BEFORE she could inherit this boy who had willed himself to her, Eris had to do everything for herself and she knew it.
For a day or two she abandoned herself utterly to Annan. Night alone separated them. Early morning saw them united.
The hot, sunny July days they spent in the surf at Long Beach, or in motoring through Westchester. Evenings they dined together on some cool roof, or by the sea, and returned to whisper happy intimacies together until long into the morning hours.
Every lovely self-revelation of this girl more utterly turned the boy’s head. Desire became absolute necessity. Necessity became dependence. He did not understand that. He supposed the dependence was hers—that, in the turbulent torrent of Life he was the rock to which she clung.
It was well that he thought that. It was well that she let him think so. It always is best for a man.
Once, during those heavenly days, he met Coltfoot walking with Rosalind Shore on Fifth Avenue.
“I thought Eris would break with Albert Smull,” drawled Rosalind. “What a sketch he is!—schmoozing about and telling everybody he had to let her go! Betsy’s got him buffaloed. He’s afraid of her parents; that’s all that holds Albert.... I get banged around a lot, but Mom’s a pretty good policewoman, and God help the Johnny with fancy intentions towards her little Rosie.” She looked at Coltfoot, standing beside her, with faintest malice.
Coltfoot’s sophisticated retort was a bored smile. But it was to Annan he spoke, asking him how his work was going.
“What do you care how my story is going?” said Annan, laughing. “You’re an enemy to realism, and that’s all I write.”
“Realism! You don’t know what it means,” said Coltfoot bluntly. “What you write isn’t realism. If you want realism, study your pretty friend Eris! She’s real. Everything about her is genuine. Study her story. That’s realism. Not as you once wrote it,” he added disgustedly, “but devoid of ugliness and tragedy and sob-stuff. She doesn’t whimper. She doesn’t know how to pose. The beau geste and the attitude mean nothing to her. Sob-stuff is wasted on her. Health never snivels. Do you get that, Barry? Health! That’s the key. And by the Eternal, it is the usual, not the unusual that is wholesome. The great majority are healthy. That’s realism. And when health is your keynote you have beauty, too. And that is Realism, my clever friend!”