After all, if the management liked his work, if he was no longer on trial, but an accepted person, privileged to do about as he pleased, why should he maintain his old anxieties and disguises? Why try to look like an efficient young business man? Nobody wanted him to! Why not be comfortable, in a soft collar and homespun clothes? Yes, why not?
In this mood, he bought himself a stick, on his own initiative.... He had always wanted to carry a stick, and had never quite dared. His clothes had never been quite up to it. Perhaps they were not quite up to it now. But there was nothing dandified about this stick; it was no silver-plated confection, just a simple stick of light bamboo, covered with a shiny black lacquer—a real stick. It suited him; he liked the smooth firm lacquered surface, he liked the feel of it in his hand, lightly swinging, or hanging from the crook of his arm. And Rose-Ann liked it, too. He felt that it gave him the touch of confidence he had lacked in his new position; with that stick on his arm, he could saunter into the Chronicle office at ten o’clock in the morning without a qualm.
2
Just after his evening clothes were finished, they were invited casually to one of Mr. and Mrs. Howard Morgan’s evenings, and Felix was assured by Rose-Ann that it was an occasion which a dinner coat would appropriately grace; she also remarked that ordinary clothes would be all right. That seemed to make it rather a test of his moral courage, and so he wore his evening clothes....
Howard Morgan was a poet, one of the few in America for whom Felix had any respect. Felix had been introduced to him once, under rather inauspicious circumstances—one evening when, deep in kalsomine, he was painting a back drop for Rose-Ann in the little Community Theatre, which the great man was being shown, in what was apparently a tour of inspection of Community House. Rose-Ann had met him then, too, and, less abashed by her kalsomine-smeared apron and hastily turbaned hair, had talked with him; and he had remembered her, and sent a message by some one in Community House to come up to his next “Friday evening” and bring her husband.
Felix was glad to pay his respects to this distinguished personage, but he was not prepared for the crowd of people who filled the Morgans’ drawing-room; he hated crowds. But, after Mrs. Morgan had introduced him to an elderly and talkative spinster, and then, as he felt, basely deserted him, he was rescued by Rose-Ann; steered through a whirlpool of encounters—he almost failed to recognize Clive Bangs in his evening clothes, with that wild lock of hair neatly slicked into its proper place—and brought into the presence of Howard Morgan himself, who was standing, a tall and impressive figure, with grey hair, a nose like an eagle’s beak, and flashing eyes, in the midst of, as it seemed to Felix, swirling tides of people. Morgan turned from two women, one very old and the other very young, with whom he was conducting two different conversations at once—a flirtatious one with the aged dame and a very earnest and serious one with the young girl.
“The last time I saw you, you were painting scenery,” he said, smilingly extending his hand.
“Yes,” said Felix, flushing.
“And now I read your dramatic criticisms in the Chronicle,” said Howard Morgan. “You seem to have a multitude of talents! No wonder you have captured that lovely prize!—She is lovely, isn’t she?” he added, in a tone of man-to-manly confidence, looking after Rose-Ann, who had floated away in that dress which was like moonlit falling water.
“Yes,” said Felix, feeling very stupid.