

It was strange that after that beautiful discovery Felix
should have waked to a sense of dull unhappiness, of loss, of
grief. ... He tried to conceal these feelings from Rose-
Ann. It was as if he had not been sincere in giving up die

332 The Briary-Bush ^M

possibility of happiness with Fhytlis — that posMbHit; «|^|
had seemed to exist so long as he left his secret tntold, htf
which he had killed with his confeuion. Was it lo onqvk t
matter, after all ? He sometimes suspected that he would k
content with nothing less than the impossible. . . .

The first aftcmuon that he had not had to work at Ae
ofTice, an afternoon when ordinarily he would have gone la
his workroom, and met Phyllis there when she cane boar
from her work, and stopped writing to taDc with her — ibM
afternoon he stayc<) in his titudio. And he asked liiiiiiilf —
was it because he did iHit believe that things were as be ad
Roiie'Ann had Icdd each other? Was it because he wooU
fed conscious of a chain of duty, and preferred to wear it. il
at all, here at home? Yes, what was the use of beag
hypocritical about the situation ? Why pretend that knre was
so docile, M) manageable and good-natured, so tame a haa}
It was a creature of the jungle — or was it, really? Vt ikuM
the reason he did not trust himself with I'bytlis was that br
feared to discover that they were tnerely good friends after
all!

He stayed at home and vras restless and discootenttd. If
he could really believe — his incorrigible uiopiamwn •t^'mv^^
that — in his freedom, he could be contcnL He loved flaw
Ann. But why this sham, this lie — that he OMld bit
Phyllis, too. and on harm done? Of coarse be '
Phytlifr— and was wilting to give her up. if it i
stood that that was what he was doing. But it i
erable, this pretence that he could do as he p^fitrd
he ? Yes, suppose it had pleased him to say—

Rose-Ana interrupted his thoughts, the fifth i
She was silting at her desk, and Fehx at bii.
she rose.

"Felix," she said. Her voice had ■ ring o( i
reMilutton in it. He turned, with a fcding of lew.
stood leaning hack against her de^ resting her haods OB £

"FeUxl I have made up my mind. . . . Dont tak. I
want to say what I have to wy. . . . I'm i
lime. I've seen you. You're unhappjr. ... I I

Babes in the Wood 333

don't believe I meant what I said — ^that you cotdd have
your freedom. But it's true. . . . You love Phyllis. Don't
you ?"

It was a challenge. This thing had to be settled now.
Did he love Phyllis? The devil only knew. But for the
purposes of this damned argument —

"Yes !" he said defiantly. "I do !"

His mind went back to the time when they had innocently
rehearsed this scene in farce. . . . Now it was happening in
deadly earnest Yes — in deadly earnest

"The thing I can't stand," he said, between clenched teeth,
"is hearing you say such things and not believing you mean
them. . . ."

"You can believe me, Felix. ... I want you to be happy,

more than an3rthing else in the world. I don't care.

. . . You've been wanting her all week. Go to her. . . .

And— don't worry about me, Felix. Everything will

come out all right."

They stared solemnly at each other, trying to realize what
was happening — bracing themselves to meet a moment
which they had lightly envisaged in theory, in discussion,
but which in reality had an air of terribleness about it
That conversation should have taken place against a back-
ground of thunders and lightnings. It was as if with these
words they had pushed aside the dear, familiar walk of
everyday reality, and were face to face with naked, elemen- ^
tal forces — as if they were suddenly alone and helpless in
the midst of a huge, impersonal, indifferent and awful
universe.

"Go to her," Rose- Ann repeated softly; and with the
feeling of one strangely doomed, one who rested under the
burden of a frightful duty not to be flinched from, Felix
went quietly out of the studio.

He could still see Rose- Ann's eyes in his imagination:
those eyes, not tearful now, but grave and brooding, full
of courage. . . . Yes, at last he believed her.

LI. ''Bienfaits de la Lune"

ON the sidewalk, the branches and leaves of a tree
made an enchanting pattern of shadow— <asl t
seemed by the moonlight, though it was oohr bf
the electric arc on the comer. But, as FeKx looked op. fat
saw, past that false light, the moon itself, above the km
roofs. It seemed to spring free from an encumbering wrack
of grey clouds, and stay poised, alone and splendidL in tbr
blue depths of sky. Felix's gaze went to that far whitr
beacon with a sen-^^e of return to his own world — and *:!"
a sense of profound release in that return. . . . For thrf
was a world boides the world of davlit realitv : a wor!:
not of work and wages, of code and custom, of law ir>:
habit ; another world l)esidcs that in which men and w»-«nrr
customarily dwelt — yes. there was this world lit by the
changing and ranging moon ! Though people turned :hr*
backs uj)on it, and hid within their houses, and >ough! '•
escaj)e its disturbing influences, it was there. It always hxi
!)een there, it always would be there. It was a^ real *•
the workaday world. And it was his world. He had tr.rz
to renounce it, to shut it out, to flee from its ma^^". :**'
had tried to Ixdieve that there was nothing in life c\cr:(
that routine of daily reality in which he was immer>ed ^.
world of debts, and promises to pay ; a world of roof >. <>frr.r:
and dwelt under and ever returned to. There was «Tir
thing close and cloying about tliat world; something oi v^
fetid odour of toil hung alK)Ut its very pleasures. It wv
slavery ; its laughter and kisses were the gilt upon the chir-.*
Helieving in that slavery, men had built the four walL^ .:
the world, stone upon *>tone. And yet, outside, was frw-
dom. . . .

334

Bienfaits de la Lune 335

Fdix became aware of himself^ standing bareheaded a
Few steps from the door of his studio, gazing at the moon.
He was aware of the absurdity of that moment of moon-
struck vision. He remembered the errand he was upon, and
how weighted with tragedy it had seemed a minute since.
He realized the symbolic character of his departure from
the studio. Yes — symbolic ! For he knew now that he did
not care two pins for Phyllis — as a person. What Rose-
A.nn had said of him was utterly true. He did not care for ^
persons — ^not even for Rose-Ann. He lived in a world of
ideas. And because he had found the idea of Rose-Ann
as his jailor intolerable, he had taken her at her word,
aurcepted his liberation, gone out of the door. But not — ^he
smiled at the foolish thought — ^not into another captivity,
not into the warm, constraining, anxious arms of Phyllis,
Dr any other! No — ^he was free now of the idea of that
tyranny; and Rose- Ann was free of it. With her gesture
motioning him to go, she had broken the intolerable chain
that had irked their lives. Free now, his own master, draw-
ing his breath without permission from any other living
being, once more able to call his soul his own, he could
enjoy at last the companionship, in a common love of beauty, ^
of the one being on earth who loved beauty as he loved it —
and who understood freedom and the need of freedom
better, indeed, than he had ever understood it! She had
never lied to herself or to him. From the first she had
disdained to accept the promises which he had been so
eager to make. She was a true child of the moon, blessed
with its gifts, no staid denizen of the sober realm of day,
but fleet of soul and changeable and free like her immortal
mother and mistress!

No — ^he realized it now — ^no mere woman could hold his
love; it had been folly to hope and pretend so; not Rose-
Ann, not Phyllis, not any woman. But one who could be
more and less than woman, who did not, as mortal women
do, want to own and be owned ; who possessed herself with
a divine aloofness, who had her own orbit that nothing could

336

The Briary-Bush

- deflect — in her he could find a compiaiuofulitp i
any mort^ love.

Even lo hinvieK, as he conned over the»e thoaghts, tfsad-
ing bareheaded on the sidewalk, with a mind ccnfosed m
by the splendour of a revelatiim, ihey i
final definite clearness. He was happjr
discovery, which he sought to put into words to eanj btck
lo Rose-Ann. Not that she did not know alRady: for W
she not forced ihis discovery upon htm? She had InMMn
all atongl And when he returned, there would be no wofA
needed. But still he must ieek for the words. . . . Biri
any way he tried lo put it to hinuelf sounded lo <
mystical, like some cryptic sentence of WSIiam
And it was all so obvious! Tkfy were fm. Yet dMt
meant nothing. I'oolish people like Clive Banp «
talking about "freedom." They were free,
it that way. free not to love each oiherl A t
. . . One might love any woman. Bui here i
greater than love. To know that there i
themsclvet still unca|)tured, ever ttnattaJni
which could not be yielded, by whose inviolable haviii|[ 1IK7
moved secure and serene among a world of em o ti on a l fan*^
slaves, like the moon among the nhatiered vaitUy-^ra^mg
doudi ! More beautiful in her than any bodily beaoty «■>
that ultimate self-possession, that unshaken and unshakeabk
identity, of which that gesture of herb, pninlin( him to Aa
door, had been the symbd. Not because they needed taA
other, IMI because they wrre so poor in aptrit that mA
most lean upon the oilier — no, not in poverty of aogl. ta
in a sablime indifTercnce. their kivc had its origin. BooMe
Ihey did not need each other, becauie they could do wiClatf
each other, this was added unto them, this h nniiiw w af
being together. Fdix saw himself and Rcn«-Ann Wa noa^
tain><)tmtiers, high on nome chill peak above a coward, dn^
world that dozed and battened beneath tla covcftetk- Or
like two eagleit, circling in the austere upper air. IWn
should be no common happiness. . . .
He turned to re-enter the studia

Bienfaits de la Lune 337

The door was locked, and he had to use his key. He
did so only half -consciously, and blinked at the blaze of
light inside. It was a few seconds before he saw.

On the settle, and strewn over chairs, and on the floor,
lay half of Rose- Ann's wardrobe; and Rose- Ann herself,
with her face hidden in her arms, was seated ridiculously
in an open suitcase on the floor, from which the ends of
stockings strayed out — seated there, with her arms on her
knees, rocking back and forth, and crying, with a low, choked
sobbing — rocking back and forth, back and forth, in the
suitcase, like a child in a cradle, cr3ring. . . .

She had been packing up. To go. And she was crying.
He stared at her, and the vision he had had outside of
their splendid happiness was obliterated by the wash of
a vast wave of bitterness.

She looked up, her face distorted, made ugly with a
choked sob, stained with tears. She tried to speak. He
stared at her. He was beginning to pity her. . . . But he
must not pity her. If he did, he would despise her. He
did not dare see her, so soon after this mad nonsense under
the moon, as little, weak, lonely, afraid. He tried not to
see her at all — and she seemed to recede from him, to grow
dim and faint and remote.

"Go away!" she cried, and turned her face from him,
still stooped in that ridiculous, infantile, pitiful posture.

He did not pity her now. He stood dazed as from a
blow, dazed with the terrific shock of the impact of reality
upon his dream. He tried to rouse himself, to see, to feel.
But everything was misty and unreal to him. He spoke to
her, as though across a vast space, dully.
"So you didn't mean it?"
She sprang up.

"Why are you here ? Didn't you go? Aren't you going?
Are you trying to torture me?"

She advanced upon him with eyes that blazed, hair wild,
and hands that had transformed themselves into claws ready

I ■ I uS

338 The Briary-Bush

to scratch and tear him. He liaw all thi) u if it wen-
picture — a piaurc irrelevant to the text. He nude a Uta
gesture as if to turn the leaf.

"So >'Ou didn't mean it," he said agwn.

She stopped, close to him; looked al him femrdanfl^
"Where have you liecn?" she asked uncertainly.

He laughed mirthlessly. "Outside the door — kio kin t ar
the moon."

"I thought — " she said.

"No," he said, ((uietly, sadly. AH this ought lo 1
greatly. But somehow it didn't matter at aO.

"But — " she said.

Tliey looked at each other.

"So you didn't mean it," he said once more, ISce a

Her demeanour dunged uiddenJy. She loolced .
clothes on the diairs and on the floor, and trcnt over aal
stood beside the open suitcase.

"I don't know wlui 1 meant." she said wearily. "1
couldn't stand it. I was going home." She gave the mt^
case a little kick, and came back to Felix. "But I Am>
tmderstand yout" she »aid. "\V!ial are yoa gotng to *"

"Nothing," he said indifferently.

"Felix!" she said dcsjierately "\M)U has happer
^\'here are we? Do we love each other? I don't on^
stand anjrthing any more. Tell met Help mef**

"1 don't know." he said slowly.

"Oh I" she said savagely. "You don't know t Why *
yoa stand there and look at me like that ? Are yoa dn
or am I?"

"I don't kxKtw."

She look hold of hit shoulders (tertety, to shake hn. lei J
then dropped Iwr hands. "Are you angry at bk?^ A
asked. "Why?" |

"No," he said. "I'm not angry. I joM^^kn't i
care."

"I know I'm a fool t" she satd. "And — Felix. 1 did hM J
it. I tltought 1 did. But — it was too tcrrflite. .
all. I'm human, Fdix."

Bienfaits de la Lune 339

*'Yes — I see you are."

"And you're not. No — ^you're not human. You're a
monster. . . . I — ^hate you! Not because of Phyllis — ^no;
you don't love her, either. You don't love anybody. You
stand there— can't you understand, can't you say something,
can't you pity me a little? Felix!"

He saw, he heard, across an infinite gulf. He would have
liked to stir, to speak. But he was encased in an icy armour.
Nothing of this touched him.

She sat down on a chair, spilling its burden of clothing
to the floor. "How long," she asked between clenched teeth,
"is this going to go on?^'

He did not answer.

"Because," she said, "I can't bear it. It's — it's worse
than the other. I could have borne that, I think — now.
I was really sorry for you, Felix. But you aren't sorry
for me. I know — I pretended to be a superwoman ; and I'm
not. But can't you forgive me ? Can't you allow me my —
my feelings? . . . No — ^you haven't got any feelings. . . .
Well— I can't stand this. I can't stand it. I—"

His mind came back reluctantly to the scene. He sat
down.

"I'm very tired," he said. "Can't we stop talking about
it?"

She brushed her hand bewilderedly across her forehead.
"Why is it?" she said. "I'm being made to fed like a
criminal? Have I done an3rthing?"

He spoke with an effort. "No," he said. "Everything
is all right — I think. I'm sorry I'm behaving this way.
Forgive me if you can. I can't help it.

"Forgive you? For what?

"For — for thinking you meant it. I should have known

She sprang up. "I can't stay here," she said. "I must
go somewhere to think things out. I can't stay here and
have you say that to me, over and over. . . . Felix, I'm
going away somewhere for a while. Ill come back, I
suppose. But — ^you see I must go, don't you?"

"No. But it's all right."

11 ncip 11."

|340 The Briary-Bush I

He watdied her pack her suitcase, still in the strai^ '
|half-trance which made him unable to stir. It was as if he
e drunk or hypnotized. He could see that she was going;
Bhe knew that he ought to stop her. But it did not seem to
Imatter. . . . Only when she was dressed for the joumcj.
Band standing before him to say good-bye, did the numbness
■begin to vanish. He was ashamed of himself— ashamed
land frightened. He felt that he had been under the in-
Jfluence of a kind of insanity — for surely that was the very
Bessence of insanity, to be utterly indifferent to all the events
■of ihe outside world! She did not know, even though she
Bhad seen, how remote from her he had been — ^how dead to
Bher, how dead to all reality, , , .

In the sudden uprush of consciousness, as the spell broke,
Bhe took her in his arms, and kissed her and clung to her,
B"Don't go!" he cried. "Don't go!" He vaguely remembered
' ig told himself that they were different from other
e — different, in that they could do without each other.
t folly! He had thought himself strong, self-sufficient.

LII. Sleepless Nights

IT was preposterous that one should go to an office the
next day after a night like that — ^to an office, and write
a foolish editorial, and smile, and talk to people, as if
nothing had happened. But it was better that way; one
actually forgot for minutes at a time what had happened,
till it came back with a bewildering influx of memory.
There was also a play which one could go to, even thou^
it seemed strange to be by oneself, sitting beside an empty
seat. One could pay attention to the play, could even think
of things to say about it, could write those things coherently
on paper, could go out and mail them in the box on the
comer, just as usual.

There was only one flaw in the usualness of all this. It
was not usual for Felix Fay to write so solemnly about a
new play. It was his habit to treat serious pla3rs lightly,
and light plays seriously; but it was a departure from his
manner to be actually grave about an3rthing. This play
happened to be about a man who, after a life-time of sdf-
deluded ^[otism, had suddenly found out by accident what
sort of person he actually was. Here was material for
Felix's customary light irony; why should he write upon
the theme so solemnly — "that day when one walks upon a
reeling earth under an insane sky" — as if it were Judgment
Day he was talking about, and he himself had been there!

He had explained — or not explained — Rose-Ann's absence
in a phrase. *'She^s gone off somewhere — I don't know just
where."

It was the calm, indifferent tone of this remark that
carried the impression of everything being quite all right
It carried, indeed, the conviction, redoubled and renewed,

341

342 The Briary-Bush

of this being a remarkable, a wonderful, an exempi
marriage. These people really lived up to their modenrisl
theories! Rose-Ann had wanted to go off somewhere, and
she had not bothered to tell Felix where she was |
nor he to inquire! That, truly, was freedom!

dernisl
-e, and

To Phyllis, indeed, the notion occurred — only to be
devoutly disbelieved, repudiated and forgotten — that Rose-
Ann's absence was a consequence of her own talk with Felix
the other night. But Felix's imperturbable demeanour, when
she met him and Clive at lunch, his air of being somewhat
preoccupied with a literary problem, the complete absence
of any anxiety in his face, reassured her. She had been
happy in telling Felix the truth — or what seemed to emerge
from her tangled emotions as the truth. She had wished to
believe that this was possible; and she had dared herself
to prove it possible. She had told him, in defiance of all
convention, that she loved him ! There was a splendour in
it for which her doubting mind ached, as a parched throat
for an appeasing drink. That he should tell her that he
loved her in return was bewildering and troubling; and if
it was news that she secretly desired to hear, had secretly
hoped to elicit, she would not let herself realize it For a
momer.t her universe had been shaken; but for a moment
only. Things had righted themselves, after an intoxicating
earthquake-tremour, in which all sorts of possibilities, vast
and terrible and sweet, had presented themselves. For a
moment she had felt for Felix a new emotion, one of pity
mixed with tenderness; almost, her ideal of him had
crumbled, when he said that he loved her in return. For ii
was as Rose-Ann's husband that she loved him — as the
partner of an ideal marriage. For a dismayed second she
had thought he was going to tell her that he no longer loved
Rose-Ann; but it wasn't so. Things were as they should
be. . . . Except that he shouldn't have wanted to kiss her.
She disdained him for that weakness. She had been mean-
ing to ask for that kiss herself! As a gift, a concession

Sleepless Nights 343

from his strength to her weakness — ^yes; but not as some-
thing he wanted. . . .

But, as she remembered the event, she forgave him even
that, for it seemed to her that he had been sorry for her.
That was why he had wanted to kiss her; and if she had
realized that, she would have let him. ... As she re-enacted
the scene in memory, it seemed to her that he had been
magnificently untouched by it all. She saw herself, dis-
contented, unhappy, making her confession of love ; and he,
listening quietly, as one who had the right to be loved. . . .
So it should be— so she had thought of him. And he had
said that he loved her too: he had not been afraid that she
would misunderstand him. She flushed at the thought that
she almost had misunderstood. . . . But, no— everything
had gone beautifully.

And Rose-Ann — he had of course told Rose-Ann — what
did she think of it? Rose-Ann would not begrudge her this
confession, this moment of beauty. Rose-Ann had gone
away. Why? Perhaps her plans had jibed with the
generous desire to let these two, Felix and Phyllis, be more
together. Perhaps it was her way of showing that it was all
right. . . .

Underneath all these rationalizations there was, deep in
Phyllis's mind, a panic fear which she would not recognize —
a fear which was also a desire. If she could have thought
of Felix as her lover without despising him, she would
have yielded to that thought. But it was only as some one
already too happy to need her love, that she could love him.
If she could have thought that she was capable of harming
his happiness, he would have ceased to be admirable in her
eyes. If it were possible to have him for a lover, he would
be like anybody else. . . . No, she must believe in the
miraculous perfection of Felix's marriage in order to go on
being in love with him. . . .

It seemed incredible to Felix that one mad moment could
have done all this. For one moment only he had surrendered

344

The Briary-Bush

to an insane illusion ; and the results had been profound aMP
incalculable. All this time, for twb years, ever since the day
in Port Royal when he had burnt his crazy novel, he had
been struggling unceasingly with his own folly. No one
had understood that struggle, no one had helped hira. Rose-
Ann had not understood. She had sought in every way to
encourage him in what was, in the end, sheer madness.
Only by keeping his feet upon the earth, only by continually
distrusting himself, by trying lo find what was most difScuU
to do, and doing that — subjecting himself to the discipline
of reality — only so could he save himself. Step by step
he had deserted that firm ground, and gone into the world of
dreams^where, he knew now, he could not live excqit
alone. He did not want to be alone. He wanted the wor] *
of dear, familiar realities — he wanted Rose- Ann,
wanted Rose- Ann.

:cpt

And, meanwhile, where was she? At her father's home,
probably. Should he write to her there? No — a stubborn
pride surged up in him, forbidding him to write. She must
come back.

Was it true, then, that he did not love her? Surely, if
he loved her, he would ask her to return 1

But he could not.

She must be there, at home. There was nothing lo worry
about. . . . And yet, by day and nighl, disturbing fantasies
arose in his mind, of all the accidents that might have
happened to her — gruesome fantasies, that unwound them-
selves in his mind. He would awake from one of these
imaginings with a sense of guilt, as though he had actually
been gloating over the picture. He tried to think her safe.
But his imagination would present — yes, her very death be-
fore his eyes. It was horrible, like a recurring nightmare.

A week passed, and she did not return. He worried
about her, night and day ; and yet he could not force himself
to write the few lines that might bring her back to his sidenJ
Perhaps she only wanted to be reassured. Perhaps she nqriH

Sleepless Nights 345

waiting for that summons. . . . Well, she must come back
without it.

As a practical matter^ it became more and more difficult to
carry on the pose that everything was all right. His secret
burden became almost intolerable. He wanted to tell some
one. But who could understand? Not Clive, not
Phyllis. . . .

He stayed in the studio every moment when he was not in
the office, for fear she would return and not find him there.
He must be there when she came back.

It never occurred to him that she might not come back.

The issue in his own mind was clear — ^he had gone over
it a thousand times ; at night he rehearsed it to himself sleep-
lessly, hour after hour. He had made a fool of himself.
But it had been her fault.

Yes, her fault. That was why he could not write. He
would have to write humbly, if he wrote at all ; and he was
in no humble mood. His loneliness, his need of her, only
exasperated his sense of the injury she had done him. . . .
She had urged him on to folly — ^that was hard enough to
forgive — and then she had turned and fled from a situation
which she herself had created. . . . All this could be
discussed and understood between them ; but first she must
come back. That surrender was essential.

It was hard to stick it out this way, in lonely, sleepless
waiting. But she knew — it was her own fault; her ret;um
would be an admission of that. Then he could say how
ashamed he was of himself. But first. . . .

He must wait — till she came back.

Who had talked of "freedom"? Who had refused to
face the facts of marriage? Who had engineered, planned,
touched the match to this explosion? She knew well
enough! He need not say these things to her, ever. She
would confess them by her return. That would be enough.

She was stubborn — but he was still more stubborn. He
could wait

She would come back — and then. . . .

They would start all over again — sensibly.

1 346

The Briary-Bush

Rose- Ann, meanwhile, as her husband supposed, was at her I
I father's home in Springfield. If her presence there exdied ,
lany curiosity, she was scarcely aware of it. She ,was not
Iconcerned with anything hut the problem of herself and I
I Felix. ... I

She was not, however, as he sometimes imagined, waiting I
I for a letter from him to make easy her return home. She I
|w3&, as she had told him, trying to "think things out." I

She had gone away with that sentence of his ringing in
|lier mind : " So you didn't nxan it after all! "

She had not slept that night, on the train; nor very much
Bsince tliat time. She was too bn.sy trying to think things out;
ind the chief thing to think out was; had she meant it when
|she offered Feiix his freedom ?

No, obviously enough 1 And yet her pride revolted from
t fact. Had she been a liar, a hypocrite, all this while?
J she only pretended? It was too shameful. , , .

Sleepless Nights 347

But — if she really meant it — ^then she must prove it

Well?

In among these reasoned arguments that pursued each
other in an endless weary circle in her mind, floated irrelevant
memories — the pressure of Felix's arm about her shoulders
that afternoon on the train going out to Woods Point to be
married — ^a fragment of that wild letter he had written her
from Canal Street, about the girl in Iowa — ^the look in his
eyes as he had seen her among the children at the Community
Theatre. . . . and still more irrelevant memories — ^the
complaining tones of her mother, saying cruel and unjust
things about her father, things not meant for a child's ears,
years ago— and her father's face, with its wise, mocking,
incredulous, ironic smile, cutting her to the heart. . . .

Well?

If she went back, if she proved that she meant what she
had said — ^things would have to be different They had
been too close. They had been like other married people.
That was his fault. Yes, it was his fault, after all, that she
had not been able to carry out her promises. He had made
It too hard for her. . . . They never should have lived to-
gether under the same roof. They never should have be-
come legally married in the first place. . . .

They would have to live apart, in separate studios. They
must not pretend to be man and wife. She would be — ^yes,
that was the word whjth made their relationship clear— his
mistress. It was a good word, making no pretences. His
mistress — yes, she could be that. If she loved him
enough. . . .

What? Did she love him enough only to be his wife?
Not enough to give him his freedom ?

Her father's face, with its mocking, incredulous, ironic
smile, came into her mind, blurring her thoughts, rousing
her to a queer anger against herself.

No. Or yes? . . .

Well, then?

ILIII. Two Letters

ON the tenth day of Felix's stubborn waiting, a letter
came from Rose-Ann. It was at the studio when
he returned there early in the afternoon, lying on
I the floor where the postman had stuck it under the door.
~' ; picked it up, and sat down at his desk. At the ven'
I sight of it. of her large undisciplined handwriting on the
I square envelope, her presence seemed suddenly to fill the
■ room, like a perfume of flowers — seemed to touch and
I envelope and caress him. He breathed deeply, and the
Iconstraint that had held him tense, that had held him rigid
Jail these days and nights, flowed from him. It was as if she
|had returned herself— and all at once all that had passed

Two Letters 349

timatdy. I can find another studio, perhaps near yonrs. — But I
do not know if I am making myself clear. It may sound as if I
were proposing to break off our relationship altogether, I have
considered that, too; but that is, after all, in your hands. What
I am suggesting is that each of us retain our freedom, and live
in such a way that we can use that freedom without hurting
each other^s feelings — but not pretending to be married any
more. Only the situation must be quite clear to both of us.
Please tell me whether you agree definitely to these terms. If
so, I think everything can be arranged in detail so that we both
will be happy.

Rose- Ann.

Felix's first f edi!^, oddly enough, when he read this letter,
was a sense of Rose-Ann's disloyalty to their studio — the
studio which they had made together. . . . His imagination,
stunned and shocked, clung bitterly to this one point, as if
that were the crux of the matter. . . . That she should
not want to live in this studio, this studio whose walls she had
kalsomined, whose very floor she had painted ! Why, every
part of it spelled her I As if he could take her studio, and
let her go and live in another! If there was any moving
to be done, he would do it. He would get another place.
She could live here — she must live here. . . . He would
take a few books — no, he would take nothing. It was all
hers. . . .

Some obliquity of the imagination helped him, like a drug,
anaesthetizing his emotions, during the first few minutes
after reading that letter. His mind was actually busy with
the practical details of taking up a new residence, as if that
were all that mattered.

And then his mind began to feel the pain of what had
happened, slowly, increasingly, terrifically. . . . She had
repudiated their marriage.

He felt knocked down, trampled, stamped upon, hurt all
over.

So this was what she had been thinking of! Not of
coming home to him — but of living apart from him.

135° T"^^ Briary-Bush

He read the letter again, with a rising anger that minglo!
vith his pain. What was it she said? "We have hwbj
I thinys in common — tastes, ideas, a love of beauty." —
"Pity if we were to lose the opportunity for companionship
I altogether"— "Not pretending to be married any more."
I So il meant nothing to her, then, this marriage? She could
I end it so easily ? And companionship, mere companion-
Iship — that did mean something to her? That was what
J she wanted to keep ! "Everything can be arranged in detail
mso that we both zi-ill be happy."

WTiat could he reply to a letter like that? What could
Ihe say to a girl who told him that her happiness lay in
Itheir not heing married any more? "Everything could he
Warraugcd in detail." What detail? Where she was going
Ito live? What did that matter to him? Why should she
Btliink that she had to live near him? She need not be so
|kind. If their marriage meant nothing to her, he could
; her up altogether. "Companionship." The dead body
r love for consolation ? No, she need not have offered
red thai touch.

Two Letters 351

that he could return and talk the night through at Rose-
Ann's side.

Rose-Ann had composed her letter with difficulty. At the
last moment, interfering with a perfectly clear statement of
the case to him, had come a distaste for proposing herself
as any man's mistress— even her husband's. . . . She must
put it in such a way that he would understand her willing-
ness. He would understand, too, why she had failed before.
It was her apologia. . . . And if they lived apart, and —
didn't want to have other love-affairs, then they would both
be sure that it wasn't her fault. Doubtless she had been
rather silly about it. He hadn't really been in love with
Phyllis. . . .

It would be possible to go back to him, now. By that
letter she had exorcised that ghastly cry that had kept ring-
ing in her ears, night and day — "You didn't mean it after
all!" She could sleep, now.

She slept. . . . But why didn't his answer come? The
mails were uncertain. His letter might be in the postoffice
now. It would be delivered tomorrow morning.

She packed for her return journey, and slept again^
peacefully.

His letter came, and her father presented it to her with
his wise smile. She took it to her room and tore it open.

Rose-Ann, I think it had better be all over for good. I want
you to have the studio, I will go somewhere else.

Felix.

Incredulous, with that letter burning her flesh, tearing
and rasping at her heart where she had thrust it into the
bosom of her dress, she made the journey to Chicago.

"All over . . . all oi^er . . . all over, . , ." She could
not understand it.

Felix was not in the studio. She called him up at the
office. He was not there.

The Briary-Bush

1352

Was he with Phyllis?
She waited. Three days.
"Well," she said aloud to the empty studio. "It's tnie.
t is all over."
She went back to the Motion Picture World, gave some
Bexplanation of her absence, and started in making up dir

I magazine.

"You know," said Bodger, the editor, "we're considering

Bmoving out to California in the course of the next few

lonths. Los Angeles. Might as well be on the spot. , , .

II don't suppose you'd consider coming along with us?"
"Oh, I might!" said Rose-Ann,

LIV. The God and the Pedestal

FOR some hours after sending his reply to Rose-Ann,
Felix kept his mind steeled against any realization
of its consequences. He was in a peculiar state
of righteousness — like one who has struck a fatal blow
and keeps insisting that he has been struck first. To him,
his letter to Rose-Ann appeared but the reflex of her
own — and she, as it were, the author of both letters. Yes,
the crime was hers!

But just what this crime was, he still managed to keep
from realizing— even when, after mailing his letter and
sitting for an hour in a kind of stupour at his desk, he rose,
took a book from the shelf, and went away to find a room.
The book was "The Bab Ballads."

He took the Illinois Central in, and a north side elevated
train out again, as though seeking to be as far as possible
from the studio. He got off, at a venture, at Wilson
Avenue, and within an hour found a small apartment of
two rooms and bath, furnished "for light-housekeeping,"
situated over a cofFee-and-tea store, three flights up. It had
a fairly large sitting room at the front. He noticed a small
book case filled with sets of "The Ivanhoe Novels" and "The
Complete Works of Bulwer-Lytton." Felix told the fat
middle-aged woman from the store who showed it to him
that he would want the bookcase for books of his own, but
not immediately; he remarked that he would probably buy
some of her coffee in the morning to make his breakfast on ;
and assured her that he would not set the hot cup on the
bare table-top, which she said was real mahogany and had
been left her by a deceased roomer whom she had looked

353

|35'4 The Briary-Bush I

after when he was sick. When she had gone, leaving him
Ithe keys, Fehx put the Bab Ballads in between the Waverly
■ Novels and the Complete Works of Bulwer-Lytton, and '
Isat down in an old plush- upholstered chair, to make him-
|self at home.

In a few minutes there was a knock — it was the fat
Iwoman from the store, who had brought him up a pounii
|of her best coffee.

"\'ot that I want to bother you," she said. "You needn't

; afraid I'll he knocking at your door and keeping watch

lof your comings and goings — live and let live, is what I

But I knew from the way you spoke of coffee that you

Breally liked it. and I just thought I'd bring you some for

- breakfast. A man that makes his own coffee knows

vhat coffee is^isn't that so!"

He thanked her, and sat down to look out of the window.

; interest of the room itself had been exhausted; it was

equally of memories and of hopes; it was just so

dismal square feet of space. He had uprooted him-

r months

The God and the Pedestal 355

stoi>— it would keep on with its silly gaiety hour after hour.

He rose at last and went out. He was going to his
work-room. He could spend several hours cleaning up there
— destroying manuscripts he didn't want to keep, reducing
the amount of things to be moved to a minimum.

Phyllis might be in her room. ... He thought of her
there, and the thought comforted him. He saw her again,
in his thoughts, as he had seen her first — serene and kind
and strong. It was good to think of her.

Still his mind did not quite encompass the situation. It
was as though something had happened to him — something
stupendous, terrible, and almost unbearable, like the death
of a beloved friend — something not wholly to be realized.
And it had the resistlessness of some such event; he did
not conceive it as something within his power to alter or
prevent — nor in any sense as something which he had done
himself. If he had thought of himself as having done this
thing, he might have thought of undoing it. But it was a
thing which had happened, like an earthquake. . . .

In his room he gathered up fragments of manuscript —
jottings of ideas, efforts, experiments, unfinished things —
and tore them up after a casual glance. There would be
little to take with him. That was good. ... He had the
feeling that a new life had begun for him, a life at which
he still stared in vague bewilderment, like a creature pain-
fully new-bom into an uncomprehended world.

He could hear Phyllis moving about on the other side of
the partition. He finished his work; the wastebasket was
full of torn manuscript, and his Roget's Thesaurus and his
favourite penholder lay together on the table, ready to take
to his new home. He no longer had need of a work-room,
a special refuge from the distracting intimacies of marriage.
He was free from all that. Yes — ^think of that — free! . . .
He laughed out loud.

Presently Phyllis would come and knock on his door.
She had heard him enter, she knew he was there. He

The Briary-Bush

■ 356

^H^ wanted to see her, he wanted the comfort of her eyes, her
* hands. He wanted her serenity, her kindness, her streng&

But he lacked even the energy to ask for it. He could only

sit and wait until she came to him.

»He felt as though the last strength he possessed were being
used up in some terrific effort — an effort that would cease
when she came. Then it would make no difference that
he had no strength left — her courage and kindness would
sustain him.
The impossible had happened — yes, the impossible. For

I it was unthinkable that Rose-Ann should have destroyeij
their marriage. But she had. , , , And now in this strange
world there was only one certainty left — Phyllis's eyes, hn
arms, her understanding love. Here was reality, here (inn
ground amidst a reeling chaos o£ fantastic madness. , . .
Pliyllis!
He could hear, as in a dream, the bubbling of coffee,
could taste the fragrance of its odour stealing through the
door, , , . Presently, very soon, she would come. . . ,
He heard her knock, and he thought he answered, but
it seemed not, for she knocked again, and then opened the
door. He sat there limply in his chair, glad she had come.
"Did I disturb you?" she asked.
He shook his head,

"You're tired!" she said, and came quickly to him and
put her hand on his forehead. "I've made some coffee,"
she said. "It will be good for you."
"Yes," he said, and rose.

She led the way into her room, and pointed to the couch.
*'Lie down and rest," she said. "I'll give you your coffee
in a moment."

She busied herself with cups and saucers, and he watched
her from the couch. She came toward him, a cup of coffee
in her hand, her arm bare to the elbow, and above it
eyes shining under a. tangle of soft brown hair.
"Here !" she said.

When he made no effort to take the cup, she set it d(
on the stool beside the bed. He took her hand, and drew

coltee

The Grod and the Pedestal 357

her toward him. She yielded to his gesture and sat down
beside him on the couch, looking at him with a kind of
startled amusement as he took her arm and pressed his
cheek against it.

"You're very tired, aren't you ?" she said sympathetically,
and touched his shoulder with her other hand.

He clung to her arm. It was cool against his cheek. All
the beauty, all the peace, all the rest in the world seemed to
be in that cool white flesh. Was it because it was hers — or
because it was a girl's arm, promising rest and comfort ? He
did not know. He only clung to it

''Is it your work — are you having difficulties?" she asked.

He laughed. His work !

That laugh seemed to reassure her in some way. She
smiled down at him, bent over him, her hair blinded him,
and then her lips brushed his.

"Dear !" she said.

He held her close to him, and their lips met — hungrily,
thirstily. At first all her body relaxed into the embrace,
and it seemed to him that the peace he needed flowed into
him from her kiss, from her arms, her body — rest, the
infinite sweetness of rest. . . . And then she seemed to grow
frightened. She held herself away from him, she looked
at him questioningly.

But, again reassured, she bent again, and surrendered
herself to the embrace. But something in the exigence of
his mood came to her even in this surrender, and once more,
suddenly and coolly, she drew herself away.

'•What is the matter?" she demanded, looking at him with
alien eyes. She bent, not tenderly, and took his shoulder,
as if to shake his secret out of him.

''The matter is," said Felix, "that my marriage has gone
to heU."

"What I" The exclamation came in a tone of utter incred-
ulous astonishment from the girl at his side, who sat there»
rigid, as though frozen by that news.

358 The Briary-Biiah

*nret» I ten yoar he cried. '^eSre— basted op
dung — for sood and alL**

And fcelbig hunsdf tmcontroHaUj about to cry, he
his face against die ooudi, and hy shaken with
strangling sobs*

The girl tpnng np^ and looked down at him. She hai
never seen hhn cry. She had not known that he coidd aj
As a matter of fact, he had not cried very many times in ki
life*. and he did not know how, and did it badly.

He looked up at last, brushing his eyes witfi his cotf-
sleeve. He wanted her pity.

He saw her looking at him with haogfaty aqger. Her
whole gesture \vas one of outrage. When she saw hm
look up, she clenched her fists, wad said,

"You never told me—'*

"Never told you ?" His anger burst out against her. an^
mixed with self-pity. "What did you expect?*'

She turned half away from him in disdain.

"Not this!** she said.

"No !" he said, sitting up. "No. you little idiot. I suppo^
you didn't. . . . And I didn't either. Well — you see."

She looked back over her shoulder with repugnance. i»
if she were looking at something sick, wounded, or dbcascd

"Yes." she said doubtfully. "I see. . . ."

She turned back to him, her hostility gone, and a mouD-
ful look in her eyes.

"I never supposed " she said haltingly, **thac you — "

She paused, and then went on,

"—You too—"

Under her glance he straightened up, ashamed of himsc'*' I
He rose. He must, he supposed, have looked silly. . .

Tm sorry," he said.

Tm sorry too— Felix," she answered, and there was c
her tone the quality of a farewell.

There was something bracing at this moment in her scoro-
ful silence as she let him walk out of the mom. . . iif
went to the bathroom and washed his face : looked at has-
self in the mirror : was the face he saw there the one this

•r

The God and the Pedestal

359

had been twisted in grotesque sobbing a few minutes ago?
No one would have guessed it. . . . He looked hard at that
face, for some sign of weakness. But it seemed to him
that the weakness had been burned out of it by the fire
of a girl's scorn. It was a face indifferent and aloof from
sorrow, with amused eyes and jauntily smiling mouth. Yes,
that was Felix Fay as he should be.

He went back to his room, tossed his Roget's Thesaurus
and his favourite penholder into the wastebasket with the
torn manuscripts, put on his hat — and then noticed his stick
in the comer.

He picked it up, hung it over his arm, turned out the
gas, and went out whistling.

Book Six
Wilson Avenue

LV. The Consolations of Philosophy

COMING out on the street, swinging his stick, Felix
was vividly conscious of the outer world — it was
as if the curtain had just risen upon a stage scene.
The shapes of the trees in the distance had all the interest
of a beautifully painted set — artificial, as scenery should
be, not aping nature, but s3mibolizing it. The houses that
stood beside the road were cardboard shapes that suggested
great masses of brick and stone. And the way the night sky
bent down at the street-end to touch the earth — ^that was
marvelous.

The whole scene was refreshing. It had the beauty of
something made to be looked at. It was as if the outer-
world were no longer the unnoted background of a drama
in which he was a baffled participant: he had stepped out
of the play now, he was a spectator — ^he could look on and
enjoy the spectacle.

There was a sense of vast release in his mind. The
burden of emotion, of pain, of grief, of anger, the intolerable
burden of human illusion, was lifted. His shoulders felt
lighter, and he carried himself with a jaunty air.

A man passed him — no spectator like himself of this play,
but a participant in it, a man to whom things really seemed
to matter. With a tired droop of the head and shoulders,
putting one foot mechanically before another, he was going
home. Two girls passed, eagerly talking to each other.
None of them saw him, or the world through which they
moved — they were busy acting their parts, too busy think-
ing about yesterday and tomorrow.

How good it was no longer to have a part to play — to
be able to look on, full of curiosity! He was like a dis-

56.1

364 The Briary-Bush

embodied spirit that wanders freely upon the earth witbaf |
a care. The world was beautiful. All the time that he hac
been wonying about other things, it had been beaotifii^
• and he had been too passionately entangled in the cod «
personal emotions to notice. . . . The crooked branch tf
an elm, from which all but a few leaves had fallen, droo^
ing black against the luminous sky — the world had beet
full of such things all along, and he had never paused »
look before.

It was pleasant to have a mind able to notice little dunp
— like the fantastic shadow that danced along the sidevak
growing shorter and longer and dodging about in front mt
behind — a mind that could dwell upon light things, instes!
of revolving eternally in some cycle of hope and fear. S
leisurely, disinterested, curious mind !

As he walked, his thoughts touched lightly upon Roiie-A-r
— he had a fleeting memory-picture, uncoloured hv any pi:*-
ful emotion, of her standing on the balcony of that h m^f
in Woods Point, about to jump off into the snow-fianW "
sensed her as a creature possessed by some wish which s*f
did not understand, driven on by it to delightful and ah>u":
actions. . . . And Clive. ironically officiating as hi>^t to ; |
bridal pair in the house which he had buih to shelter V-^
own happiness. . . . And Phyllis, holding Qive perpetmTT

at arm's len^h. because he was not utterly a jjod \-»'

himself, strangest shape of all, taking the emotions of 1'
these other characters seriously and trying to adjust h-
life to them! They were like people in a play, strange a*
foolish, beautiful and pitiful. He saw them all. he saw - ■
own past self, with a delicate and appreciating exactTVjV ^

But they did not matter — he could stop thinking of thr- }
and look at the nimbus of light around the arc lamp -' !
the comer. Tliat was strange and beautiful, too. '

To l)e a spectator of the s|)ectacle of existence! .At £•<
that was enough. But presently he was aware of a \-ar--
desire for a fellow-spectator. The desire was faint, \^
faint as it was it moved his steps to the Illinois Central i^*
form, and presently he emerged upon Mkhigan Aveont.

The Consolations of Philosophy 365

That evening in the Artists^ Theatre there was a rehearsal
of several episodes from Schnitzler's *'Anatol," which was
to be the second bill of the season. At midnight Elva
Macklin saw Felix Fay stroll in and listen to the jaded end
of the rehearsal from Uie theatre's one tiny and inconvenient
box.

Felix saw her, too, and realized by what instinctive wish
he had been led, without conscious thought, to the Artists'
Theatre. He wanted her for his fellow>spectator of the
spectacle of existence.

He saw her as if for the first time. He had never
talked with her much; and he had been drunk, on dreams
if not on whiskey, the time he had danced with her at the
ball. She had been a sort of dream-figure to him, an out-
of-the-world creature. He saw her now clearly enough —
an intense young egotist in her every word and gesture;
no dryad, but soulless enough for all her human nature —
a girl who still kept the hardness of a child about her.
She would never make a good actress, he reflected ; she was
too much herself; she was acting abominably her part in
this Schnitzler play, but with her own special charm, the
charm that made her what she was. But she was not a
person to pity. He Uked her for that. He would talk
to her.

A few moments later, as Elva Macklin was putting on
her coat to go home, Felix Fay appeared at the door of the
tiny women's dressing room.

The others had gone, she was there alone.

'May I come in?" he asked.

'Yes," she said, "whoever you are . . . and you may
button my spats if you want to, Felix Fay. I'm too tired,
and I was going off without them."

She continued, as he knelt at her feet and twisted the
reluctant buttons one by one into place, "I've done the
circus girl for hours, over and over again* Gregory
doesn't like the way I do it — and I don't like the way

366 The Briary-Bush

Jimmy Taylor does Anatol. Neither does Gregory, for
that matter. Everything's gone wrong tonight. . . .
Gregory gets more and more Napoleonic He says. 'Stop
weHl do that scene all over again!' Nothing about wtaXi
the matter, or how it should be done — ^we just know thae
it doesn't suit him, and so we do it differently. And usaBr
worse. Then he frowns; he bites his lip; he even stamp
his foot : but even that doesn't do much good !**

She put out her other foot. **Jimmk:*s really impossiblr
as Anatol. He looks all right — but he hasn't any wpan
You just can't imagine Jinunie's having six mistresses. K?
treats me as though I were his aunt . . . Gregory wub
me to do the circus girl 'simply' — whatever that means, i
wish he would condescend to explain, instead of just lookaip
haughty. . . . I'm awfully tired. . . . Thanks. I don:
feci quite clothed without my sj^ts."

Felix stood up. "Let's go somewhere and get >ometh:x
to eat." he said.

"I'd like to." she said. 'T don't want to po home. I '
too tired to sleep." She buttoned her cait about her

It was a l>oyish coat, and she wore it with a lK«yish ir
There was something Puck-like in her face, siomech:::
impish, mischievous.

"Have vou a nickname?" he asked curiously.

••Yes." she said, startled. "Why?"

"What is it ?"

"Dobby. Again, why?"

He laughed.

*• Because I was poinp to pve you one if you ha'i- '
I was jjoing to name you Till Eulenspiejjcl. Hut Im^V
will do ver>' well. I shall call you that, if you don't mir :

"1 d<»n*t mind. But you may regret it. — Who was T
Eulenspieircl ?" sbe asked.

".\ celc!»ratcd scamp. — Why should I regret it?"*

••We'll have to mimlier our questions and answers — wc'.r
gettinjiT «'ill mixed up. I»ubby is a celebrated *<amp. :•
You haven't heard of her? When I'm Elva I'm cm =•
very best behaviour."

The Consolations of Philosophy 367

"Then come as Bobby, by all means!" he said.

"It's otily fair to warn you that you may not like her at
all. Some people don't."

"I'm sure / shall. Come along 1" he laughed.

"Wait a moment. How much money have you got?
When I'm Bobby, I insist on pa3ring my own way. But
I've only carfare home tonight. So you'll have to lend me

some."

He took out a roll of bills from his pocket, all that was
left of the two weeks' salary after paying for his apartment,
and solemnly divided it.

She accepted the money, and then handed it back. "No,
I feel like being recklessly dependent tonight. I'll let you
buy my dinner. . . . One moment — I have to turn the
lights out. Go ahead, I can find my way out in the dark."

She joined him in the hall a moment later. "The
elevator's stopped running," she said, "well have to walk
down."

Half way down she stopped. "Let's rest and smoke a
cigarette."

She lighted her cigarette at his match, and then asked.
What brings you here tonight ?"
Idle curiosity," he said.

She puffed on her cigarette and scrutinized his face by
the glow it made in the dark.

"Something's happened to you," she said.

"Right," he answered cheerfully.

"Want to tell me your troubles ?" she asked indifferently.

"No," he said. "I haven't any troubles. I've ceased to
have them. That's what's happened to me."

She laughed lightly. "So that's it. Well, I'm glad you
don't want sympathy. I was afraid you might."

"You misjudged me," he said. "Besides, if I had wanted
sympathy, would I have come to you ?"

"No, I guess you do know me better than that. . . .
Well, what do you want of me ?"

"Nothing in particular of you," he said. "I just want
somebody to bum around with tonight."

368

The Briary-Bush

Slie puffed on her cigarette again. "You don*t look MJ
brokcn-heancd," she said.

"Why should I look broken-hearted?"
"I hear all the theatre-gossip. I supfxise it's tnie?^
"Well. I don't hear the theatre-goe«ip. bo I doa*t ham
whether it's true or not. Why should you care?"

"1 don't care. I'm just curious. You know. yonVe bea
looking worried and unhap])y ever since I Ant uw ya»-
uniil now. At first I thought you wetc worried abai> tt(
play; hut when it was a success you looked more
than ever. And now — well, tlie tranafonmtion is
ing!"
"1 can explain that. . . . You pnbtbiy

"My room," she corrected him. "A qaile
in every sen.se."

"In your room, then, you prt^nbly hav« five or six cu^ -
of the RutMiyat, presented you by different youtb>. . .

"Yes, all with a pencil mark beside the 'Book of Venn'
verse. Go on."

"Well, in that poem Omar bouti of 'stnkine frai ^
Calendar Unborn I'omorrow and Dead Yesterday.' FW
just performed that »amc astronomical feat"

"I know just what you mean.'' she said. "It**— 4ft
like getting over a headache, tso'l it? . . . I'm (tad. -
Well, let's go on."

She jumped up.

Out in the street be asked her, "How do you coBt '■'
know so much about it ? Vi'hen did you peri ocv Oatf^
astronomical feat?"

She laughed.

1 ? Oh, fully twenty years ago — at the a^re of five! . .
You see, up to that time [ had been the ooly child—
the rei|^ing princess, in fact And then a little bcolkr
came along. People laugh about these thtnga— bat I imti
think anything in later life can hurt worse than a
tragedy tike that To be considered the

The Consolations of Philosophy 369

being in all the world, and then — ^pushed out of the way.
• . . Well, I saw that my reign was ended, that human
beings were fickle, and that my heart would be broken if
I kept on caring. So I stopped — and I've never cared
since. Not for a single other living thing in all the world."

"I see you are a person of great experience in — ^not caring.
Twenty years of itl Tell me, how does it work out?"

She stopped suddenly, pulling at his sleeve. "Lookl"
she said with apparent irrelevance.

He looked in the direction of her upward glance, and
saw outlined against the sky a curious accidental roof-line
made by the juxtaposition of two buildings. It was noth-
ing — and it had the pure beauty of a design by Hiroshige.

"Yes," he said, gazing at it An accidental scrap of
beauty, unseen by millions of passing eyes, and only revealed,
it seemed, to such people as themselves I He gazed, and
the knowledge that she too saw it, that her world was full
of such moments, and that they could share them together,
satisfied his need of companionship. He pressed her arm
closer to his side.

They resumed their walk. "You can't see things like
that if you care about people," she said. "And that's how
it works out. ... But it's nice to know some one else like
Aat. Only — I don't think this will last, with you. . . ."

"Why?" he demanded.

"I don't know."

"So you believe I'll go back to caring — to being human,
as they call it — ^to having remorse about the past and worries
about the future, to being all tangled up in unhappiness
again !" he said incredulously.

She laughed, and sang, in a low voice, close to his ear,
the lines of a song that went to an old ballad measure:

"Oh, the briary-bush,
That pricks my heart so sore! *
// / ever get out of the briary-bush

III never get in any morel

LVI. Eulenspiegel

ii j^ LL right— m wait ..."

"Shall we sup in luxury at one of these gilded
hotels?"

"Yes, let's." she said.

They went to the grill-room. It was gay with its mid-
night crowd, an orchestra was playing, and in the cleared
space couples were dancing. The waiter found them a
little table in the comer.

"I'm really hungry," she said. "I forgot to cat dinner."

"Silly child !" he said. "So did I."

"Who's a silly child?"

"I was waiting for my playmate."

They laughed.

With her cloak thrown back carelessly on the chair,
leaning forward with bare elbows on the table, her black
hair tousled about her curiously slanting temples, her blouse
askew over one shoulder, she was indeed very much a child.
And he felt like a child too, and rejoiced in her as a careless
and happy playfellow.

"Let's start," she said, ignoring the menu, "with all the
different kinds of little fishes."

"Good. And — " he consulted the menu — "a filet mignon ?"

She nodded. "And petit pois? . • • And then what?
Some kind of salad, I suppose."

"One of the things you keep pulling apart all evening."

"Yes — what are they called? Artichoke. With Holland-
aise sauce. And what kind of cocktail?" he asked.

The one that has a dash of electricity in it"

'A Daiquerail" he affirmed.

'Right."

'Well, that will do to begin with. — Oh, yes, wine."

371

372 The Briary-Bush

''Nothing sweet/' she warned him.

'A Sauteme, tfien?"

'That will be nice,** she said.

He gave the order, and when he had finished tomed *
her. "You know/' he said, 'St always makes me ice
reckless to order wine. I'm always sure that I'm not goini
to have enough kft to tip the waiter/'

''I'm glad you feel that way," she said. ''It's no fan k
dine with people who are blase about ordering wine-
unless you can fed wickedly extravagant about it, you wt^
just as well drink water. The thrill is all in the ida
anyway. I think wine is a much overrated in stiim ioD-
so far as its effects go. ... I ordered a liqueur ooccl a
beautiful purple thing I had just discovered — I forget dk
name of it ; I ordered it, not to drink, but just to look ir-
and when the man I was dining with called my atter:^ c
to my neglect, and I explained, he was outraged! .
But I wish they would bring the little fishes — I f^hr '
neglect them.''

"It's nice/' he said, "to l)e able to think and talk abcc
things that don't matter."

"Such as what ?"

"Such as little fishes, and poetr)'. I've been so drrai-
fully serious-minded for a long time. — Is Ciregory gw:*
to put on 'The Land of Heart's IVsire'r"

"lie hasn't decided. If he does—"

"If he does, you must play Mary. It won't be Yov-
Mary, hut it will Ix^ something very exciting, if you pU% .'.'

"I hope he'll let me."

"Do you know 'On Dalle's Strand'?"

"He's thinking of doing that, \co, I haven't read it. : ' |
I hear there's nothing in it for me." '

"Oh, yes, there is I 'Iliere's the part of the young yrr^r '
It wouldn't be a half bad idea. You're quite as mjc^ •
boy as a girl. You'd be a very striking young prxt

"Thank you !"

"However, I was thinking of another part for you^rt

Eulenspiegel 373

part of the warrior-queen that the two kings talk about.
You remember?**

"No."

"She doesn't actually appear in the play. But she ought
to. I'd like to write you a play about her."

•Tell me about her I"

*'She fights like a man, and bears a love-child to a soldier-
king — and then makes war on him. He is speaking about
her afterward, in Yeats's play, and he says to the older
king:

"You have newr seen her — ah I Conchobar, had you seen her
With that high, laughing, turbulent head of hers
Thrown backward, and the bowstriHg at her ear.
Or sitting at the fire with these grave eyes
Full of good counsel as it were with wine.
Or when love ran through all the lineaments
Of her wild body. . . ."

She drank in the lines eagerly, and when he paused she
looked at him gratefully. "I'd like to do a part like that,'*
she said.

The cocktails came, but she pushed hers aside. "Tell me
some more about her. She loves and hates the same man?
Does he understand that — ^her lover, I mean."

"Perhaps not at first — in my play, he wouldn't But in
Yeats's play, years later, he does understand. When the
older king complains that even his former sweetheart makes
war on him, he says:

"No wonder in that, no wonder at all in that,
I never have known love but as a kiss
In the mid battle, and a difficult truce
Of oU and water, candles and dark night.
Hillside and hollow, the hot-footed sun
And the cold, sliding, slippery-footed moon-^
A brief forgiveness between opposites
That have been hatreds for three times the age
Of this long 'stablished ground.**

"A kiss in the mid-battle !" she repeated. "That is lovely."

374 ^^^ Briary-Bush

She raised her cocktail. "Here's to uur pUy I**
They drank.

"Now," he said, a iiti]e embaiTa»»edly. "f fed that I
have to write that play )"
^' She put her hand wn his for a moment. "Don't fed t
J she said. "I know — people dream of things and . . , <
I do iticni. 1 shan't hold you to accotim. But it's a i
I dream — and that's what I'm dnnkii^ to."
I "But wouldn't you rather have the play than the dra
I he asked.

I "I don't know. ... By the time you wrote it — I wool
I interested in something el», and you woald want an
I girl to da it. Why should we bother with
I We're not that kind. ... If 1 said 1 loved 3
I could s-ny that right now — I always lo%-c people
\ \ of lovely things, and that play was a lovely thin^ to AaA
\J Joi — wliy, I wouldn't expect ycm to hold me to ^'•'rvff if
mr^ il . . . laler."

"Do you love me?" he asked, in a casual tone.
"Yes. , , . Here arc the hshesf . . . Of coune I *
You are a terrihly nice [lerson. You U>«e mc. doa't yoa'
"Yes." said Felix.

The waiter went away, and fhe laughed. "That w 1
test." .she said. "A man who can talk about love ■ if
presence of the waiter without looking awkward — ! B*
I meant it, too. . . . These ore good, aien't they?^

"Delicious ! Especially these sprats. I don't know «ttf
a sprat i», but T'm sure this is one."

"That's another thing — people ought to be able to aA
about love, and food, and art. and money, in the Moe iv
of voke. Some men would be sho cke d to bear bk din*
love and little fatta all in the same breath.'*
"t seem to be passniK all your tcMi.'*
"Yes — it doesn't even make you nervoos to be ca^tf^
wHh other men."

"Oh, I suppose there are other men in the worid.* ^
Feiix. "Tliey don't interest me, but J doa't
alluding to them."

«(

Eulenspiegel 375

"So long as it's to their disadvantage I"

"Or any other way. I simply can't take them seriously.
Men seem ridiculous creatures to me."

"I've known some very interesting ones I"

"You thought so at the time. A pardonable mistake.
The truth is, Bobbie Eulenspiegel, you and I are the only
truly interesting people alive in the world at this moment."

She laughed up into his eyes. "I think so too," she
said.

She had suddenly become very much a girl, with the
light of a feminine magic gleaming in her mischievous eyes.

"Arc you flirting with me?" he demanded.

"How did you guess?" she asked.

The orchestra struck up again.

'Shall we dance?" she said, jumping up from the table.

'Yes," he said. "Do you know, the last time I danced
with you, I had been drinking, and thought I was dancing
with a childhood playmate."

"Aren't I your childhood playmate?" she asked pausing
at the edge of the dancing space.

"No, Serpent of the Nile," he said, taking her in his
arms. "And you aren't a dryad, either," he went on, as
they mingled with the dancers. "You are a water-witch,
that's what you are. You dance like water in the sunlight
You are an exhalation from the salt sea wave. You have no
body — which is even worse than having no soul ; if I knew
the proper magic words to pronounce, this which seems to
be your body would dissolve, and I would hold in my arms
only a handful of shining mist. You are really not here at
all — there is no one here but me, talking to myself. In fact,
now I think you must be somebody that I invented in a
fanciful mood— a quite imaginary person."

"You seem to have a ntunber of contradictory theories
about me," she said.

"Yes — the only thing I am quite sure of is that you don't
really exist."

"Are you sure that you exist?" she mocked.

•'No, now that I think of it, I'm not sure."

376 The Briary-Biuh

^'Perfaaps yoa are an imaginary penoa that / t
snc insisiioa*

"If any one could invent me* I thiiik yoa miglit.''

"Oh. easily r

"That shows how little you know met" he said. "I doB>
think you invented me, after all. You would be prooder ^
me if you had. Masterpieces like tfiat are not thrown of
every day."

"Master pi ece ? A mere jeu d'esprit 1"

"I renounce you utterly/' he said. "You are a but
pretender. Besides, you are too young to have thoqghi ei
such things. I bdieve you said you were twenty-five."

"I lied, to impress you. I am twenty-four. How oK
are you?"

"I am twenty-four, too," he said. "Remarkable coo-
cidence !"

•'Not at all. I am really twenty-seven."

"Devil ! How old are you ?"

"Older than you, anyway."

"I don't believe you."

"I am an awful liar," she said, with an air of tcllsf
him a secret.

"I shall distrust every word you say henceforth.'*

"Good — then I shall always tell the truth, and \-ouT ^ ]
no wiser. You can't hold me."

"Who wants to hold you ? Not I !" he said.

"Oh, don't yon ?"

"What would I do with you? What are you good \^
No, I don't want you. Go home," he told her.

"Now I sha'n't."

"/Ml right, stay then." j

"I've a rehearsal at ten o'clock tomorrow morning." w^
remarked.

"What's that to me?"

"I ought to go home and get some sleep.**

"Then you probably won't."

"No. I prol»bly won*t. . . . There's the waiter bm^
our food."

Eulenspiegel 377

"It can wait/* he said.

** You're in no hurry to get home, I take it?"

"No."

The music ended. He led her back to their table.

"Besides — " he said. "I didn't tell you about my new
home, did I ? It's on the north side."

"Where? I live on the north side too. Think of us
two living in the midst of Wilson Avenue respectability.
It's very amusing. ... Is it the dancing or the cocktail
that gives us such an appetite?"

"Or the fact that we had no dinner, perhaps? Just off
Wilson Avenue, near the L station. A dingy bachelor
apartment."

"It can't be worse than mine. I fear I have no talent
for home-making."

"There's a dance hall just across the street," he said.
"That's why I left home tonight."

'Why let that annoy you ? Why not dance there ?"

'Yes, why not? Will you go and dance with me?"

Her eyes lit up. "When?"

"Any time. I imagine it's always in full blast. Tonight?"

"Yes!" She clapped her hands. "Now!"

"Our supper. . . ."

"What of it? There are other places to eat, a dog-
wagon will do. Come !" She rose, her eyes dancing.

He rose too, throwing his napkin on the table. "Never
put off till to-morrow — "

He helped her on with her coat, and when the surprised
waiter came with the wine, he demanded his check.

'Yes, sir. And the wine, sir?"

'Give it to me!" said the girl.

He handed it over with a dignified gesture.

"You should have borrowed a corkscrew, too !" said Felix,
as they left the room.

"I didn't want the wine," she said. "I just wanted to
walk out with it under my arm. I thought you might
object."

"Again you misjudge me," said Felix. "You can do all

STB The Briary-Bush -•

the foolUl thin^ yoa want to— but don't waste jmor 4
doloK tham to s«e wbether I care. I doot care. Ya»<
•ttad on jottr head here on Micfaigin Avemie if yoa ite
ita'nt inM."

"Shonldiilt you?" she said. "Well, thca. H I w^^
I i^iMii. ttwn I shz'n't do anything very OMtngnmi. 'Wl
it be very onlragcous to visit yoor apartaHOt !■ tfK 4hC4
night wHb ttiis wine, before we go to the dtooe acn
stnet? Will jwi be put out r

"Protublr." said Felix. "But tbere an otlKr pli
five. There is alwayi the paric bench, when yoa hmtt M
me tatned out of all my apartments."

"Oh, my entlmsiahm for you won't last that long. Umt
Uarl . . . Have we eoongh money to taxi op tlNR*~

*^es."

"Then let's take die L. It's quicker. Do yoa Kk
Felix?"

"I dia'n't tell you I"

They climbed the elevated steps, and waited for a
A weary policeman wailed there, the only other peni
the platform.

"How do you suppose this adventure is going to cod^ A
asked, as they walked.

"Who knows?" he answered. "That's the fm of m
adventure — c>tie never does know."

She sighed. "If X thought ycu ttuoght yoa kMv-
But 3rou don't, do you?"

"And I don't care."

"Amazing youthi I can't tease yoa. can I? So I •«)
try any more. . . . Don't you think I ought to fo hiK
and go to bed?"

"I'm sure you ought."

"If we danced all night — "

"I think I will kiss you, right now. The idea hai jaf
occurred to me."

Standing on the platform in the glare of the clntn
lights, un^ the amused eye of the p^J**""". they kai^
eadi other.

Eulenspiegel 379

''I ifis«^ go to that rehearsal at ten o'clock I" she s^id.

'*You shall have three cups of the best coffee the Wilson
Avenue Tea and Coffee Store affords," he said smiling,
**inade by the most expert hands."

She looked frightened. "Let's walk up to Wilson
Avenue," she said suddenly.

"Good. We can make it by breakfast time. I'd like a
nice long walk !"

"No," she said. "There's our train coming I Besides, I
can change my mind several times more on the way
up. . • .

"You do make good coffee, Felix!" she said, the next
morning. "One more cup, and I think I'll be equal to the
rehearsal. No, you mustn't come with me."

"I wasn't going to go with you, foolish child. I'm merely
going to escort you to the front door."

At the street door she kissed him. "Don't expect me!"
she said. "If you wait for me, I shan't come back."

"And if I don't?"

"Youll probably find me curled up on your doorstep
when you come home. Good-bye."

He watched her disappear around the comer, then went
out and looked on the sidewalk, and in the street. He was
looking for a little book which he had tossed out of the
window the night before.

He did not find it. Somebody had picked it up and
carried it away. . . . But that was better than finding it
crumpled and muddy in the gutter. It was the last thing
binding him to his old life, and it was just as well that it
should be utterly gone.

LVII. Three Days

THERE are/' writes the learned Winckler
History of Love, "erotic adventures, or
tures, which do not arise from any
between the two people immediately concerned, but cr
a banal reaction from the recent — or even remote — hnrts tf
some other, authentic relationship. Made mudi of ii
modem fiction, these misadventures scarcely deserve «c
attention. It is unprofitable, even for the philosophic tncr
alist, to inquire closely into the details of such baSrt I
relationships; if mere flirtations, they are adulteries ir«
the less; and if adulteries, they still remain mere f!irut>^-
Lacking as they do any personal significance, these c-
adventures are as devoid of lasting interest to others a* -■
the misadventures themselves."

With all due deference to the learned Winckler. it ■»' [
perhaps l)e suggested that the lack of any personal y^T^' *
cance in such relationships, and the discovery of it by ^ I
j)ersons involved, is worthy of record. . . . There i> >
charm, real if evanescent, in impersonality : and at tini» vt
weary mind finds in this charm a blessed anodyne. It 5ets^
at such times, as though the very nothingne<s at the hex*
of such a relationship were the most l)eautiful thinf; m :**
world. A wanderer shipwrecked in a tumultuous tropic jc I
might ivell yearn to be cast up on some arctic shore. Drr*' '
than the demands of the senses is the yearning for t-r
Snow Princess, whose kisses are as cool as snowdikr
There is no fever of love in those kisses; their sweet hi-
chill is like the sight of marble contours ; they have the cxr
of eternity in them.

During his first hours with Elva Macklin, it had semt^ I

Three Days 381

to Fdix that he knew the profotindest secret of human
wisdom — the vanity of desire. He desired nothing in the
world, least of all any gift from his light-hearted companion
in Nirvana. She had nothing to give; and whatever she
might give and he might take, it was still nothing. It was
strange, how like fire ice could be ; but fire bums, and leaves
nothing the same as before — ^it transmutes, or destroys ; and
this crystal flame left them both as they had been. They
felt no need of each other; and they could not be disap-
pointed. They were satisfied with themselves; and tfiey
could be content to remain strangers for all their nearness.
No kiss could bridge the gulf between them; they did not
want it bridged; and if they kissed, it was as diough to
prove that no intimacy, none whatever, could shatter their
splendid and perfect isolation, no mere happy human close-
ness merge tiieir triumphant individual identities. There
was a defiance in their kisses — they were proving that they
could be to each other everything and yet nothing.

It was quite true that Felix did not care, when Elva
Macklin went off to her rehearsal, whether he ever saw her
again ; he knew she would return ; but it made no difference.
It never would make any difference. They were strangers ;
diey would remain strangers for ever. There was no danger
of love.

And as long as there was no danger, they would enjoy
the happy charm of each other's strangeness. . . .

Felix did not go to his office ; he stayed in the apartment,
writing — ^writing a play. It was die same play he had been
writing ever since his marriage ; a new version, and different
from all the others. Before, he had written fantastically of
people as he wished them to be; now he wrote of them as
they were. He knew, now, what human beings were like;
himself outside the boundaries of their hopes and fears, he
understood them, pitied them, loved them. He wrote of
himself as he had been — caught hopelessly in the briary-
bush of human passions. . . . Yes, this was a play at last.
One must, it seemed, be outside things to understand them.

He was beginning to weary of this warm human nature

382 The Briary-Bush

in wliidi hii imigiiuition was mmcrtedy wbm Elvit Mit^^
r*"*^^ suddcoly. • • •

"^tiliagr ihe said mdifferaitly.

•Tfcs^-« plsy.'^

**Ib there a part for me in it?*

''No— not in Ais one."

She talked of the idieanaL He put fab mM wa cf
• • • She did not care^ aside itook the mwsliun of a
for her, whether he wrote plays or not; Ifannk
She did not care whether he ever became a pbjwrifftt. 9r
did not care if he ever did anything. She did ao^ *
gods be praised, believe in himi

He went over and Idssed her.

The second day he wrote again on his play, all day. wis
again she went to rehearsals. He had not gone to the oficr
at all. He mentioned the fact. It was evident that ^
did not care. Whether or not the Evening Chronide ^
a dramatic editor made no difference to her.

She talked of herself. She was doing her part in *'Aatt>''
magnificently, she said.

He pressed her hand, glad that she was so pleased «s
herself. She did not need his reassurance. He coold sec
have given it. He did not believe that she would ever ^
that part well.

He remarked that he was writing a great play. St
smiled, and patted his hand. Probably she did not
it. Anyway, she didn't care, so long as he didnt
sympathy and encouragement. . . .

They were very happy. . . .

The end came suddenly, on the morning of the fben!
day. They were having coffee.

She yawned, and asked for another cup. **I don't the*
111 come back today/' she said casually.

«1

Three Days 383

He laughed. He couldn't help it.

"You, too?*' she asked.

"Yes," he said frankly. "I'm getting interested in my
play. ... I suppose I've been rather a nuisance, talking
about that play!'^

"And you're bored hearing what a great actress I ami"
she said.

They smiled at each other.
'It's been very nice!" she said.
'You are a darling!" he told her.

Ill pay you a real compliment," she said. "You are
as much of an egotist as I am. I like you. I can go off
now and tfiink about my part and never give you another
thought. . . . And you won't mind."

"No. But I, on tihe contrary, shall think about you often
— and put you in a play sometime."

They chatted until it was time for her to go to the
rehearsal.

"Will you button my spats?" she asked.

He knelt and pried the buttons into their eyelets.

"Good-bye," she said, and lifted her face to be kissed.

For the first time, in this good-bye kiss, there was
expressed a real affection. At least, they were friends
now. They wished each other well. They cared — ^a little
— about each other. Doubtless that was why they had htgvai
wanting each other's praise, begun to be annoyed at each
other's indifference. They were friends already — they might
perhaps become more than friends. That was why they
were not going to see each other any more.

It had been perfect. It must not be spoiled.

"Good-bye, Felix dear."

He put his arms about her.

"Good-bye, Bobbie Eulenspiegel."

"I do like you."

"I like you, too."

They kissed again, and she went

He turned back to his play.

BMf Im BBIIBld tut raO^B oBnOB ■MHI

act Tlai wm m f ar M hi cooU fo. He fcai fat

1m d arac tew all be knew of Aon. Tbe m* «f te ;

would wuL He put his manuscrtpt away.

And as be put it away, the ihoughtA that tt had i
out by its dream-like preseatracnt gf them began paial
to crowd in upon him. . . . Elva had been rigfat ; not em
was only a mood with him — and it was already orer.
had predicted that it would last tfaire boon. It had la
three days.

All the emotions that he had forgotten and eacapcd f«
in to hurt and confuse him. His Uttk moment of can
freedom was over, . . . Tomorrow l*e would go back lo
office and see if he still had a job.

And what had been his marriage ... it oould not
ended like this. He could not simply run away. T
would have to meet and talk. Make amuganenta. .
The obsequies of marriage. . . .

Tbe past and the present were back again on hii tikai

LVIII. Rendezvous

GOING back to the office the next morning, Felix
had the sense of his absence — so momentous to him-
self — ^not having been particularly remarked. . . .
True, there had been no new plays opening that week ; and
die editorial page could get along without his assistance.
But it was strange to go back to the real world and find
that it does not know you have been away I . . . He worked
all morning, distractedly, on a column for the Saturday
page, and arranged a layout of photographs of actors and
actresses.

He had glanced that morning into the busy editorial
writers' room, and Qive had not been there. He had been
assailed by a vague feeling of self-reproach, as his imagina-
tion presented to him the possible meaning of that absence.
He had quite amazingly — it now seemed to him — left Clive
out of his considerations altogether. How all this might
affect Qive had simply not occurred to him. . . . They all
of them had had a way of treating each other as super-people.
They had disdained the notion of sparing each other's feel-
ings ; they had not even been willing to admit that they had
feelings which might require to be spared I . . . But there
was no reason to believe that Clive, any more than himself,
should come out of this emotional earthquake unscathed.

At noon he went in to ask about his friend. But as soon
as he entered, Willie Smith looked up and said,

'Oh, here you arc! Well, tell us what it's all about f*

'What what's about?" Felix asked, confused.

'Qive's getting married. You know about it, don't you?
You don't? Well, I thought you'd know all about it!"

"Is he married?"

386

it}

The Briary-Bush

Ihai card, Mosmcr? Well, I'm mrprued
'^ W u'd be in on it. — Can't you find that a

•■«....'() all riglil. To some firl nam«)— I forfct
name. And you diiln't know anything abool il! Wd|
had us guessing all wr«k. He didn't iihow np, wai
thought he must be sick. And then Hosmcr nw is
morniog papers that a licenw had been issued to Jotai
Bangs ind »ome girl. Hummer's entitled tu all the
for deducing that John C. Dan^ was our old (nend CBi
I wouldn't believe it. And [hen the announcement am
Oh, here it is, right here. Have vou got any idea wlitt
girl is?"

Felix took the card, on which was written in CHvt^s ■
precise handwriting:

Phytiit Nttson and Give Bmgs

omnoioKt their marriagt

at Ihf City HaU m Chicago

Friday, Novembtr twenly-fighth

•Today I" he said. "Yes. ... I know the girl Wm

give me the card? I suppose there's one w ailiii g for

at home, but I'd like to have this now."

California! . . . Rose-Ajui went about her worit i
same morning widi the thought always in her mind. Ge
away would simplify everything. In California one co
start one's life anew.

There was no need to make a fuss about anydnng. '.
had her work. Life would go on. She would make i
friends. . . . Yes, going away made it easy. She wook
even have to plan for a new place to live, if she were go
away soon ; she could just take a room anywhere, awl
tell any one where it was. Or she might even atay oi
the studio. It was only for a little kmger.

Yes, she would stay there; she wouldn't hide hoa
Nobody need pity her. After all, she and Felix had kt
drifting apart for a long time ; they had bem seeiog I

Rendezvous 387

and less of each other ; the break had come gradually ; this
was merely the end. There were some things about it that
she did not understand — ^but no matter. She accepted the
situation as it stood.

In that spirit of bravado, she went that noon to the little
Hungarian restaurant where she and Felix and Clive and
Phyllis had lunched so often. She went to her accustomed
table, and sat there, remembering what Clive had once said
and they had all laughingly agreed to, in the days when they
believed themselves wonderful young people who could talk
about anything — that if anything ever happened to them of
the sort that "couldn't be discussed," they would come here
and discuss it **in the teeth of God and Nature."

Well, she was here and they were not.

She wondered at little at Clive's absence. Was he off
breaking his heart somewhere? Or had he, as they had all
boasted of themselves, no heart to break ? Alt all events, she
had stood her ground.

Some one entered, and she looked up, as of old habit when
she arrived first

It was Felix.

She sat quietly and waited for him. He caQie over,
seeming glad to see her, and slouched into a chair. "I
wondered if I'd find you here," he said.

"I wondered if you'd come!" she said. She was aston-
ished to find in herself no emotion except that of being glad
that he had come — simply that.

"Last night," he said, "I wanted to come to see you. And
I was afraid to, I guess. Because of things I didn't want
to tell you about — that I thought you wouldn't understand."

The table, that place dedicated to the telling of impossible
truths, still had for them its old magic. "Last night,'* she
said, smiling ruefully, "I set the alarm clock to go off at
midnight. ... If you didn't come by then, I was going to
forget you."

*And I didn't come," he said.

388 The Briary-Bush

"No. ... I waited till the clock went off.
if you came before that I would forgive yoa r^njilan I
anjrthing." I

'*How could I come?'' he asked. "^Before oae cm h
forgiven, one must be ashamed. And I wasn't adaaet
I'm not now."

**Why should you be ?" she asked.

''But you don't know/' he said. "Or do yoa? Hiv
you seen Phyllis?"

"PhyUis? No!" ^

"Neither have I — for diree days."

"But I thought—"

"No you didn't." He leaned forward. "Tdl
you ever believe — not your mind, but with your
that I was in love with Phyllis ? Were you ever reJ"
jealous of her? Did you ever take her seriously, as >.»- "
rival r

"No — not the real Phyllis — no. The real Phyllis I hVr:
and was sorry for and . . . perhaps a little afni:d .'-
but not as a rival. I zcas jealous of the Phyllis who~»r-
existed only in your mind."

**My illusion of her, yes. But why?" |

"Felix, you robbed me to give to that illusion. You \:^r
in her what you refused to see in me to love. I might hi'* I
been all that she was to you — and you wouldn't let rt
When you spoke of her. I kept thinking, 'He might si
those things of me!* — and you might, much more truly'
"Then why did you push me into her arms — into ri
arms of the real Phyllis . . . the one you were afraid c |
Because you knew she'd hurt me? Was that it?** I

They were talking in the eager low^ tones of their icr:- i
tomed discussion, cut off by the influences of this spot fr.c j
any disturbing sense of outer things — alone in an exKha-t-
solitude, a magic circle into which none but the waiter ox.-:
intrude.

"Hurt you?" A look of tenderness shone fleetxnf:!* '
Rose- Ann's eyes, half-contradicted by a triumphant ^ r^'^
"Did she hurt you? Tm sorry, Felix/* i

Rendezvous 389

E you?"

-I'm gladl I wanted you to be hart I I wanted to
I you — for dreaming o( her — punish you by makittK
t find out. , , ."

"It would MTve you right if the illusion had tanwd out
to be true after all, wouldn't it?"

"I tiiought it had, Fdix. What happened?'*

"I dfm'i kncrar exactly. Rut look at this!"

He look the card from hts pocket and pot it before her.

At (hat moment the waiter came up, bowing (hem welcoctK.
**You haf not been here for many days now," be said.
"I begin to think you desert us! Haf yoa yoor order
'ready?"

"You know what we want," said Felix absently.

"Yes, sir. Evcrytiiing shall be as always!" He beamed
•nd ceased to exist.

Felix turned again to Row-Ann, who sat sUrinf quietly
at the card.

"You aren't surprised?" be asked.

"I feel that I knew it all along, somehow!" she said.

"Yes. so did I. . . . That's the iiueer thit^;. AD this
other—"

"Was just rhyllis'a game with CItve. I don't mean she
did it on purpose. She couldn't help it t"

"It was Qive's game too." he insisted.

"In a sense, yes. . . . She tormented him, ran away from
him— and pbyed up to you — all for dive's sake. , . . I'm
•orry, Felix I"

"For me? You needn't be. You were victimind too.
By your pride — just as I by my Tanityl"

"^es," she said, "and now — at last — they can hive ibeir
happiness r

liiey were j^ilent for a moment, contemplalinf; die tr^pc
farce m which they had acted their tragi-comic parts.

"So," he said ironically, "it was to make their marriace
posaibie thai we were so buiy destroying our own I"

"No — I won't haw that If she's hurt you, I'm torry,
FeKx : I really am. But I am'i think of m just as bdplas

The Briary-Bush

— ■ .. V^ did we do it? We have our own qoail

Yes — a quarrel m which no one else counti^ I tov
But first let nie explain. She did hurt mc. Bot 1 km
con sola! ion."

"In whom?" she asked sliarplj.

"Elvu MacWin."

"That queer egotistic tittle theatre-waiH FdixT

"Say what you like — I'm not ashamed ol it."*

"You cotddn't love her!"

"No — I never pretended to. Nor »he,"

"I'm ^.shamed for you, Fdix, if yoo'rc notl"

"Be ashamed, then. I can't be, I've tried."

•Why tryr

"People dtat ue admned— cm be fori^vcn.'*

"But I can't understand it . . ."

"Neither can I,"

"If it bad been some one you loved — "

"Yoa might have lost ine."

"I've lost you now," she said sadly.

"No."

"Yes."

"Ill tdl you one tfiing I am aahamed of. No — I da
know whether I can or not. It's too silly. "

"Tell me."

"I1t tell it backwards. . . . This morning I found a boa
of wine in my apartment — the relic of that orgy of wta
you are so scornful. It was unt^iened. I decided to mi
a present of it to my landbdy. She thanked me ■
rummaged on a shelf and gave me in return a book-
book with my name in it that she had found in her are
way. She had been saving it for me. . . . That's the a
of the story. Here's the book."

He took from his pocket a soiled copy of die Bab BalU
She gazed at it.

"Oh I you took it with you ?'

"To my new home, yes — to remember you by. But •■
It did make me remember you — too wdl — and ao I flv

Rendezvous 391

it out the window. That's what I am ashamed of, Rose-
Ann. I know it's absurd. But we're telling each otfier the
truth. . . . And it's not Elva, nor anything else — but just
what I did to that book, that I want to ask your forgive-
ness for. . . ."

"Was she there?"

"Yes. That was why."

"I'm glad you did it!"

"You don't understand. That book — it's more than just
you, Rose-Ann : it's all you stand for to me. ... I wanted
to get rid of it all."

"What do I stand for, to you?"

He thought a moment, and then answered, as if the word
had pushed itself up out of the deeps of his mind.

"Reality."

"Merely that?" Her voice was disdainful and challenging.

He took up its challenge.

"No — ^more than that. Pain. You stand for that."

"I ?"

"And heartbreak."

"I ?"

"And yesterday and tomorrow."

"And am I," she demanded quietly, "never to stand for
any of the beautiful things? — Must you find them — or
think you find them — in Phyllis . . . and Elva? . . ."

He felt as though they had reached the crux of their
discussion at last. And he felt, too, that it was a perilous
moment. He could sense the forces of an intense resistance
gathering in her mind.

"Yes, that's our quarrel," he said.

"What?"

He spoke with a sudden anger, only half repressed.

"You won't help me. You never have. You tell me
lies. . . .

"Felix I"

"Yes, you do. And I — I believe you, because it is you
who tell them. Lies about life."

"What have I told you?"

392 The Briary-Bush

"That I cDuM be free. I nai free, Rosc-Aon.
Elva. For three days. That was quite eooofii. Aa-i
why I am not ashamed or sorry. 1 tearDcd soar
from her thai you refused lo tcU me."

"What did you leam — from her?"

"That I don't want freedom."

"Don't you?" she mocked gently. "The tmtK Ff!'

"Oh, it's beautiful cnoughl As death is oiore bea-
than hfe. As for me, after a little cupfol of dcAth, t p
pain and V>eartbreak. I prefer you."

"But — it's as if you wanted me to m&kc you uali
Felix. . . . Tliat's what you are saytngl"

"Isn't it true? You hmie made me tmhappy. Aad hipp
too, Rose^Ann. The two things go together. I want tferr
both. Not this mad, mystiol peace that i» like du-

"Tile mad mystical peace of death." she rrpealed-
make it very alhiring, Feltx. One gets tirvd of life:
Just as you got tired of me. But perhapa perhaps
not what you think I am. Perhaps I a
joys of a httle cupful of death — I, too."

The waiter arrived with a savoury stew. He
the dish with a flourish. It redccd of nnlriTinTinnfi. T)^
stared at it helplessly. The waiter went awajr.

"I can't cat," Ko;^e-Ann said appeatingly.

Svmiuthetically he passed her a cigarette.

"Felix," she said. "I know what you think yon wast
like that stew. You ought to want it ; but you don't
want coffee and cigarcnei and talk and
solid food of life. . . . You try to fool yoanelf.
try to fool me."

She paused and then went on wtth sudden
"You've accu^ mc of lying to ynu. It's yoa
lied I Whohe fault is it if 1 didn't mean what I
time ? You've never been honest with mc. Vou
willing to (ace the future. 1 tried to talk with yon,
wiMildn'i. You made mc feel that 1 was wrxx^
I tried to \Mi&cve &\ftt:nx^*| abont our

Rendezvous

393

I the real truth came out — ^yes, the truth! — I wasn't
ired to meet it I was a coward. — Perhaps I'm a
rd still. I don't know. But I know this — I'm not
\g to do what you say you want me to do— bind you,
you, keep you. No ! I won't be ... a wife/*

LIX. Unanswered Questio

FELIX gmUed at her. "Nor
Ann ?'"
"If that's what being a w
mistaken. A womati can be sooi

"So it sceni.t. I always )uid tit' '^
stood life better than 1 did. Bin
"Would you like to be my V
"Would you want to guard and
me in the patlis I should go in ?"

He looked at her intently. "
want?" he hazarded.

For a moment that seemed
behind all Rose-Ann's evastam,
to read confirmation in her stait|r~ —

"Is there anything else ? — Yoo *^-

He stood there, a statue of ir.
neglected dish.

"It's a noble stew," said FdtL
stew. Bring our coffee." —

"Yes, sir. Shall I take away

"Please."

He bore it away with a moi

Rose-Ann was sitting back i:
discussion having become toe^
Felix looked inquiry.
"How little we know ea^
"Meaning?"
"Have you toiBJCcea lAalk..^

Unanswered Questions 395

Felix» if I wanted those things from my lover ... to be
kept and guarded . . . would I have chosen youf"

She dealt the blow lightly, looking away from him.
He paled a little. "Perhaps not/' he said sullenly. And
then — "Forgive me for being ridiculous."

"I only meant," she said, still looking away, "that I don't
want to spoil you. I like you as you are. . . . And if you
insist upon being taught the cave-man virtues, why you will
have to get some other woman to teach them to you. I
decline the office."

"Very well," he said, "I sha'n't ask you again."

"It's just as well the way it has turned out, * she said.
**We might have made ourselves miserable trying to please
each other. Now we can be ourselves."

"And what is your notion of that ?"

•Tor me — freedom."

He smiled incredulously, scornfully.

"I've been trying," she said, "against all my principles, to
be a wife — for nearly two years. We both agree that I was
a failure at it. I shall never try to be a wife again,
Felix. ... As for freedom — You speak as one who knows
what it is. I have still to find out. Do you think you can
forbid me my little cupfuls of mad, mystical peace?"

"Your coffee," said the waiter.

"If I choose to have adventures, who are you to say No
to me?" she said mockingly.

Felix did not answer.

"My paper is moving to Los Angeles this winter," Rose-
Ann said presently, in a casual tone.

"And I suppose," he replied, in an equally casual way,
"that you are going along. ..."

"I hope so," she said. "The details aren't settled yet,
but I expect to go. . . . Perhaps very soon."

office. You will come and see ;
"Yes. ril stay and finish m
She went away, and he sat th

cigarettes.

LX. A I^eave-taking

ROSE-ANN left for Los Angeles during the Christmas
holidays. During the month that had elapsed before
her departure, Felix had been to see her several times
a week. . . . There is something disconcerting in finding
oneself treated by one's wife as a new acquaintance — in a
politely friendly manner, quite as she treats any other
guest. He had gone away more than once secretly enraged,
swearing that he would not go again; at other times it
seemed to him a prodigious joke.

To knock at the door of his own studio; to sit as a
guest upon a chair he had painted with his own hands ; that
was sufficiently strange. To invite formally to dinner — in
order not to be merely one of several of her friends and
admirers, in order to have a word with her alone — the girl
with whom one has talked all night more nights than one
could remember : that was stranger still. But to be met at
the door, when you came to your studio a little early to
escort her to that dinner, by a rather shy startled figure in a
scarlet dressing gown well-known to you, but now clasped
with firm fingers at her bosom, and asked to wait before the
fire while she finished dressing behind the screen at the back,
in a tone which cancelled utterly the countless intimacies
that you have shared — that was the strangest of all. . . .
Was it any wonder that, having thus achieved the
opportunity for a word or two alone with her he should have
found it impossible to say any words whatever except such
as would be appropriate addressed to a young woman with
whom one stood on such a footing? One might talk to
her seriously about ideas, or lightly about friends; one
be argumentative or witty ; one might pay her com-

XI7

398 The Briary-Bush

pliments, even equivocal and daring coiiipliiiieDts» i
whose double meaning she would seem onconsciooi: m
might, in short, pay court to her as one might to a
others.

But as for anything more —

Try it and see. . . . Treat a young woman to whoB is
are a perfect stranger, with zn air of familiar lang 9fm.
show up her airs of reserve as an absurd affectatioo ; iti
for no nonsense from her I Do not let her pretend ; bol I
down that silly barrier of proud virginal constraint. Vtmti
her that in some previous existence, millions of jreus ^
she was the docile companion of your pillow. What ri^
has she to that look of a defiant vestal ? . . . Yes. id
her so!

Did you think she was yours, that she belonged to rx |
now and henceforth? Well you arc mistaken. She bekcf .
to herself. |

You rememl)er a time when — ? Well, she doesn't rnncr-
ber. Pay your court! Perhaps in another thousand yn"
or so you may get to he fairly well acquainted with V
Not so well acquainted as Tom. who je>ts with ^r
familiarly, or Billy, whom she pets, or that young piirtr
of whom she seems quite fond ; but she likes \*ou, after *
fashion — ye^. she even encourages you to persevere.

*'Had tve but world enough, and timu
This coyness, lady, were no crimtf

But day after day. in this preposterous fashion, is fL-rr "i
pa>t ; and she says she is going to Los Angeles: and »"*
are you to prevent her?

To Felix it bore very much the aspect of ironic cocir:
One can often see a joke when one cannot laugh at it S-
what, after all. was the point of this particular joke?

If it was a demonstration that a married couple who hi**
parted mny continue to remain good friends, it was tmiierr ■
successful. That appeared to be the way everybody rx"^ "
After t\ie fvxsx sV\ocV., ^co^l^ seemed pleased. He and R'*'"
Ann had \V\\xsU^vt<\ vVt n\t\>3«5. ^\ \sc2^RXT&^^i^

A Leave-taking 399

Z12 now they were illustrating the virtues of modernistic
C3 divorce — something even more exciting!
9: IVas this a divorce? — ^the human fact which the law in
its laborious way confirmed after due and hypocritic
consideration I They were apart; Rose- Ann was going
away ; what did that mean except a complete separation of
their lives? It might be unthinkable, and yet happen just
the same. Everything that had happened was unthinkable :
divorce was no more so than any of the rest.

He loved her? Well, she knew that. And she loved
him — ^there was no need of questioning that. But she was
going away nevertheless: and he was going to let her go
away.

How the devil could he stop her?

Plead with her, make promises, threaten, weep? That
was child's play. Rose-Ann was not going away because
he had omitted to make a scene.

They were past the day of scenes; they had had scenes
enough. It wasn't that she wanted. Her going wasn't an
idle gesture to evoke his tears. She meant it.

He had never understood her; he realized it now. He
had had her in his arms and let her slip out of them ; and
he didn't know how to win her back.

It was precisely as if they had never been married at all.
He was wooing her under difficulties. He wasn't succeed-
ing. . . .

On the evening before she took her train for Lx>s Angeles
— she had been very sweet to him in a touch-me-not way all
diat week — he said to her :

"Must you go, Rose- Ann? I wish you wouldn't."

It was hard to say even so much. He said it quietly
enough : there was no need to dramatize the situation. She
knew what she was doing to him in going away. He
couldn't ask for her pity.

She looked hastily aroimd. She was making fudge in
her dismantled studio for a party of friends, and FeUx
was assisting her. But nobody had overheard hia — as it
seemed — improper proposal.

4CX> The Briary-Bush

She bent dose to him, touching his shoulder with hn
"Don't spoil my good-bye party!" she whispered rcproKi
fully ; and then stealthily patted his knee with her buid. i
if to make amends for her scolding.

He did not ask, after that, to see her off ; it was die «^
conmianded his presence. He went sullenly.

She talked about everything which least concemed tboi
and he wished himself away. He hated her at tfiat mooKsi

They were in the Pullman, with one more minait b
Felix's watch before the train started. He was wota
it were over, when she smiled reminiscently and aud "D
you remember seeing me off to Springfield two yemn 9fo^

"I remember/' he said doggedly. Why did she waat i
torment him?

"Only two years — and a whole lifetime to foreet t*«
in," she mused. "We ought to be able to manage that"

He looked up, but did not reply.

"Aren't you going to kiss me good-bye?*' she said.

He put his arms about her — and once more, as a H
time ago, they were swept together in a passionate embfa-'^
that sought by its very pain to impress this mocnes: '
their souls, to annihilate time and space for them, v^
make them remember it always. . . .

And then Felix was outside on the platform, and v*
was waving him a cheerful good-bye.

Back in his apartment, where he had not been srx
morning, he found a note from Qive, asking him to cr^
out and spent the week-end in Woods Point. On^ *-
thrown up his job on the Chronicle to write his U>ng >^'
poned novel. As he had told it, he and Phyllis had tc*^
up a penny to decide which should come first — his net
or her baby . . . and he had lost.

The invitation annoyed Felix. He didn't want to f? *
Woods Point to hear about Give's noveL

He sat dovcT\ ^\ \\\^ ^ts5«. ^xvd look out the
of his uuRmsVveA v^a.>j.

LXL Two Men Discuss a Girl

THERE was one thing about writing which Felix felt
had never been done justice to by those who had
praised the art of literature — it cotild quite astonish-
ingly fill up the hollow emptiness of one's idle hours. This
quality, to be sure, it shared with drinking, opium-smoking,
mathematics, pure science, pre-pragmatic philosophy, chess
and the collecting of first editions, Japanese prints and post-
age stamps. But it was less debilitating than drink and
philosophy; a surer refuge than chess; and there were no
auctions to attend. Moreover one could work out the third
act of a play with a triumphant certitude and power such as
is denied to people who are engaged in trying to work out
conclusions in their personal lives.

When he finished his play, late in January, he was appalled
to find that he had nothing with which to occupy his
spare time. ... Of course, he might write his play over
again. But he was angry at that play, now he had finished
it It had ended happily. Couldn't one end anything
happily except on paper ?

On a sudden impulse, he went to the railway station one
evening and inquired what time a train left for Springfield.
He had got to thinking of Rose- Ann's father. For some
reason he wanted to see him. ... He found that there
was a train leaving in half an hour which would reach
Springfield in the middle of the night. . . .

He wanted to see Rose-Ann's father : if he waited to make
sensible arrangements and pack a bag, something would
happen to keep him from going. ... He bought a ticket,
feeling of his unshaven cheek with ink-stained fingers and

401

402 The Briary-Bush

reflecting that he looked like a traini>— and went aboard ibe

train.

The streets of Springfield were covered with new faOn
snow. There were apparently no street cars ninniiif tf
that hour. Felix started to walk toward the Prefis
residence.

He walked for an hour. It was still dark when he reacU
the big house on the comer. As he approached f roo i
side-street he could see a light burning in the Rev. U:
Prentiss's study, at the back of the house.

The ground slanted upward from the street, and Feb
climbed the stone coping and scrambled up into die baa
yard. Going up a terrace at the back end of the lot be
could see into the window of the study upstairs. Rose- An:? '
father was sitting at his desk, with an unlighted ci^rir c
his mouth, not reading or writing, but just sitting thr?
looking at the lamp. Felix watched him. Once he mc*r:
abruptly, and shifted his unlighted cigar frum one corrt?
of his mouth to the other, and then sat quietly a> bc::^
looking at the lamp. I

Felix moved incautiously, and stumbled off the terrxt
covering himself with snow. He stood up and bru^hc: ' '
oflF, and then went down by the back porch unclemcai'-. tTf |
studio window. A memory of Eddie Silver, throwi: '
dollars at the window of his Canal street lionic, came '^' J
his mind, and he felt in hi^ pocket for a coin and rarV*
calltioll^ly threw it up at the window. I

It went wide of the mark. He threw another an: ' \
tinkled sharply against the glass. He stcpi>eci liack. an^: •?
could see a .shadow on the window-pane where Ro=«-A;r
father had moved l>ctween it and the lamp.

He waited a half-minute, and threw a third com
rapj>ed scjuarcly again>t the pane, and a moment larer '"^
window was raised and Rose- Ann's father had leaneii .v.
His unlighted cigar was still in his mouth, and a Kka .
his grey hair fell forward from the back of his

Two Men Discuss a Girl 403

tving like a plume. He saw Felix standing in the snow.

For a moment the two stared at each other, and then
Lnn's father leaned out still further and pointed down-

.rd with an angular arm. Felix pointed toward the porch
-Snquiringly, and Rose-Ann's father nodded emphatically.
Then, it being clear that they understood each other, he
shut the window.

Felix went up on the porch, after stamping the snow from
his shoes. A light was turned on in the kitchen, and the
door opened. Mr. Prentiss came out, closed the door softly
bdiind him, and pressed Felix's hand.

"Come on up to my study," he whispered, "but be quiet,
so we won't wake everybody up."

With an air of two conspirators, they went softly through
tiie kitchen and dining room, into the hall, and up the stairs.
When he had closed his study door behind them, Mr. Prentiss
spoke aloud :

"It's all right now. Nobody can hear us up here." And
again he shook hands with Felix. "You look done up," he
said.

"I walked from the station," said Felix, "and I fell down
in your back yard." He laughed. "I look like a disreput-
able character — I wonder what Rose-Ann's brothers would
say if they saw me now!"

"Sit down," said Rose-Ann's father, and pulled up a chair
in front of his own. "Have a cigar? You'll find it more
restful than those cigarettes of yours. Try this one."

"Thanks," said Felix.

Rose-Ann's father threw away his gnawed unlighted cigar
and took another. They lighted up, and smoked for a
moment in silence.

"So you came to see me. ..." said Rose- Ann's father.
"I was thinking about coming up to Qiicago to see
you. ..."

"I suppose," said Felix, "that you know what the situation
is?"

"Mm — ^yes. . . . Rose-Ann never ^dls me anything. I
have to be a mind-reader. But usually I can figure out

404 Tbe BriaiTAiA

wiMiift tfAog on* Whoi dus

'ltllil|MMIIOt»''fliidFcifaL "It

to any one on te MbiA^ • • . "

/uMi maif mci Mir. itbuiis wmi « (SHQf 10Q%
ft DMiic oi fmng 1010 coficipoiwMwn vm mhk m j
Aim's frknda. Thgr dfop a bit of
nm* • • • I MM to MiPtt ^tttio ft
V^ Blake at tfie ComDrasity HooM. Tkotiawl^Ii
ao anipmed what I haard yon two
And latdy IVe been writipf to dive

wruiuig» ana wniHrimiei na puis in ft tMVft op iso i
Roaa-Ann; not ifaiy mwch^ bat tfian I knoaa Koao*Afl
I can fipira fhiqgs out. • • • I had ft Ictlor Crhi

today. ..."

"What docs he sayT asked Felix.

"Nothing in particular ; just that he hears that tUm
is quite happy about her work in California?*

"You didn't know she^ gone?"

'^No-— she never telb me anything. Not ontO ft kmg
after it's happened."

"Well, were you surprised?"

Rose-Ann's father puffed on his cigar. **No— I caa*
that I was surprised exactly. I've known her a kog ti

"And I've only known her a little more tfian two yc
said Felix.

"She always was a difficult child to manage,** said
Prentiss. "Not that I was ever any good at
I just let her have her own way."

"I seem to be pursuing the same tactics,** said i
grimly.

Rose-Ann's father rose and walked across the rooai
back, his thumbs locked behind his back, the cigar tfi
his mouth.

He paused before Felix. "WeU," he demanded dd
sively, "wVxal A«t cmi ^we do?"

"That*a vi\»!t Y^ >a«it \ft VxMcwir vi^^ ^^Sck. He I

Two Men Discuss a Girl 405

down his cigar, looked at it with disapproval and lighted
<»ie of his own cigarettes.

**Is it — is it all over between you?" asked Rose-Ann's
father softly and rather timidly, looking down at Felix.

"It looks very much that way," said Felix gloomily.

"I was afraid so," said Rose-Ann's father sadly, *'I was
afraid so.''

He walked away, puffing out fierce clouds of smoke.
It's my fault," said Felix.

'Mm — ^yes — ^yes," said Rose-Ann's father from the other
side of the room where he had halted with his back to
Felix. "Yes, I shouldn't wonder."

"I was unfaithful to her," said Felix doggedly.

"Yes, yes," said Rose- Ann's father hastily from his comer.
**That can happen, too. Women are — ^they drive you to it**

Felix looked at him in surprise.

Rose-Ann's father turned around to face him. "I'm an
old man," he said apologetically, "and a priest. You can't
expect me to take things like that as seriously as you young
folks do. I hear about the sins of the flesh too often to be
very much impressed with them."

"I just thought you ought to know," murmured Felix.

"Well, now, to get to the point," said Mr. Prentiss, "what
are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," said Felix. "I'm trying to consider Rose-
Ann's happiness. . . . She seems to be able to get along
without me. ..."

"Seems to be? seems to be? You don't seem so certain
of it yourself ?"

"If she can be happy with some one else, why should I
interfere?" Felix muttered.

*Who is this some one else?" asked Rose- Ann's father,
taking up his march across the room. "Some one in
California?"

"Yes, a poet. . . . I've my own little system of
espionage, too. I got very chummy with the art editor of the
Motion Picture World before he left, and he writes me all
the gossip. . . . Besides I've Rose-Ann's description of

406 The Briary-Bush

him in her last letter to me — we're Mill frimds, 3
'Tall, awkward, black-haired, blazing btack-cyed*
quite romantic."

"Another one of her young genitues," uid Ro
father with a sigh.
"Another ?"

"Yts. . . . She's always had an eye for ]
Queer-looking specimens usually . , , you
seen the one she brought home from Chicago o
was — Dick, Dick something. A poet Never I
became of him, but I imagine that he died of c
"Was she in love with him?"
"It's hard to say. 1 don't know whether ahe'a a
in love."
"What!"

Rose-Ann's father came to a hah again. "Oh,
married you ; but she ran away from you. . .
nearest 1 can come to telling you why, is that I 1
ran away because she was afraid she would love f
I f that sounds f uolUh, just put it down to the (
of an old man."

"It doesn't sound foolish to me," said Felix. **lt ■
true."

"Well, then. HI tell you something else. I i
nearer to being in k>vc with you R4nf than the wi
she married you I What do you think of that ?**

"Perhaps it's only because it's what I wish to fe
said Felix, "but it sounds like gospd."

"There's such a thing as Iicing afraid of falliif n
mused Rose-Ann's father. "I think she married yool
she thought she would be safe from that danger — 1 I
doesn't sound very complimentary to you. bat nkj
know what I mean — and she ran away from yoa I
found out she wa» mistaken."

"I know." said Felix, "she's alway* been ah
love. ... So have I. for that matter."
"That's w\vY iJhit dwas* -jo*."

Two Men Discuss a Girl 407

''Well, there you are. Fm afraid this doesn't help the
situation any." Mr. Prentiss moved away, puffing his cigar.

*'So you think it's no use?"

''The question is," said Rose-Ann's father, "can you tame
tier?"

Tame her! Felix remembered suddenly the conversation
he had had wth Rose-Ann at their restaurant rendez-
vous. . . .

Rose-Ann's father sighed. "I've never tried. ..."

"Neither have I," said Felix. "It might be worth while !"

Rose-Ann's father looked at him quizzically, and for the
first time Felix felt in his kindly smile the cynical quality
which Rose-Ann had referred to more than once.

Rose-Ann's father shook his head. "You're too much like
me," he said.

"I'm her husband, confound it," said Felix, jumping up.
"Where is my hat?"

Rose-Ann's father regarded him sympathetically. "You
won't stay to breakfast?" he said. "Well — good luck,
young man!"

LXIL Theory and Practice

AT the end of the second day out on the Santi Ft
Felix had begun to kave winter behind ; the doe?
was blossoming with strange white and tcarta
flowers; and the next morning he rode past ormpge-groici
golden with fruit and white with bloom, and quaint fiok
rose-gardens at the way-stations, toward that purpk infiHir
depth along the horizon which began to lift itself into t!e
white peaks of a mountain range. Felix had been vagocS
aware that the climate of southern California was supposed
to differ from that of the Great Lakes, but to be riding <xi
of a world of ice and snow straight into the heart of sprr^
seemed to him at once miraculous and auspiciou*^. T^t
green and gold of this new world was significant to hir
not as a fact of geography, but as a magical responi« o'
nature to his heart's impatience. It was a promise c:
happiness.

Felix was in need of some such happy auspice to hdrse:
him. The determination with which he had started out h*i
been undermined by two days and nights of solitary thou^:^
Sometimes he felt like a martyr going to the stake : ir :
sometimes like a fool. But he was upheld by a theory

It was the latest of all his theories concerning hie ::
general and himself and Rose-.\nn in particular; and ^
had resolved to act upon that theory at all costs, no mirw
how absurd it might at any moment seem.

His theory was this: that he and Rose- Ann wtr?
married. . . .

The question of Jiozc married, whether by the autho^*^
of the Slate oi U\\v\o\s, or by their own free wiU asw
consent, was t\oX ytTxvvwvt^i \cv \it \^vs«A\ \^\ \\ ^a^^j^

Theory and Practice 409

started in considering questions like that, one got nowhere I

The how of anything in the world was a question one might

debate for ever. Plato and H. G. Wells — St. Paul and

Bernard Shaw — ^Tolstoi and Nietzsche — Dante and Milton —

and Edward Bok. ... the sages had never agreed what

marriage was. Some said it was a social arrangement, some

an agreement between two individuals, some a mystical

sacrament; others considered it a necessary evil; and still

others a damned nuisance. Felix himself had inclined to

the view that it was a relic of barbarism, connected in some

way with those other barbaric institutions, Private Property

and the State. Perhaps it was ; but that was not the point

Whether as a survival of the barbaric idea of possession or

by common understanding and consent, whether by the

majestic force of law or by private agreement, whether by

sensual habitude or as an outward and visible sign of some

inward and spiritual grace — ^they were man and wife.

That seemed to simplify the situation inunensely. The
relations of two individuals, as such, were infinitely complex
and incalculable; but the relations of man and wife were
something that the mind could comprehend. Thus — what
had happened, as an incident in the history of two human
bundles of emotions and ideas, was a mystery profound
and unfathomable; but as an incident in the history of a
marriage, it was no mystery at all — it was just a
quarrel. . . . Married people often quarreled. Why?
Perhaps because they were married. . . . And — generally
— they made up. Perhaps for the same reason.

It was a comfort to merge the uniqueness of one's woes
m the ocean of generality — to feel that in this very
perturbation he was representative of a vast class ; that even
here he was simply a husband I

And the solution of his difficulties was— -this being the
conclusion to which his theory led-^o try to behave like
any other husband in the same circumstances. Not — he
was quite certain of this — not like Felix Fay. Not like a
young man who has read learned books on psychology.
But like a husband. . . .

410 The Briary-Bush

He had elaborated his theory in the spare m oni c m r
twenty-four hours devoted to arranging his a6Fairs at 3
office so that he could be gone for an indefinite penoc
His first impulse had been to take the train and let hii .it
go hang ; but a young man who has just discovered tfast k
is a husband readizes the significance of a job in its rckn
to his marriage. H he failed in his errand, the job U
not matter ; but it mattered very much if he succeeded. .
And yet — ^he could not explain his predicament to anj car
his very dignity as a husband was bound up in kt? at
admitting that anything had gone wrong with his umiJT
He had to think up some plausible lie to tell the naxnf^
editor. His play — Los Angeles — the moving picturcs^-i«
thousand dollars — a chance to direct it personally . . i
lie like that was the sort of thing people liked to bthrt j
The mention of five thousand dollars ought to c^wv:n:c r i
managing editor. . . . And it did. I

The afternoon before he took the train. Felix hai ^"
to see old Mrs. Perk at the Community Hou^e P"Ci'^
She was still there, sewing costumes. He threaticij a nrt-i?
for her. They gossiped for a while. Then he a>kc.i rr
suddenly.

"Granny Perk, did you ever run away from y.v
husband ?"

A d^icious smile of reminiscence stole over her p'j^
old face.

**Y^s, bless your heart. I did!" she said. It was a* • "
had rci. ailed to her some ex(|uisite and dclioiou> a-.Sc".-

She shook her head. *'l was young." she ,**a:d. i< :: '"-
explained much. **1 was a jjirl as liked to have n:\ »"
way. And >o." she said proudly. **one day, I took the ': '
mv teeth and ran awav !'*

She put her chin in her plump hand and contenr^--
her memories.

•'It «;oun(is very exciting." said Felix.

**Kxcitin;^*s no name for it." said Granny Perk, "i: »i'
just regular W\t\u\\'''

"What d\d 'you Ao, C>i^Tvtv>5 ^^\VT \«. -^"^i^^ ^-««s>j

Theory and Practice 411

She straightened up, and looked at him severely.

''I wouldn't be putting ideas into the heads of young
folks that are well brought up and content with things as
tfiey find them/' she said. ''Nowadays the boys and girls
talk as they should not, but they behave proper enough.
It was different in my time. I wouldn't say Boo to a
goose — ^but I was a wild one for all that. But I'm not one
to corrupt the youth of the land. So ask me no
questions !"

'Tell me one thing,^ said Felix. '*What did your husband
do when you ran away?"

''Why, he came after me, to be sure, and brought me
home."

"And you lived happily ever after?" asked Felix,
laughingly.

"Oh, well now, I guess we got along as well as most,"
she said. "I've nothing to complain of. ..."

Did human life go to that pattern, Felix wondered. And
if so, what was the use of all his speculations and emotions?
He wished he could go after Rose-Ann in the naood of
Granny Perk's husband, to whom it had been the most
inevitable thing in the world. As it was, he had to brace
himself against intellectual doubts for two days and nights
with an intellectual theory: the theory that he was Rose-
Ann's husband after all.

If he could just remember that — whatever happened 1

How does a husband behave on such an occasion? With
firmness? That seemed rather absurd. With a tactful
brutality? Felix sighed. It would be hard to enact this
difficult r61e. . . .

But it was spring — ^miraculously spring in the dead of
winter, and he was going to Rose- Ann 1 Yucca-blooms
and cactus-blossoms, roses and oranges, warm sunlight
and the green of riotous vegetation — spring I

It was noon on Saturday that he reached Los Angeles.
He went to a hotel, and lunched. Then he took the Pacific
Electric to Santa Monica. . . . Rose-Ann lived in Santa
Monica.

The Briary-Biuh

after a kJaonlf Inwft in Lm Aafria^ aa< I

lalheloei(*elaaidai>aagMiai '

the door, b ma opaasl ior bar, aid I

-Hoar did )«■ fat far ibe Imiiilil Im i
"NeTCraiiodliewIiolti,'lieaid. TiihM.-
1t^ a aiaUar of lonc inrorlaaoa B aa kaar !«■ pi

lbs ttfortBo, fldfiuf uouDd ODD hmo IbB idqh tttt pri
her pane w the Btd* Hbla. 1 ■■ kmmm hm
Uim PnntiH. The people hoc sqipoee ne Is he
nerried. . . ." Ae peoMd. **HMr iW jpoa (et iar

"I miked in. . . . You bed kft yuar door ^oA

"Ohl"

"Aren't you glad to see me?"

She rdaxed her attitude of defeaoe^ and cvne one
give him her band. "Forgive me, Fdix, {or bcin|
sensitive. I am glad to see you. As well aa smprii

Her last remark was a danaod for cxphnatiaos. .
Should he tell her why he had come? Or iliiiirf*
tntentiona ? Courage t

"You know why I came," he said.

She was on guard again instantly at the cfaaOenfe m
voice.

"No. . . . Why?"

"Guess r

He had only his theory to uphold htm. Never had
seemed more utterly alien than she became in thn atm
There vras a coed surprise in her manner, and be fct
though he bad committed some stupid inaolencs.

She did not reply, but only looked at hioL He
maidng up his mind. . . . Now was the tinac wha
bosband in the worid would assert his maatery of
attuatioa. A contemptuous pbiaae came into his h
*ctTe-inan atuSY*

As if ibe «cx« leaiauc^ <Nb '&oa^ft:i>n.>c^^dariU,

Theory and Practice 413

^leeks grew red and then white, and her eyes blazed
^iangerously. Every muscle was taut.

He took one step toward her; and in that instant a

^wfld frightened look came into her eyes . . . like that

in an animal's caught in a trap. He turned away, saw a

diair before him, and sat down, sick at heart. No, he

would rather fail, than succeed — ^that way.

When he looked up, she was standing, a little dizzily,
beside the table, steadying herself with her hand.

His theory had been wrong. ... It wasn't husband and
wife — it was himself and Rose- Ann.

And yet — ^was she despising him? Well, let her.

''How long have you been in town?" she asked, quite
naturally.

"I arrived this noon," he answered quietly.

"Then you haven't seen anything yet."

"No."

"There are some lovely places.
1 suppose so."

"Ill show you about, if I may. I'd like to.
1 sha'n't be here long," he said. "Only a few days.
Since he had failed, he might as well go back quickly.

"I'm sorry you can't stay longer," she said — wistfully,
it seemed.

That silly lie he had told to the managing editor to save
his dignity, came into his mind. It would save his dignity
here too.

"I came to see the moving picture people about my
play," he said.

"Oh, did Winters write you about it ?"

"Winters? No."

"I told him about it, and he was very much interested."

How utterly absurd I His play a movie! . . . Still,
under the circumstances, he could hardly say that to
her. • • .

"You haven^t settled anything finally, have you V* she went
on. "Because you really ought to see Winters. Ill in*
troduce you» if you wish."

414 The BriaiT^Buib ^

'Tint win be fine^" be aid ■wriienir i Hy . He
eoald tdl her it wee a lie; bat flMt worid be a
ni pnrpotc bi oonmif^^iio ins luimc*

''What ire yon doiqg tut ateraoonr* die

She liugfaccL "Yon n^gnft be lOfMr aod invite si v
teer

He pnued himiflf together. He oraiii P^y this Ait
out tomehow. It wms oSfy for m f c«r dqri^

"Tee?"' he lep e ele d stupidly.

Xan't yon come? Then how aboot
ahe bit her Up. ''I forgot-rve an c i^ai e ui c m for
But— I auppoie I can break it • • . U yoaM Kke wm m'

''No. don't break your dinner cmagemenL I tm OM
to teav" he said.

She hesitated, and then said appealing, "I want to h
good friends with you, Felix I"

"I see no reason why we shouldn't be," he said. . ■
That wasn't very well done — he ought to be able to *
better than that . . . *'It will be very nice to have les «^
you."

"Have you seen the Pdisades?" she asked.

••No."

"No, of course not. ..."

'The Palisades ?" He appeared inquiringly i n t eres s ed

'Pergolas and palm-trees. Youll like it Well go
for a walk."

He smiled. "That wOl be fevely!"

Rose-Ann put on her hat. and looked at it in the
It did not satisfy her, and she went to a closet for anodr
She viewed herself with dissatisfaction, and then turned v
him and said lightly,

"Wait for me downstairs. Felix, while I change into sv
fresh things — I get so tired of my work-dothes.** |

He was swept with a sudden uncontrollable apger. *
that he trembled as he stood up. . . . It was strai^ Atf |
this petty \\ut(vX\^>amv, vcA t«K \SMt thou^t of fe^ ^ |
for ever, iSwowIA Areftwrj Vsa v^K-^FMnuamX '^tiL^ '

Theory and Practice 415

^ishatned of himself. He went toward the door. . . .
Once outside, he would go away and go home and never
see her again. . . .

She followed him to the door and put her hands on his
shoulders; and then they were in one another's arms.

Rose-Ann began to cry.

"We've spoiled it all," she said.

"How have we spoiled it?" he asked tenderly but
troubledly. "You love me. . . ."

"I love you. ... I think so. Or at least I was terribly
lonely for you. But — "

"But what?"

"This only makes it so much harder. This — this hasn't
changed my mind, Felix." She sat up on the couch.

"I shall never let you leave me now."

"I'm afraid — ^you'll have to find some other way of
keeping me."

"I shall," he said defiantly.

"I — ^hope so, Felix. ... I wish I could feel that I
was really and truly your wife. I don't — yet."

"Then," he said slowly, "play at being my wife — for
a while. Can you do that?"

"I've played at it for nearly two years. It was nice
enough. I guess I can — a little longer. Do you suppose
that is what it will come to? — just playing at being married,
Felix?"

"No. Never. We'll find the answer this time."

"How?"

"I don't know. We'll have to talk everything out. ..."

"We've talked so often, Felix!"

"Once more!"

"Yes . . . but not now. Let's play at being happy
first. Shall we go outdoors?"

"Yes."

"And have our tea. . . . Felix, you will love the palm-
trees ! Ill put on my prettiest frock — for you."

LXm. In Pltj

CMMNi tnm uuur w noor* inqr wcra »• i
al was lid.

tfiii^ wM iB fl^hiL • • • And tfi6 iFttjr fottr wMck IhI

tfie back of tfidr miiids of tfiat i m pe nd ing hour when
must reopen old wounds, heightened the beauty 01
present moment.

They loitered on '"the Palisades*^ under pafan-trees. i
hot sunshine, and drank in the cold breeze from the oa
into whose waters, still winter-cold, only the lea
dared to dive.

They walked, under tfie eaves of that low difl
aloi^ the shore, among the few early hoHday-tDaken
the mothers who had brought dieir diildren dofwn to
on the beach. They watched tfie children feediof die
gulls — throwii^ their remnants of sandwiches out im
water, for the friendly birds to swoop down and take
tfie children would clap rtieir hands and venture <
closer to the water's edge until some icy wave vronkl 1
in and send them scampering barelegged back ova
sand — a lovely game of children and birds and waves
one could watch for ever. . . .

Further down the beach they came to an Inn, where
sat on a bakony and drank tea with rice^akes, and wai
the sun sink lingeringly through bank after hank of i
into the very ocean^ taking with it suddenly the day.

They went to owt o\ ^Bcife ^v^^^y^^ «s^ ^Sat

dmoed and ^uM^ %xA toAit tick 53ca&^

In Play 417

roller-coasting journeys. And at midnight, still unwearied,
still flooded with the joy of being alive and together, they
wandered back up the shore, to its remoter haunts, past Hit
piers gleaming with lights, into the darioiess wanly illumined
by a young moon that climbed up behind the ragged rocks to
shoreward.

"Let's come here tomorrow night and build a bonfire,"
said Rose-Ann. "And bring our supper."

They lay on the sand, still warm from the blaze of day,
under the cool wind from the sea, glad to have put off the
testing of their happiness another day.

They went back to her apartment.

"What about this alleged poet of yours, Rose- Ann?"
he asked casually.

"Eugene?"

"I didn't know his name. ..."

"Well. ... he doesn't count, if that's what you mean."

And she kissed him, as if anxious to prove herself all his.
Tonight there should be no cloud on their happiness.

They breakfasted lazily Sunday noon at a tea-shop in
Santa Monica, kept by three quaint little Englishwomen;
they dawdled over their shirred eggs and toast and coffee
until mid-afternoon, talking. Their table was on a porch
under a stucco archway, half screened from the road by
a trellis covered with roses.

"Everything is too beautiful," said Rose- Ann. "What
have we done to deserve this?"

"Would you like to live here — ^always?" he asked.

"I'd like to have been a child here," she said. "But the
mid-western winter has got into my blood. I guess I want
to see snow again I"

"It does seem immoral," he laughed, " — flowers in Feb-
ruary!"

"I may go away," she said. "Soon. . . . But not back
to Chicago."

"Why?^ he asked in surprise.

4i8 The Briary-Bush

"This — this magazine adventure — is over. ... I m^
working to become editor. And now they've offaiai attft
position. And 1 don't want it Isn't it [fllBjr? k |M
doesn't mean anything to me. ... I shall tty MM^if
different. ..."

"So AOL W bt mid vaafBtteOfy. Tm tini of m

Sob inrilBQ. "wmb yotfiv mot jptmr iortiHB it vi

"TliU wu •! m dnoad Sib Ka»AaiL I l a i irt fc
MJHil fi t . Mks of tdHflf MijiiUuf to dn nowico.*

"YouWc no ide* how euy it i^" ilie mid.

*niica tliat't mother raaioa for IB7 not bcb( Mltratfil*
he idd. "Ta tired of ceqr lUnp. . . . I Ie4 10 ttt
*"*T'*g editor to get to conie out here. It vm too s^^
It's all too easy. . . . No, I'm in earnest about iL— I
came to Chicago expecting to have to fight my way. O ti c i ff
was too damned nice to me. I've been livti^ in a paW*
board world ever since. Look at my job — I coine and p
when I please: and I can say anything I Uke."

"The Fortunate Youth I" she murmured.

"The Intellectual Playboy," he said. "I can lay winl I
like — because nobody cares. That's the tmdi. TbcR'i
nothing heroic in differing with the crttwd when the avmi
pays you to do it."

"Do you want to be heroic. Felix?"

"Yes. I'd like to live in a world where ideas covBid
for something — where people might put yoa in jail if yoi
disagreed with them. Then it would be worth vrhile to tow
opinions of one's own. One could find out whe ih ei (■■
really believed in one's ideas I"

"Find out — how?"

"By suffering for them a little."

•^ou are a Puritan!"

"It's not that ... I want the feding of other mmk
resisting the impact of my own, as sword clashes with sword
How can I know '«\iti><ex toj \dKa& arc. true mku Atj

In Play 419

re put to that test? But Tm let think as I please. It^s
lot a battle, it's a sleight-of-hand performance. It's
'mudeville."

''I didn't know you felt that way about your work,
?clix."

"You want to throw up your job, Rose-Ann. Why
Wouldn't I ?"

She could not quite tell whether he meant it or not

''And write ?" she asked.

'*Oh, yes. But that's not enough. I'm going to do some-
Uiing hard. — Oh, I could be what's called a literary artist
. . . the tnot juste and all that; that's easy, too. One has
only to be sufficiently bored or unhappy. . . . No, I want
to deal with something harder than words. I want to build
lomething with my hands — a house, for instance. Why
lot?"

She leaned forward, smiling. It was sufficiently clear
:hat he was not in earnest. "Where will you build your
lOuse ?"

''Not in this golden land where it is always afternoon.
\nd not too near Chicago, either. Do you remember the
Dunes where we picnicked last summer? There, perhaps.
\way from everything."

"I know where you mean. Yes. What kind of house
will you build ?"

''I suppose that depends to some extent on how much
money I have. Let me see, I had thrown up my job a mo-
nfient ago ! I take it back again. Now that I have a house
to build, I shall need it. How much do houses cost?"

"It depends on how large they are."

"This will be large, but not too large, I should say."

"Then it will take a small, but not too small, sum of
money."

"Just as I thought. And if anybody should be so foolish
18 to want my play — "

•*But do you really mean all this, Felix ?**

"Why not? Why can't I have a house like other people?

The Briary-Bush

tore and more as time goes oa that I tm
liffcrcnt (rom otlier pet^k. They want fas
In't IT

e in earnest about it, then it isn't a bans
&H»^ m It's a studio. That wouldn't cost very wa

"No. A house !" he insisted.

"But why a house?" she asked.

"Why do pv*n\^ want hou*es?" he countered.

"But — " she saia.

"Yes?"

"You want a place to write in, FeKx."

"I ihall write in ihe bam," he said.

"Oh, is there to be a barn ?"

"Don'i you think a barn would be nice?"

"i think a bam would be lovely. But then what a
bouse for?"

"I don't know, exactly. You see, I've never had a h
But people seem to have found uses (or tfiem. I ■
settle down in mine and await developawnts. In the n
time, I could live in it People do, doo't they?"

She laughed. "Yes. People da . . . But won't ye
lonely in such a big house ?"

"No," he said, "I sha'n't be lonely. Not in this be
If I am I shall go talk to the cook."

They looked at each other, smiling, and remeoibeniii
first morning of their marriage. And for a m ome nt 1
fdt that they had drawn nearer than they had ever bci
their lives— as if in this foolish dream of honse-boildiii
had by K«ie inspired accident touched npoo the seen
happiness. . . . And then, in his doubting mind, tbete
the fear that tfiis was an emotion shared only in pUv
was too trivial a thing to bear the burden of Ins nee
reassurance. No, the hurts which they bad inflicted \
each other could not be healed by a jest. . . .

For another moment their gaze ^iO met, snapicsoosl;
he sought to suqirise in her eyes the tfmaghts. the i
tfiat by inock\Ti|fKY VoUmv VitVvQad ihtf u
And tben they VxtecA «««).

In Play

421

'. moment in which they had seemed to understand each
had vanished, leaving him with the certainty ^t it
ever existed,
►me," Rose-Ann cried gaily, "we must go on our pic-

.:^=.

UaV. In EuBCit

SHE Md MiW nwHwi hm^ oKumf to Imi^
f wi oig t mm m iDv immR9 mK hhhnph* •■ly if |

ttin in smi HutN^pi flis bfin tiifl||nt Mto tts
Ste WIS htippji lod htf ni|i|iiiifw vm • imw,'liwy to Ito
Ste WIS teidcf lod ptonoiHte"HMid to wut wny €S0Mv
tenderness snd psssion sfcnwd to ooofess to hflB tlist ddi vv
the end.

She was playing at marriage.

In the vast night the moon rose slowly bdmid die Uk
unseen but palely tinging the sky. They went put mwi
bonfires far up the shore until tiliey could see it» m skate
crescent, cradled between two hills.

Its light faintly touched the edges of the wares wttfi Am.

''What would it be like,"* Rose-Ann wondered, ''to
in icy moonlight? ShaD we?^

He remembered the time at Woods Point* the first
ing of their marriage when she had slipped from their
bed while he slept, to plunge into the snow. He remembcrrf
the sudden loneliness with which he had awakened, and hn
naked footprints in the snow. ... It seemed profoaod!*
characteristic of all her strangeness.

What other woman in the world would have left, at ds«i»
the bed of happy love, to keep such an icy tryst! It m
like their whole married life: the warmth of mere hoam
happiness had not satisfied her ; she must go out into ik
bleak strange arctic spaces of emotion ; and he most go. tee
. . . Well, let her keep her cold assignation widi the moor
light alone, th\s ^tn^X

In Earnest 423

fire, while she undressed in the darkness. ... He saw her
go in, crying out with delight at the water's bitter coldness,
and emerge, white and slender and dripping with silver
moonlight, from the waves. . . . And this was the creature
he had tried to make his wife! This seeker after strange
and impossible beauty I

He remembered that he had offered her, in some play-
ful madness that day, a house. A house in the environs of
Chicago I Thank heaven, she would never know that he
had been in earnest

She had dried her body miraculously on the tiny tea-towel
from their lunch-basket and resumed her clothes by the
time his fire was alight, and she came up laughing and hun-
gry, demanding food. He unpacked from the little basket
the supper which their hosts of the tea-shop had prepared
for them. She munched sandwiches while he broiled bacon
on a stick over the blaze.

**We could do this every night on the Dunes," she said —
and his heart leaped.

"Rose-Ann," he said. "Don't torment me."

She took his hand. "Do I torment you ?" she asked. "I
don't mean to. I'm sorry 1"

Was it surrender? he wondered— or some new evasion?

"Our marriage — " he said.

"Oh I Must we talk about it ?" Her voice was wistful.
"We're so happy — as we are."

"As we are. . . . But what are we^" he demanded pain-
fully.

"Together. ..." she said.

And then, when he did not speak, she asked, a little coldly,

"What do you want me to say, Felix ?"

"I don't know. . . . There are so many things to say.
.-. . All the things we haven't said. . . ."

"Must we say them, Felix? Well, then— I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For everything. . . . Felix, if we had met each other

for the first time "

zes. • • •

424 The Briary'Binh

«^c ONdd be ymy laqniJ. I ^lUt- Ol^ I
cooldr

'Have we kort Cidi other M» aiddi, tiwi?* ke

It's not liMt . . . AB tfat wt» mf fMk.**

n^o^" he Mid.
jfct. Vvt wioofpA ti^tfywbifi oiiL AmA
wiiik Iln not wony nit it wusfftublL B^gmhb INis IwhI;
aome tfiingt I dido't lap ir rfioul nqndf ."^

•TTdliiic.'* 1

Td radier not . . . Fclix» rm not «t mbr |mmiI
WIS. I*ve foand ttiim m inyiaif Ra f Hihtiwjil #I> DfeA
iBuofi IDC Idl Ihcni* • • •

**! wish jrott would.''
llicjr re oot mot dibi||i» Foix* • • • I wolio up Mi
niglit hathig^ yotu . • •" »* »

Her voice was shaken.

'Ttn sorry, Rose-Ann/' he said contritdj. *'Yoo hsvca
right to hate me."

"No," she said. "It's not what you think. If%
else — something you'd never guess."

Suddenly she threw herself face down on the
began to cry.

He put his hand on her shoulder. She drew
away from his touch with a convulsive
looked on, hurt and baffled and f rightened«

She sat up, seized his hand and pressed it
**Why can't I trust you ?" she asked.

He had lost all clue to her thoughts. **! wish I
help you," he said.

"I don't know — ^perhaps I'm trying to fool nqndf
. . WTiat arc you really like, Felix?"

She was looking away from him, gripping his hand, stanni
blindly into the darkness. She seemed not to be tpraMii to
him. He did not answer.

Her hand relaxed its grip upon his, and she said, dryi^
her tears,
"I despise tny^M. . . !*
"For crying?' V» «^tA-

In Earnest 425

•*No— for what we've done."

He thought he knew what she meant 'Tor— playing at
narriage?"

•*Yes," she said strangely, "pla3ring at marriage. . . ."

He had a moment of clairvoyance, a moment in which
ills mind saw into the one same realm of memory with hers.
. • . He saw them, beside another camp-fire, talking. . . .

''Not afraid** he repeated aloud the words she had said
to him then, "not afraid of life or of any of the beautiful
things life may bring us. . . ."

•Telix I" she cried out. "Don't I"

He was seeing another picture, of themselves walking in
a park under great trees that lifted their shivering glooms
to the sky, "Everything," she had said, "is all right now."
Wh2t mockery ! And he felt, again, forces that he did not
cmderstand hurling themselves on his heart crushing and
stunning it . . .

**We were afraid of life," he said. "We were cowards.
Despise me, too."
"Felix!" she cried, "you did care! ... I never knew!"

They looked into the dying embers of the fire.

His mind, as by a shadowy wing, was touched with a
faint r^^t ... for what? . . . for an old dream, beau-
tiful in its way — a dream of freedom; but a dream only —
and worthy only the farewell tribute of a faint and shadowy
regret.

•'What shall we do?" she whispered.

''Let's build our house. Rose- Ann. Will you?^

"Yes."

THB END

3 2044 021 106 265 1

A FINE (S rNCURRFD IP ITOS BOOK tS
NOT RETXntNED TO THE UD&ARY ON
Oft B&POftETtlE LAST DATE DAMPED
BELOW.

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "The briary-bush, a novel"

See other formats