2
Yet Felix could not quite understand the turn of affairs which followed the brief and dynamic intrusion of Rose-Ann’s father into their domestic life. Rose-Ann had changed. The most obvious manifestation of that change was the complete abandonment of all her social plans.
She had intended to give a number of parties to her “bourgeois friends” that spring; but they were never given; and when Felix asked why, she only shook her head and said,
“You know you don’t like parties, Felix.”
Felix was quite aware that he did not like parties. But he had definitely assessed that dislike as a species of cowardice, which he must get over. Just because he did not like parties was the very reason why he should try to learn to like them. Other people liked parties; and he wanted to become as other people are. He had surrendered himself to Rose-Ann’s guidance. He trusted her as a mentor. He had worn evening clothes, learned to carve and serve a roast of beef, talked desperately about nothing to people whose names he could not remember, because she wanted him to. He had braced himself to endure the worst that the social life had to offer; he would do whatever she demanded. And now suddenly she had ceased to demand anything! There was a tremendous relief in this relaxation; but it left him puzzled and brooding.
“I understood,” he said to her hesitatingly one day, “that you had undertaken to civilize me. Have you given up the task as hopeless?”
“But I don’t want to civilize you, Felix!” she protested.
“I thought you did want to,” he said.
“I’m sorry you thought that,” she said.
“Then what,” he insisted, “do you want me to be, if not civilized?”