4 It had been very beautiful.... And why, now, must it be so awkward, the task of finding a place for this beauty in his ordinary life? Explanations!... Rose-Ann would understand, of course. But, even so, the telling of it was difficult. He could think of no words to convey the simplicity and naturalness of the incident. It was all very well to talk of telling the truth to one’s beloved; but the truth was not such an easy thing to tell!... So Felix was reflecting, as he put on his coat and hat to go home, when there was a knock on the door he had banged shut, and Phyllis entered. “I want a breath of fresh air,” she said. “I’ll walk over to your place with you if you don’t mind.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XLIV. Aubade 1 “THERE’S a light burning in your studio,” she said as they turned the corner. They had been silent all the way, Phyllis happy to be out in the moonlight, and Felix rather moodily uneasy at this prolongation of an incident that had already had its due ending. “Yes, Rose-Ann is still up,” he said. He unlocked the door, and Phyllis ran in eagerly. Rose-Ann sprang up from the table where she had been working over some magazine proofs. “Phyllis!” she cried, and the two girls embraced like old friends long parted. “I’ve been keeping Felix up, listening to the story of my life,” said Phyllis. “Is it late? I’ve been fixing up the dummy of the Motion Picture World. I’m just finished. I have to get it down at the printer’s at eight in the morning.” She went over to the table, and swept the scattered proofs into a portfolio, laying the dummy upon them, and tying the strings. “How about some coffee? Or are you sleepy?” “Wide awake!” said Phyllis. “It’s so nice to find you up. I did want to see your studio.” “Felix, will you make some coffee?” Felix came back in a moment and sadly reported that the coffee was “all gone!” “Oh, I forgot—I used the last of it this evening.... What a pity!” Felix, returning into their presence from behind the screen, had a curious sense of being a third, an intruder into a friendly intimacy. He had had, in the very moment of their meeting, a startled impression of their being the oldest friends each other had, far more deeply acquainted with each other than he with either of them! And now, in the mere two minutes in which he had been out of their sight searching for coffee, they had begun to talk for all the world like two old schoolmates who had, after a long separation, much to tell each other. His entrance had, or so it seemed to him, the effect of an interruption. “I’ll look again,” he said awkwardly. “There may be some left of that G. Washington coffee. I think there is.” And he went behind the screen again.