And Rose-Ann had only just started, it seemed, on her social career. After the “house-warming,” which came next on their program, she intended to ask some of her “bourgeois” friends in to dinner, before they went away for the summer. “You haven’t been miserable at _these_ parties, have you?” she said. “Well, you’ll find the others just as easy. Everybody’s human—even in evening clothes, Felix. We’ll have to go to dinner at these other people’s houses, too, you know—and once you make up your mind to it, you can have as good a time there as you can here!” All right.... He would try to enjoy himself, he promised obediently. But this house-warming presented difficulties. They were inviting everybody they knew—everybody!—people from Community House, from the Chronicle office, from Canal street, et cetera.... Such a crowd! “I shall have to introduce them to each other, and I won’t remember their names,” he said forlornly. “I never remember people’s names!” “It’s all right!” said Rose-Ann. “After a cocktail or two, half of them won’t know their own names. Besides, this will be our last big party, ever. I promise!” Well, it was a satisfaction to know that. But—cocktails, and Community House residents; Felix was not sure (even after seeing Will Blake flushed and merry with their California wine sherbert the other night!) how these two elements would mix. Eddie Silver after his ninth cocktail would scarcely be an edifying spectacle. “Don’t worry,” said Rose-Ann. “People are not so Puritanical as you think. Anyway, our respectable friends will come early and go early—and the others vice-versa.” “I thought,” said Felix, “when I went to the hospital, that I had finished with boozing....” “So you have,” said Rose-Ann cheerfully. “This is quite different!” “And you a clergyman’s daughter!” said Felix. 3 Rose-Ann’s father was somewhat on Felix’s mind, because she had said he might come to see them any day. And if Felix felt some awkwardness in adapting himself to the convivial life, he felt still more embarrassment at the prospect of acting the difficult rôle of the son-in-law of a clergyman.... One had to, it seemed, be so many different things to get along with people! But he was learning. When these parties were over, he would commence to think about how to make himself agreeable to his father-in-law. And then, late in the afternoon of the day of the house-warming, when Rose-Ann had gone out to buy something she had forgotten, and Felix was busy squeezing lemons, a tall, gentle, stooping man with a slight greying beard walked into the studio, looked about, smiled, and extended his hand. “I suppose you are my son-in-law,” he said. “I see you’re getting ready for a party, so I’m just in time. Rose-Ann didn’t specially invite me, but I guess she’ll let her old dad come anyway.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XXVIII. A Father-in-Law