THE next moment he called himself a fool for going about it in this way; but he might as well go through with it now. He knocked again, more loudly, and called out her name, cheerfully. “Phyllis?”
“Who is it?” she asked, in a startled, questioning voice.
He called his own name. “I’ve just discovered we are fellow-lodgers!” he added. “Can I see you?”
She fumbled with the lock, and opened the door. She had just taken off her hat and coat, and she was wearing a black dress that made her seem pale. She looked older; her face was not so untroubledly serene as he had remembered it. But the sight of her gave him just such a momentary unreasonable panic as on that winter night when Clive had brought her into the room at Woods Point. She seemed again the impossible person of his secret dreams.... And then the illusion vanished. She was only—Clive’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.
“I’m using this as a work-room occasionally,” he explained.
“Really!” She looked past him into his room. “Right next to mine. How odd!... You and Rose-Ann haven’t separated or anything, have you?”
“Why, no!” he laughed. “Why should you think—?”
“It’s absurd, isn’t it? But that was what came into my head. I’m glad it isn’t so.... You work there? I see!”
“And you?” he demanded.
“Me? I’ve run away at last!”
281“I heard something about it....”
“Yes, run away—from school—from home—from everything! 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-journal. 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!”
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 wait! Some day I shall have a grand studio like yours!” 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 Clive. I wanted to prove that I could do something by myself.” A curious smile lit her face as she added: “It annoys Clive that I should have got a job without his help!”
“But why?” he wondered. He remembered what Clive 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 impulse, he wanted to make her admit the truth to him.
“Is it just because it’s Clive?” he asked.
For a moment she looked at him coldly as if about to 282rebuke his presumption, and then looked down and said: “I suppose so....”
“I thought you were in love with him,” he said bluntly.
She laughed.
“But aren’t you?” he insisted.
“What a question!” she retorted. “Are I or aren’t I? You talk like my mother!... How do I know?”
“And you talk like Clive!” he said.
“Probably I learned it from him.... I’ve learned ’most everything I know from him.”
“You’re an odd girl,” he told her.
“So Clive says.... You’re very like Clive yourself, do you know?”
“I wish I were more like him, in some ways; but in other respects—”
“Yes—you’re very much like him. Only—more so!”
“What do you mean? You rather alarm me.”
“Oh, you needn’t be alarmed. My meaning is very flattering. I think a lot of Clive!”
“Then why do you run away from him?” Felix demanded.
“Is coming to Chicago running away from him?”
“He wanted you to come to Chicago three years ago—didn’t he?”
“Yes, but—Oh, it’s very involved. Are you really interested? I’m not sure that I understand it myself.”
He was quite sure that she wanted to tell him the whole story. And he wanted to hear it.
“I’m very much interested,” he said. “And perhaps,” he hazarded, “—perhaps I could help you to understand.”
“I wish you could.... I don’t know where to begin.”
Yes—she did want to tell him. And it would be interesting to know the truth about Clive and Phyllis—at last!
“Begin with yourself—before Clive came along,” he commanded.
“Oh—you think he changed me?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Well—perhaps. Oh, of course I was a romantic little 283goose 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 clarked 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.... Clive 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 questions, and I wrote out my answers at home. I did it fairly, too—and he marked them for me.”
284“Who was ‘he’?”
“The teacher, Mr. Andrews—the science teacher. He was all right. He lent me books, and talked to me.”
Felix smiled to himself. So Clive Bangs had not been the only one who had lent books and talked to Phyllis! He had only been the latest one to minister to an insatiable hunger for new knowledge. He had not, as he so egotistically thought, changed the current of her life; or perhaps he had: Phyllis’ story would show. But already it was a different personality from any suggested by Clive’s remarks or Felix’s own dreaming, that began to appear.
“Only—how was I ever to get to school? There were no boys in the family—I often felt as though I were the man of the family—I had to raise some money myself.... At last I thought of the taxi idea. I talked father into it.... It was the hardest battle I ever had.”
“How old were you then?”
“Sixteen.... You mustn’t think my father was a—a bad father. I really loved him very much. He wanted to take care of his family, but he just didn’t know how. I had to take things into my own hands. I persuaded him to borrow the money for our first car. That year we paid for it, and I made him borrow the money to buy another, and let me run it. Well—we made lots of money, and now we’ve five cars—so that’s all right.... I don’t know why I got off the track and told you all this stuff. You wanted to know about me and Clive.”
“Yes, then Clive came along?”
“He had been there all the time—only he never saw me. Why should he? I don’t think he ever would have seen me, if one night when I was driving him home I hadn’t noticed that he was carrying an interesting-looking book with a white label. I glanced at it rather obviously. He held it up, and asked me if I had ever read any of Bernard Shaw’s plays. I was scared to death—I had wanted to talk to him for two years, and here was my chance. I had to make good. Of course, I’d never read anything of Shaw’s, but what did that matter? It was my chance to prove to 285him 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 them 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 everything. I said, if these are the things he likes, I can like them too, and I will! 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 anything. So I don’t mind telling you what a little fool I was. Think! 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 Clive 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 me!... 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 286me. I don’t know why I should complain—but somehow I 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 ago. 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 he was right.”
“Are you sure that he is right?” Felix asked.
“Of course? Aren’t you? Work—adventure—love? Why not? 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 him, sombrely.
“I know I am. But what do you mean?”
“Your marriage. You’re living your theories.”
Felix smiled. “What theories do you mean? You didn’t take seriously everything Clive said at our wedding, did you?”
She looked at him earnestly. “Clive wrote me you were living up to your theories—you and Rose-Ann. Isn’t it true?”
“Oh—that.”
He knew that she meant the Dorothy episode. Rose-Ann 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 of this wonderful “free” marriage.
Phyllis’s eyes questioned him fiercely, anxiously.
“I see you’ve heard the story,” he said. “Well, something of that sort did happen. But—”
“So it’s true!” She said it triumphantly. “I’m so tired 287of all this talk that never gets anywhere. You don’t know how much you 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 Clive’s talk?”
“Yes—I did. Because it was just talk.... Look at me! Do you doubt that I wanted everything Clive told me about? work—adventure—love.... I’ve wanted them all along. If Clive had only said, ‘Come with me to Chicago—’!”
“What did he say?”
“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—make you marry him?”
“Not now. Three years ago I was foolish enough to believe in marriage. I couldn’t marry anybody now—least of all Clive: the man who taught me not to believe in 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 modern woman, why—” She laughed, and added, “No doubt my modernism seems ridiculous to you. I admit that it’s only talk, so far! I—why, I don’t even smoke cigarettes. Clive 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 ridiculous to you?”
“No,” Felix said gravely. “Not ridiculous.” He hesitated.... 288There were things he wanted to say to her; but he would be ridiculous, saying those things. And yet he did want to say them.... Her hand lay near him on the couch. He covered it with his own. The touch gave him the encouragement he needed; but when he spoke it was in unpremeditated words.
“I’m awfully sorry, Phyllis,” he said.
2
For a moment her flippant hardness disappeared. She became for a moment, in response to his tone, the girl he had first known—the real person, simple and genuine, that still underlay all her pretences.... She let her hand rest in his for a moment, and then withdrew it. “Why sorry?” she asked quietly. “I’m sorry for myself; but why should you be sorry for me, Felix?”
“I don’t know,” Felix said. “But—I like you, and I want you to be happy. And Clive’s modernism doesn’t seem to me to be what you want.”
She frowned at him. “What do I want?” she asked.
“Not a hectic, experimental kind of existence,” he said.
“I don’t?”
“No. Not for yourself. You may want to be that sort of person to please Clive. But you don’t want it. You want—I’ll tell you what you want.” He spoke confidently. “It’s very simple. You want a husband, and children, and a home, and you want to stay there—you want to be made to stay there.”
She stirred restlessly, and seemed about to speak, but he motioned her abruptly to keep still, and went on authoritatively. “Oh, don’t deny it. You want somebody to take you in charge—some one in whom you really believe, that you can really depend upon, somebody who can boss the job. Don’t you!” he finished rather imperiously.
She smiled at him quizzically, and then said, “Yes. Maybe I do. How did you guess?”
“I knew,” he said.
“Well, don’t tell anybody that I’m such a ridiculous 289person!” 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
3
Felix caressed her shoulder with his hand, lightly—feeling in some queer way that she was a child and that he was some infinitely older and wiser person.
They sat there a long time, she with her head resting against his knee, and he with his hand touching her shoulder. At last she took his other hand and held it against her face, with an apparently unconscious and instinctive gesture, as if she were in truth a child. He had a deep conviction that this was not love-making in any ordinary sense. There was some blessed healing in these contacts for them both—that was all.
Yes—for him, too. For as he bent over her, with his hand nourished against her cheek, he seemed to be finding rest, finding some quiet peace which his spirit needed. This touch was enough. It was balm for a weariness of which he had not been aware. It was rest, it was peace, it was his dream of her come true.
She lifted her head at last, like some one who has waked from a refreshing sleep. “You are very good to me,” she said, and rose up.
He stood up, suddenly conscious of how long they had been together, and wondered what time it was.
She glanced at her clock on the mantel, and his look followed hers. It was three o’clock.
“Gracious!” she whispered.
He started to walk across the floor, and a board creaked; he finished the journey to his door on tiptoe, half ashamed and angry at taking such a precaution. It gave an air of the illicit to the occasion. At the door he turned.
She had remained standing beside his chair. He could not shake hands with her without going back. But why was he hurrying away in such a frightened manner, as if he had done something wrong? He recrossed the room and held out his hand.
“Good night, Phyllis.”
“Good night, Felix Fay.”
291He walked boldly back to his own room, and closed the door with a defiant bang.
4
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.”