“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?” “Yes, really. How do I know how long this fool stunt of mine is going to please the Chronicle? I haven’t done a single piece of straight reporting since I’ve been on the paper. And I know no more of the real Chicago—” “Felix, you _are_ absurd!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VIII. Rose-Ann Goes Away 1 ROSE-ANN had suddenly become a problem. In spite of everything he was falling in love with her. He criticized her to himself, harshly. She was a daughter of the bourgeoisie—a sort of madcap and runaway daughter, it was true, adventuring by herself in Chicago for a while, but destined, he told himself, after the flare of this rebellion had burned itself out, to return to the bourgeois fold. What else could she do? She was not an artist—or not enough of an artist—to face the world alone. She wrote a little, cleverly, but with no sustained strength; and what she wrote was inferior to what she thought and felt. She was one of those people who might have been, and never would be, writers; and the reason was, as Felix saw it, in her bringing up. Some softness had intervened between her and reality; she could see reality truly, far more truly than he could; but its sharp edges had never hurt her, it seemed; her mind had never been rowelled by the spur of painful experience. That was it. She had never been hurt enough; and one who has not been hurt has no need of the artist’s revenge—the act of re-creation by which he triumphs over pain. She had disliked her world; not profoundly, but a little; and she had changed it sufficiently by the mere act of coming to Chicago and living in a settlement house and playing with costumes and scenery. That would content her—would more than satisfy her rebellious impulses. She talked of herself as one of the “queer” people of the settlement; but she wasn’t. She would go back, and this period of her life would provide her a fund of humorous reminiscence at bourgeois dinner parties in