3
Felix went to Canal street that afternoon to remove his things and give up the room. He told the news of his marriage and advancement to Roger and Don with something of the feeling of revisiting the scenes of childhood and finding one’s old friends still playing at marbles, astonishingly not grown up. But Roger and Don did not sense his secret scorn; at least they maintained their customary imperturbable air.
“Rose-Ann Prentiss? Who is she? What does she do?” they asked, and when they learned that she was not an artist, not a writer, not even an interior decorator, they raised their eyebrows and went back to their Flaubert.
Rose-Ann herself, that night, took his news calmly enough. It seemed that there was no surprising her with any such good fortune; it was as if she had expected it all along!
She dressed with particular care for dinner and the theatre that evening, considering and rejecting half a dozen frocks before she decided upon a quite simple tight-bodiced black velvet thing that made her seem very pale and her hair a flaming red. This was the first time that Felix had seen her wardrobe, and he was much impressed. “I’ve never seen you in anything but your working clothes, have I!” he laughed. “I like you, dressed up!”
“Oh, these are all old things,” she said; and Felix wondered why women always said that, when one praised anything they wore. “But,” she said, “I do look rather nice in this evening dress,” and she held up a shimmering fluid thing of blue and silver that did not seem to Felix like a dress at all, but like a moonlit fountain dripping silver spray. “I’d wear this if you’d get some evening clothes yourself.”
“What do I want of evening clothes?” he protested, his pleasure in the sight of that lovely garment gone with the threatening onset of sartorial obligations of his own.
“I should think a dramatic critic might very well have evening clothes,” said Rose-Ann mildly.
“I’m only half a dramatic critic,” objected Felix.
“Well,” said Rose-Ann, “that being the case, I wouldn’t insist on full-dress. I’ll be content if you come half way. I mean, dinner clothes. It’s the silly long-tailed coat that you object to, isn’t it? I don’t like it myself. Dinner clothes would be very becoming to you, though.”
“But I haven’t any money—” he began.
“Felix,” she said, “how many times must we argue that out? If you haven’t any money, I have—not much, but enough to get ourselves started on. And do you want me to let it lie in the bank at Springfield while we do without things we need? You want me to look nice, don’t you? And if I didn’t have a decent dress to go to the theatre with you in, and you could help me get one, you’d want to, wouldn’t you?”
“Do I look so bad as all that?” he asked, looking down at his rather worn blue serge suit.
“You look very nice, Felix,” she said, coming over and kissing him. “But you do need some new clothes, that’s a fact. And really, if you’re going to be a dramatic critic—. As long as we bought our own seats, in the balcony, it was all right to go in our ‘working clothes.’ But I think—”
“Oh, all right!” he said gloomily.