1
by an unspoken agreement they postponed their discussion from hour to hour. they were too happy to want to question that happiness. for the moment all was well.
they were playing at being married; playing that everything was all right.... and the very fear which lurked in the back of their minds of that impending hour when they must reopen old wounds, heightened the beauty of the present moment.
they loitered on “the palisades,” under palm-trees, in the hot sunshine, and drank in the cold breeze from the ocean—into whose waters, still winter-cold, only the seagulls dared to dive.
they walked, under the eaves of that low cliff-wall along the shore, among the few early holiday-makers, and the mothers who had brought their children down to play on the beach. they watched the children feeding the seagulls—throwing their remnants of sandwiches out into the water, for the friendly birds to swoop down and take; and the children would clap their hands and venture down closer to the water’s edge until some icy wave would sweep in and send them scampering barelegged back over the sand—a lovely game of children and birds and waves that one could watch for ever....
further down the beach they came to an inn, where they sat on a balcony and drank tea with rice-cakes, and watched the sun sink lingeringly through bank after bank of cloud into the very ocean, taking with it suddenly the day.
they went to one of the play-places on the beach, and danced and dined, and rode on childish and breath-taking 417roller-coasting journeys. and at midnight, still unwearied, still flooded with the joy of being alive and together, they wandered back up the shore, to its remoter haunts, past the piers gleaming with lights, into the darkness wanly illumined by a young moon that climbed up behind the ragged rocks to shoreward.
“let’s come here tomorrow night and build a bonfire,” said rose-ann. “and bring our supper.”
they lay on the sand, still warm from the blaze of day, under the cool wind from the sea, glad to have put off the testing of their happiness another day.
they went back to her apartment.
“what about this alleged poet of yours, rose-ann?” he asked casually.
“eugene?”
“i didn’t know his name....”
“well ... he doesn’t count, if that’s what you mean.”
and she kissed him, as if anxious to prove herself all his. tonight there should be no cloud on their happiness.
2
they breakfasted lazily sunday noon at a tea-shop in santa monica, kept by three quaint little englishwomen; they dawdled over their shirred eggs and toast and coffee until mid-afternoon, talking. their table was on a porch under a stucco archway, half screened from the road by a trellis covered with roses.
“everything is too beautiful,” said rose-ann. “what have we done to deserve this?”
“would you like to live here—always?” he asked.
“i’d like to have been a child here,” she said. “but the mid-western winter has got into my blood. i guess i want to see snow again!”
“it does seem immoral,” he laughed, “—flowers in february!”
“i may go away,” she said. “soon.... but not back to chicago.”
“why?” he asked in surprise.
418“this—this magazine adventure—is over.... i was working to become editor. and now they’ve offered me the position. and i don’t want it. isn’t it funny? it just doesn’t mean anything to me.... i shall try something different....”
“so shall i,” he said unexpectedly. “i’m tired of my job, too.”
she smiled. “when you’ve made your fortune in the movies—”
“that was all a damned lie, rose-ann. i haven’t the slightest idea of selling anything to the movies.”
“you’ve no idea how easy it is,” she said.
“then that’s another reason for my not being interested,” he said. “i’m tired of easy things.... i lied to the managing editor to get to come out here. it was too easy. it’s all too easy.... no, i’m in earnest about it.—i came to chicago expecting to have to fight my way. chicago was too damned nice to me. i’ve been living in a pasteboard world ever since. look at my job—i come and go when i please; and i can say anything i like.”
“the fortunate youth!” she murmured.
“the intellectual playboy,” he said. “i can say what i like—because nobody cares. that’s the truth. there’s nothing heroic in differing with the crowd when the crowd pays you to do it.”
“do you want to be heroic, felix?”
“yes. i’d like to live in a world where ideas counted for something—where people might put you in jail if you disagreed with them. then it would be worth while to have opinions of one’s own. one could find out whether one really believed in one’s ideas!”
“find out—how?”
“by suffering for them a little.”
“you are a puritan!”
“it’s not that.... i want the feeling of other minds resisting the impact of my own, as sword clashes with sword. how can i know whether my ideas are true unless they 419are put to that test? but i’m let think as i please. it’s not a battle, it’s a sleight-of-hand performance. it’s vaudeville.”
“i didn’t know you felt that way about your work, felix.”
“you want to throw up your job, rose-ann. why shouldn’t i?”
she could not quite tell whether he meant it or not.
“and write?” she asked.
“oh, yes. but that’s not enough. i’m going to do something hard.—oh, i could be what’s called a literary artist ... the mot juste and all that; that’s easy, too. one has only to be sufficiently bored or unhappy.... no, i want to deal with something harder than words. i want to build something with my hands—a house, for instance. why not?”
she leaned forward, smiling. it was sufficiently clear that he was not in earnest. “where will you build your house?”
“not in this golden land where it is always afternoon. and not too near chicago, either. do you remember the dunes where we picnicked last summer? there, perhaps. away from everything.”
“i know where you mean. yes. what kind of house will you build?”
“i suppose that depends to some extent on how much money i have. let me see, i had thrown up my job a moment ago! i take it back again. now that i have a house to build, i shall need it. how much do houses cost?”
“it depends on how large they are.”
“this will be large, but not too large, i should say.”
“then it will take a small, but not too small, sum of money.”
“just as i thought. and if anybody should be so foolish as to want my play—”
“but do you really mean all this, felix?”
“why not? why can’t i have a house like other people? 420i realize more and more as time goes on that i am not essentially different from other people. they want houses. why shouldn’t i?”
“if you’re in earnest about it, then it isn’t a house you mean, felix. it’s a studio. that wouldn’t cost very much.”
“no. a house!” he insisted.
“but why a house?” she asked.
“why do people want houses?” he countered.
“but—” she said.
“yes?”
“you want a place to write in, felix.”
“i shall write in the barn,” he said.
“oh, is there to be a barn?”
“don’t you think a barn would be nice?”
“i think a barn would be lovely. but then what is the house for?”
“i don’t know, exactly. you see, i’ve never had a house. but people seem to have found uses for them. i would settle down in mine and await developments. in the meantime, i could live in it. people do, don’t they?”
she laughed. “yes. people do.... but won’t you be lonely in such a big house?”
“no,” he said, “i sha’n’t be lonely. not in this house! if i am i shall go talk to the cook.”
they looked at each other, smiling, and remembering the first morning of their marriage. and for a moment felix felt that they had drawn nearer than they had ever been in their lives—as if in this foolish dream of house-building he had by some inspired accident touched upon the secret of happiness.... and then, in his doubting mind, there rose the fear that this was an emotion shared only in play. it was too trivial a thing to bear the burden of his need of reassurance. no, the hurts which they had inflicted upon each other could not be healed by a jest....
for another moment their gaze still met, suspiciously, as he sought to surprise in her eyes the thoughts, the wishes, that lay mockingly hidden behind that impenetrable curtain. and then they looked away.
421the moment in which they had seemed to understand each other had vanished, leaving him with the certainty that it had never existed.
“come,” rose-ann cried gaily, “we must go on our picnic.”
