1.
GOING back to the office the next morning, Felix had the sense of his absence—so momentous to himself—not having been particularly remarked.... True, there had been no new plays opening that week; and the editorial page could get along without his assistance. But it was strange to go back to the real world and find that it does not know you have been away!... He worked all morning, distractedly, on a column for the Saturday page, and arranged a layout of photographs of actors and actresses.
He had glanced that morning into the busy editorial writers’ room, and Clive had not been there. He had been assailed by a vague feeling of self-reproach, as his imagination presented to him the possible meaning of that absence. He had quite amazingly—it now seemed to him—left Clive out of his considerations altogether. How all this might affect Clive had simply not occurred to him.... They all of them had had a way of treating each other as super-people. They had disdained the notion of sparing each other’s feelings; they had not even been willing to admit that they had feelings which might require to be spared!... But there was no reason to believe that Clive, any more than himself, should come out of this emotional earthquake unscathed.
At noon he went in to ask about his friend. But as soon as he entered, Willie Smith looked up and said,
“Oh, here you are! Well, tell us what it’s all about!”
“What what’s about?” Felix asked, confused.
“Clive’s getting married. You know about it, don’t you? You don’t? Well, I thought you’d know all about it!”
“Is he married?”
“Where’s that card, Hosmer? Well, I’m surprised. I thought you’d be in on it.—Can’t you find that card? He’s married all right. To some girl named—I forget her name. And you didn’t know anything about it! Well, he had us guessing all week. He didn’t show up, and we thought he must be sick. And then Hosmer saw in the morning papers that a license had been issued to John C. Bangs and some girl. Hosmer’s entitled to all the credit for deducing that John C. Bangs was our old friend Clive—I wouldn’t believe it. And then the announcement came.—Oh, here it is, right here. Have you got any idea who the girl is?”
Felix took the card, on which was written in Clive’s small, precise handwriting:
Phyllis Nelson and Clive Bangs
announce their marriage
at the City Hall in Chicago
Friday, November twenty-eighth
“Today!” he said. “Yes.... I know the girl. Will you give me the card? I suppose there’s one waiting for me at home, but I’d like to have this now.”