“Why do you say that? It’s not true, and you know it.”
He wished Rose-Ann had not become so serious. They were walking home through one of the first winter snows. A little while ago she had thrown a fluffy snowball at him, and threatened to wash his face, reproaching him for not being enough of a child. This was even more embarrassing. He had an absurd fear that she would commence to talk to him about his soul.... This was coming dangerously near to it. He scuffed up the soft snow with his feet, while she looked sidewise at him waiting for a reply.
“Rose-Ann, you make me uncomfortable,” he said at last. “This business of having some one ‘believe’ in you isn’t what it’s cracked up to be in the romances. It—it’s a damned nuisance. I’d be perfectly happy if you didn’t come to me with your preposterous demands. I’m not the young genius in ‘The Divine Fire.’ I’m a reporter on a Chicago newspaper. Of course I want to write a play. Every young reporter wants to, I suppose. And of course, since you insist upon it, I think I could. But what of that? Every young reporter thinks the same thing.”
“Why this pretence of modesty, Felix? You’re scared, that’s all.”
“Scared of what?” he demanded angrily.
She answered slowly, as though she had just discovered the reason. “Of letting people know your real ambitions.”
“Of making a silly fool of myself,” he muttered.
“But where’s the harm?” she continued. “Suppose they did know? Suppose everybody knew all your secret dreams? Would that be so terrible? Do you think everybody is watching you, ready to laugh at you? You’re afraid of being laughed at, that’s the trouble.... Well, I know your secret, Felix, and I don’t laugh.”
He shrugged his shoulders. It was intolerable that she should think she knew his secret. “What if I do want to write plays? I want to write novels, and poems, and lots of other things. And if I had nothing else to do, perhaps I’d try my hand at them all. But my main concern now is to make a living.”
“Still worried about your job? Not really?”