before port was reached two facts important to this history had been established: the first that jerome was to join the troupe—not, indeed, as a member of the chorus (since he had satisfactorily demonstrated to the impresario that his allusion to fog horns had not been in exaggeration) but instead as a clerical assistant to mr. curry; and the second, that he had fallen madly in love with lili.
the first fact was simple enough; as for the second, no doubt the gods on far olympus smiled a little. but love spurns the orthodox, and after all heeds few conventions.
of course everybody knew about it, for the skipping goone was poor soil in which to cultivate secrets. so the clerk’s love affair was discussed, just as any issue of general public interest would be anywhere.
that a clerk should fall in love with a girl who sang on the stage could not possibly cause any surprise, though that lili should likewise be smitten with the clerk might seem a little less true to type. but somehow lili wasn’t quite a type. she rather baffled. besides, she hadn’t exactly fallen in love with jerome the way he had fallen in love with her. however, it was a most interesting case; mr. curry’s songbirds found it so, and adapted themselves to its oddities in the easy manner of men and women of the world. it wasn’t, for that matter, the first time they had beheld the alluring little singer with a beau.
any one who had known jerome intimately during the slow-moving years in san francisco would have been astonished[92] enough upon encountering him in the flushed midst of this new phase of his career. one of the first momentous changes was an entire absence of the classic tie clip, which lili, in playful mood, had snatched off one day and flung far out to sea. thus, in a flash, one of the most eloquent emblems of his whole former life vanished away. it was really wonderful how much less obscure jerome looked without the clip. but that was only that. as for the rest—well, lili’s beaming eyes alone were a liberal education. and, though she often enough shocked jerome with brazenries for which he wasn’t yet altogether prepared, and while she never seemed to take anything quite so seriously as he did, her knowledge of the great world opened his mind to somewhat wider horizons (despite her occasional deficiencies in grammar and manners) than he had even remotely glimpsed during the epoch when he used sometimes to think of “cutting quite a figure in the world some day.”
well, he was cutting a figure now! no, he didn’t feel altogether at home with himself any more. but it was broadening not to—there was such a thing, he now began to realize, as feeling too much at home.
gradually his entire viewpoint changed, so that it was with amazement he perceived how he had been satisfied just to drudge along in san francisco, with nothing ever happening. he had definitely shaken the dust of the past off his shoes. he was through with the old life forever.
a persisting lightness in lili troubled him some. she had what at first struck him as an unnecessarily vulgar way of shouting to her friends: “i’ve got a man! i’ve got a man!” and he could never, for instance, begin seriously talking about the way he felt, and about the future but lili would laugh it all away with some perfectly frivolous, or at least irrelevant remark. her tolerance of the incessantly interrupting pleasantries of the comedian was distinctly a bore. jerome’s incorrigibly healthy ego assured him something was wrong, and that while the mock-respect of earlier days had largely worn off, he still wasn’t treated with that degree of honest respect[93] which the majesty of his ambitious manhood demanded. jerome had buried his past with its mistakes and its follies and humiliations, and he demanded of the world that it treat him accordingly.
sometimes the startling suddenness of everything would momentarily overcome. and he didn’t know ... well, at any rate, he mustn’t permit life to run away with him; to have life run away with him might not be so bad as to have it crawl away with him; but it would be bad enough. sometimes when lili laughed he had a feeling that life was running away with him. he had moments of feeling a trifle wobbly about life. only one thing seemed, through everything, perfectly clear: it was too late now to think of turning back!
