1

THERE was something puzzling to Felix about that celebration....

Surely no marriage anniversary had ever before been marked in quite this fashion—by a wife’s offer to give up her husband’s love to another woman!

Already Rose-Ann appeared to have forgotten that incident, as she sat, flushed and happy, at the table with Felix and Clive in the gay restaurant they had chosen. Or no, not forgotten it; for it might perhaps be that very memory, even more than the occasion itself, which made her so radiant—that secret, giving to a commonplace occasion a special quality of romantic uniqueness!

So Felix, watching her, thought he read her mind. And he was perturbed. She had enjoyed that fictitious renunciation. She had needed the taste, as it were, of bitterness, to savour their happiness. She loved him; and she had played with the idea of losing his love.... To have faced that danger—yes, to have faced it, even more than to have come off safely—intoxicated her. There was a new light in her eyes, a dancing light of joyous and reckless courage, a new pride in the toss of her head with its cluster of red-gold curls....

He felt that to her it was not enough to be happy; her happiness must be snatched from the jaws of peril. She was grateful to him, not for being in love with her after all—but for having given her occasion for a moment to think otherwise!

A strange creature to have for a wife, he meditated, watching her. She was more lovely tonight than she had ever been, he thought.... 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! She wanted adventure; and so long as their marriage was an adventure—!

That was what they were celebrating—not the mere passage 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....

2

“Have you heard about McQuish?” Clive 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 McQuish; 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 darn 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 thing out. Felix came here, you know, scared to death of Chicago; he can’t believe yet in his good luck! He didn’t really believe he was going to get Hawkins’s job. Everybody else knew he was slated for it.... When you go back to the office tomorrow, Felix, the Old Man will give you a cigar and tell you what a fine fellow you are. And it will take him all of a year to discover that you aren’t a fine fellow.... We are a deceptive lot, we young intellectuals; the powers that be think they can use us in their business; and it’s some time before they wake up to discover that we are playing a game of our own.... I give you a year at least to flourish in, Felix! And make the most of it—for about this time next year you will be pulling up stakes and departing elsewhere. What do you think, Rose-Ann?”

“I don’t care,” said Rose-Ann. “So long as things keep happening!”

3

They had said good-night to Clive and came back to the studio. Rose-Ann turned to Felix suddenly, just inside the closed door.

“You remember what I told you here—a little while ago,” she began.

“Yes,” he said, doubtfully.

She looked at him earnestly. “I meant it, you know,” she said.

“Oh—that!”

“Yes.... I’m terribly glad it wasn’t true, what I thought—about you and Dorothy. But if it had been—!”

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” he said uncomfortably.

“But Felix!” she protested.

“Well?”

“I know I was crying, and behaving like a silly idiot and everything—but you must believe that I meant what I said. Do you, Felix?”

Her face was grave now, her eyes solemn. Something in his heart leaped to rejoice in the courage that lay behind 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. “We’ll cross our bridges when we come to them,” he said.