BUT, even though life was much easier than he had ever dreamed it to be, though one could acquire a lovely wife without deserving her, an easy job without asking for it, and a house in the country, if one wished, without money—still, the fact remained that he was only a young newspaper man getting thirty dollars a week. And thirty dollars a week meant that he could afford to pay only thirty dollars a month for rent: he had read that in a book, and it seemed like good sound economics. And thirty dollars a month would cover only the poorest and most cramped of the apartments that Rose-Ann had viewed so judicially and, he felt, with secret disdain. By no stretch even of an imagination keyed to the marvellous by recent events, could he see himself getting a place to live in that Rose-Ann would really approve.... And meanwhile they were living above their means—above his means, anyway—at the St. Dunstan. It was their fourth week there, and they were no nearer to finding a place to live in than they had been when they came. Something had to happen pretty soon.
He reminded himself that when he came to Chicago he had not expected such hospitality, such friendship, such help as he had actually received; he had never dreamed of getting a job on the Chronicle, nor of being made assistant dramatic critic ... and least of all had he dreamed of having Rose-Ann for a wife! Such things happened, it seemed—happened to one in spite of one’s stupidities and suspicions and fears. Perhaps Rose-Ann’s grand house would drop from the sky in the same way; perhaps!—but to one whose mind was trained sternly in old-fashioned nineteenth century realism, it seemed merely silly ... and 171a little worse than that. He would give one more day to the deities that presided over his fantastic fortunes, and then he would take the next thirty-dollar-a-month apartment they looked at.... So much for that!
They were going to look at some apartments on the south side, near Jackson Park, and they had planned to meet on the steps of the Field Museum.... He was a little early when he left the elevated at Fifty-fifth street, and he strolled slowly over toward Jackson Park looking thoughtfully at all the apartment buildings he passed.... One, which looked like a place where Rose-Ann might care to live, was quite obviously beyond their means.
He turned into Fifty-seventh street, and went under the Illinois Central viaduct, passing a row of dingy brown one-story shops—at least, there was a photographer’s shop among them, though the others were apparently lived in, the big plate-glass windows in front being covered with curtains. Felix wondered what kind of people lived there. As he reached the corner, just across from the green stretch of Jackson Park, it seemed that he had a chance to find out, for there stood a young woman in the doorway directing the operations of a moving man who was carrying things to a van in the street.
“Don’t you dare drop those,” the young woman was saying. “The frames are valuable anyway!”
It was an armful of large paintings that was being carried out. The young woman, a rather impressive little person, with a sturdy, plump figure, and short curly black hair, held a cigarette in her hand. A painter? Did artists live in these places?
Felix glanced past the girl into the room beyond. “May I look in?” he asked the girl.
“Sure,” she said indifferently.
Felix stepped inside. It was a large room—a huge room, unpartitioned except by a flimsy screen about eight feet high which cut off the rear portion. Evidently the occupant had slept back there, and used the front part for a studio.
“You’re leaving?” he asked the girl.
172She shrugged her shoulders. “Looks like it,” she said.
“Is it for rent?”
Of course, Rose-Ann would not want to live in a place like that, but—it interested him.
“Yes, it’s for rent, if anybody wants it,” she said lazily.
“What’s the matter with it?” asked Felix.
She seemed to become a little more aware of him. “Are you thinking of taking it?” she asked.
“Maybe,” said Felix.
“If you do, maybe I could persuade you to take a few things off my hands.”
“What’s wrong with the place?” he countered.
“Nothing’s wrong with it,” she said.
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Because,” she said. “I don’t want to build my own fires. I can’t paint and look after a stove, too. Want to see my stove? It’s a good stove. I’m moving to a steam-heated studio-apartment, and I shan’t want it any more. There it is—”
“Oh, a Franklin stove!” he said.
“Yes, a darn nice little stove. Do you paint?”
“No.”
“Write?”
“Yes.”
“You’d like this place.... And it’s dirt cheap.”
“How much?”
“You wouldn’t believe it. Twelve dollars.”
“Twelve dollars a what?”
“A month!”
“Twelve dollars a month?” Why, his hall bedroom over on Canal street had cost more than that....
“Yes, and look at the space. It’s really a find. If you don’t mind living in a kind of bohemian way. I’m bohemian enough, God knows, but when I get to painting I let my fire go out.”
“I didn’t know,” said Felix, “that there were such places as this in Chicago.”
“There aren’t. There’s just these. Here and around the 173corner. They were put up for shops at the time of the World’s Fair—just temporary structures—and they’ve never bothered to tear ’em down. There’s been a bunch of artists living here ever since; a place like this for twelve dollars is a godsend to an artist. If this was spring, it wouldn’t be for rent—there’d be a dozen after it. You’re in luck.” She resumed her neglected cigarette to keep it from going out. “Well, what do you say? Want my stove?”
“I’ll—have to see my wife about it,” said Felix. “She’s waiting for me over in the Park.” No, Rose-Ann would not like it, but—
“Your wife? Then, good-night! No Christian female would live in these diggings for a week—unless she was an artist’s wife and couldn’t help herself.”
“Why not?” Felix demanded. Though this was just what he himself had been conjecturing about Rose-Ann’s feelings, he found himself resenting this girl’s scornful imputation to her of those same feelings.
“Well, you’ve seen the place,” she said. “Have you noticed any bath-tub? No—the people who live in these places take their baths standing up in that iron sink there in the back. Cold water, fresh from a very cold lake! It’s healthy—Spartan and all that—but no regular wife would stand for it. You’ll see. Bring her over here—I’d like to watch her face when you show her around. I haven’t had a good smile for a long time. Bring her over!”
“I’ll do that,” Felix said grimly. “You wait.”
“Oh, I’ll wait. Here—” to the moving man—“leave that stove alone and take a rest for about five minutes.”
2
Felix had felt in the attitude of this girl artist a challenge to Rose-Ann which he was somehow anxious for her to meet. She might not like this place—but it would not be because she was a bourgeois doll, afraid to bathe standing up in an iron sink. Rose-Ann would see in this place what he saw in it, even if she did want something different....
“I’ve been to one place already,” said Rose-Ann, rising 174from the steps and coming down to meet him. “It’s—just like all the others.”
“Well,” said Felix, his voice unconsciously defiant, “I’ve found you a place that’s different!”
“Have you really? Where is it?”
“Just over here. Right on the edge of the Park.”
“I’d like that!”
“Would you like to bathe in ice-cold water, standing up in a cast iron sink?”
“Oo! I can feel the water now, oozing out of a sponge at the back of my neck! What makes you think I’m afraid of cold water? You remember my snow-baths at Woods Point? The primitive life has no terrors for me—so far as that’s concerned. So there’s no bathroom?”
“No.”
“M-m. Well, I’ll see.”
“Here it is, then.”
“Oh, this? An unpromising exterior....”
“Here,” said Felix, indicating the girl, who came to the door, “is the lady who’s just leaving. And this,” he said to the girl, “is my wife.”
She stood aside and waved them in with a flourish of her cigarette. “Well, here it is, without one plea. See for yourself!”
“Oh!” cried Rose-Ann. “What a lovely big room!”
“It is big,” said Felix.
“It’s splendid! A real room....” She drew a deep breath. “I could live in a place like this, Felix.”
The girl regarded her with respectful interest, and then turned to Felix. “Did you tell her about the sink?”
“Yes,” said Rose-Ann. “I know about the sink. But I think I’ll inspect the sanitary details right now, before I get any more enthusiastic.”
The two girls went back of the screen, talking excitedly. “Does the screen stay here?” Rose-Ann was asking. “Good! We’ll sleep back here—or make it a kitchen, and sleep out in front, I don’t know which....”
Felix lighted a cigarette, and laughed softly to himself 175at his own folly. So this was what Rose-Ann had wanted! This was the reality of that supposedly grandiose dream of hers, which had frightened him so much to think of making come true for her! This—twelve dollars a month—an iron sink—a Franklin stove!
So the destinies that presided over his fantastic fortunes had made good again.
How simple life was, after all!