All the emotions that he had forgotten and escaped rushed in to hurt and confuse him. His little moment of careless freedom was over.... Tomorrow he would go back to the office and see if he still had a job.
And what had been his marriage ... it could not be ended like this. He could not simply run away. They would have to meet and talk. Make arrangements.... The obsequies of marriage....
The past and the present were back again on his calendar.
LVIII. Rendezvous
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!”