CLIVE stayed a few minutes after the others to give them some news. Phyllis, it seemed, was desperately discontented with the process of learning to be a teacher. And 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?” Clive had asked, insistently.
Rose-Ann had shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not for me to decide!” she said, and so Clive, thanking her in an ironical voice, had gone away.
2
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 wonder,” he said cautiously, “why Clive made such a fuss about that offer of Howard Morgan’s?”
“Well,” said Rose-Ann. “Leave the door open a moment to let the smoke out....”
“What kind of reputation has Howard Morgan, with—with regard to girls?” he asked point-blank.
208“Oh,” said Rose-Ann, “the usual reputation of handsome 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.”
“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 Clive for thinking of turning her over to that old scoundrel!... You don’t seem to care?”
“Must everybody in the world be sorry for poor Phyllis, 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 getting chilly....”
Felix shut the door.
“Well, this is over, anyway!” said Rose-Ann, walking back behind the screen, and kicking off her pumps.
Felix followed her. “What’s over?”
“This party,” she said, letting down her hair. “A lot of cleaning tomorrow, and then—never again.... Felix, I don’t want you to be a perfect host, after all. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.”
“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 has 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 does it in such a fatherly way that 209nobody 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 arrangement?” Felix asked angrily.
“How do I know?” 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 marrying her yourself. And just because you’re jealous of Howard Morgan—”
“Jealous! Rose-Ann!”
“—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!”
“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.