2
For a moment he sat there, looking at the door through which she had gone with a sudden sense of utter desolation.
They had had quarrels before, but this was different. He had driven her away.... It would serve him right if she never came back....
Why had he been making such a fool of himself? Why had he been behaving like a silly child?
And all at once he felt that he knew the answer.... He was worrying about that damned job of his.
Rose-Ann had taken it for granted that he was secure in his position. He had pretended to weigh his chances, pro and con.... And all the while he had been deeply convinced that he was about to lose his momentary distinction. Hawkins’s play was being tried out again, this week. It would fail, he would give up his foolishness, return to Chicago, and Felix would be back precisely where he had started. That, of course, though he had not told Rose-Ann, was why he had felt she was right in not wanting to have children right away.
It was this impending crisis in his career that secretly worried him. For nearly a year he had been a dramatic critic—and he was about to lose his job. It was a degradation intolerable to contemplate, but impossible to prevent. How could he prevent it? In romantic novels, the hero wins his spurs. But there were, so to speak, only one pair of critical spurs at the disposal of the Chronicle, and they belonged to Hawkins! In a magazine story, Felix would go over to another paper and get a better job. But Felix disbelieved in his ability to hold with any distinction any ordinary reporter’s job. By some fluke he had made good as a dramatic critic. He saw people on the elevated turning the paper inside out to read first of all his column about the new play. He knew he had made good. But—dramatic editorships do not grow on blackberry bushes; dramatic critics die in their shoes at an advanced age. Hawkins’s folly had given him such a chance as would never happen again in a hundred years.
A chance? A brief hour of glory. An hour for Rose-Ann to be proud of him, to believe that he had risen by force of character to these heights, that he would continue to rise.... She would find out that it had been mere luck. She would find out that he could not even keep a job as a dramatic critic, let alone become a playwright. She would discover him for what he was—a weak, helpless, scared child.
That was why he had been behaving like a fool before her—to show her beforehand that he didn’t amount to anything.
Suddenly he commenced to laugh. The mood of the last week had vanished—it merely seemed funny now. Another attack of moon-calfishness, that was all! That painter-girl had awed him with her astounding technique, made him feel incompetent and helpless—thrown him back into a state of adolescent self-distrust. Yes, it was her fault, the pretentious hussy! And what, after all her fussing, did that picture of hers amount to? An ordinary portrait, that was all, with a touch of easy caricature in it.... Damn her!
And what if Hawkins did come back and take away his laurels? There were other jobs in the world. If not in Chicago, then—
Yes, in New York....
It didn’t make any difference what happened. He had been silly to worry about things. He would never worry again about anything. Rose-Ann was right. One must live fearlessly....
He wished Rose-Ann would come back....