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ROSE-ANN decided to give at least one or two of her “little” parties immediately; perhaps to encourage Felix to meet the larger ordeal. And to the first of these little parties, she planned to invite, with what seemed to Felix a reckless defiance of congruity, Clive, Dorothy Sheridan (who had in the meantime been in to see “what they had done to her old studio” and appeared to be satisfied that they had not turned it into what she called “a Christian home”)—and the Howard Morgans!
A more ill-assorted company, Felix felt, had never been invited to sit at the one table—a poet who was also (or at least so Felix considered him) a social lion, a rough-mannered Bohemian girl-artist, a satirical young newspaper writer; and he, a frightened young husband giving his first dinner, was doubtless expected by his infatuated bride to bring music out of this discord! Well, let her find out.... It was a relief, anyway, to be told that he need not wear his evening clothes.
The party went off amazingly well. There was a certain constraint, at first, it was true; but it was not of the sort he had expected. Dorothy Sheridan had turned up with her bobbed hair elaborately and beautifully curled and wearing a gaily embroidered Russian smock. “I never wear smocks when I paint,” she said, “painters never do—but I like to wear them everywhere else. What kind of folks are these Morgans?” And being told by Rose-Ann—rashly, Felix thought—that they were “all right,” she said, “Then I can smoke,” and lighted a cigarette with an air of relief.... And when the Howard Morgans came, the great man was dressed in an old suit of corduroys, concerning which he appeared to be nervous. He looked at Felix’s clothes anxiously, and then at Dorothy Sheridan with her cigarette, and seemed reassured. He must have been reassured, for when the introductions were accomplished, he took out an old sack of tobacco from his coat-pocket and a crumpled package of straw-coloured paper, and rolled himself a cigarette.... Yes, that was all they were afraid of—that the occasion might not be sufficiently informal! And after they had ceased to be afraid of that, they got on vastly well, drank Felix’s cocktails with gusto, ate Rose-Ann’s dinner (it was, though one might not have known it, a delicatessen dinner) with unabashed appetite, and talked like old friends. Later in the evening, Clive turned to Dorothy Sheridan and demanded, “Come, you are not really one of the Sheridans, are you? I can’t believe it!”—And she answered: “Well, I’m the black sheep of the family; I don’t live their life—I paint, and mind my own business—so you ought not to hold that against me!” From her manner, one would have thought that the Sheridans were a band of notorious criminals, but Rose-Ann told him afterward—what it seemed she had suspected all along—that Dorothy belonged to one of the—well, as Clive had said, one of “the”—families of Chicago.... Yes, they got along very well indeed, and Felix talked about everything in the world with complete unselfconsciousness....