1

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 though 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 corner, 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 plays lightly, and light plays seriously; but it was a departure from his manner to be actually grave about anything. This play happened to be about a man who, after a lifetime of self-deluded egotism, 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, of this being a remarkable, a wonderful, an exemplary marriage. These people really lived up to their modernist theories! Rose-Ann had wanted to go off somewhere, and she had not bothered to tell Felix where she was going, nor he to inquire! That, truly, was freedom!

2

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 moment 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 it 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 meaning to ask for that kiss herself! As a gift, a concession from his strength to her weakness—yes; but not as something 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, discontented, 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....

3

It seemed incredible to Felix that one mad moment could have done all this. For one moment only he had surrendered to an insane illusion; and the results had been profound and incalculable. All this time, for two 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 him. 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 to find what was most difficult 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 except alone. He did not want to be alone. He wanted the world of dear, familiar realities—he wanted Rose-Ann. He wanted Rose-Ann.

4

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!

But he could not.

She must be there, at home. There was nothing to worry about.... And yet, by day and night, disturbing fantasies arose in his mind, of all the accidents that might have happened to her—gruesome fantasies, that unwound themselves 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 before 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 side. Perhaps she only wanted to be reassured. Perhaps she was 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 sleeplessly, 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 return 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.

Rose-Ann, meanwhile, as her husband supposed, was at her father’s home in Springfield. If her presence there excited any curiosity, she was scarcely aware of it. She was not concerned with anything but the problem of herself and Felix....

She was not, however, as he sometimes imagined, waiting for a letter from him to make easy her return home. She was, as she had told him, trying to “think things out.”

She had gone away with that sentence of his ringing in her mind: “So you didn’t mean it after all!”

She had not slept that night, on the train; nor very much since that time. She was too busy trying to think things out; and the chief thing to think out was: had she meant it when she offered Felix his freedom?

No, obviously enough! And yet her pride revolted from that fact. Had she been a liar, a hypocrite, all this while? Had she only pretended? It was too shameful....

She really had meant it. She had been in earnest. She had understood what she was saying. She had thought she could do it....

Was she too weak, then? Oh, no! It was a mere momentary weakness, a spiritual infirmity that she had not expected, but that she could have conquered. If only Felix had not come in just then! What a fool she must have seemed! What a liar!

But why couldn’t he have understood? She was a woman, after all.

No! he had been quite right to disdain her. After all she had said to him, to sit there on the floor, blubbering.... She blushed with infinite shame.

That was the trouble.... She had not had time to adjust herself to the situation. It had been a moment of madness when she suddenly commenced packing to go home. She had not known what she was doing.... An hour later, she would have been calm again, herself, assured, smiling. He need never have known....

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 together under the same roof. They never should have become 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 which 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?