"Now you will come up, won't you?" she said to Angela, for in spite of a certain feeling of incompatibility and difference she was determined to like her. She thought Angela a little inexperienced and presumptuous in marrying Eugene. She was afraid she was not up to his standard. Still she was quaint, piquant. Perhaps she would do very well. Angela was thinking all the while that Miss Whitmore was presuming on her old acquaintance with Eugene—that she was too affected and enthusiastic.
There was another day on which Miriam Finch called. Richard Wheeler, having learned at Smite's and MacHugh's studio of Eugene's marriage and present whereabouts, had hurried over, and then immediately afterwards off to Miriam Finch's studio. Surprised himself, he knew that she would be more so.
"Witla's married!" he exclaimed, bursting into her room, and for the moment Miriam lost her self-possession sufficiently to reply almost dramatically: "Richard Wheeler, what are you talking about! You don't mean that, do you?"
"He's married," insisted Wheeler, "and he's living down in Washington Square, 61 is the number. He has the cutest yellow-haired wife you ever saw."
Angela had been nice to Wheeler and he liked her. He liked the air of this domicile and thought it was going to be a good thing for Eugene. He needed to settle down and work hard.
Miriam winced mentally at the picture. She was hurt by this deception of Eugene's, chagrined because he had not thought enough of her even to indicate that he was going to get married.
"He's been married ten days," communicated Wheeler, and this added force to her temporary chagrin. The fact that Angela was yellow-haired and cute was also disturbing.
"Well," she finally exclaimed cheerfully, "he might have said something to us, mightn't he?" and she covered her own original confusion by a gay nonchalance which showed nothing of what she was really thinking. This was certainly indifference on Eugene's part, and yet, why shouldn't he? He had never proposed to her. Still they had been so intimate mentally.
She was interested to see Angela. She wondered what sort of a woman she really was. "Yellow-haired! Cute!" Of course, like all men, Eugene had sacrificed intellect and mental charm for a dainty form and a pretty face. It seemed queer, but she had fancied that he would not do that—that his wife, if he ever took one, would be tall perhaps, and gracious, and of a beautiful mind—someone distinguished. Why would men, intellectual men, artistic men, any kind of men, invariably make fools of themselves! Well, she would go and see her.
Because Wheeler informed him that he had told Miriam, Eugene wrote, saying as briefly as possible that he was married and that he wanted to bring Angela to her studio. For reply she came herself, gay, smiling, immaculately dressed, anxious to hurt Angela because she had proved the victor. She also wanted to show Eugene how little difference it all made to her.