"If you were in my shoes, would you sell, Bob?"
"Sure, but everybody knows you've got a clientele that nobody else could get. Are you talking?"
"Want to rent? I just had a nibble for small space; you could get fifty a month for that attic you're using for a nursery."
"I--hardly think so, Bob. That's a pet scheme of Anna's, and besides, we need it. It's good advertising."
His friend's eyes were round and childlike. "Made any plans for the future, Henry? Know what you'll do if you stub your toe?"
"Sell out and strike you for a job, I guess."
Henry looked serious. "I'm sorry you think so. _I_ wouldn't have kicked."
"No, I'm afraid I couldn't give you a job, old dear. I like you too well to bawl you out. But maybe we'll do business together some other way."
As he drove his tin runabout homeward, Henry was unusually downcast. He didn't blame Standish--Standish had showed himself over and over to be Henry's best friend on earth. But it was dispiriting to realize how Standish must privately appraise him. Henry recalled the justification, and grew red to think of the ten years of their acquaintance--ten years of continuous achievement for Standish, and only a few months of compulsory display for himself. But he wished that Standish hadn't thrown in that last remark about doing business together some other way. That wasn't like Bob, and it hurt. It was too infernally commercial.
He found the apartment deserted. His shout of welcome wasn't answered: his whistle, in the private code which everybody uses, met with dead silence. Henry hung up his hat with considerable pique, and lounged into the living-room. What excuse had Anna to be missing at the sacred hour of his return? Didn't she know that the happiest moment of his whole day was when she came flying into his arms as soon as he crossed the threshold? Didn't she know that as the golden pheasants fled further and further into the thicket of unreality, the more active was his need of her? He wondered where she had gone, and what had kept her so late. Was this a precedent, and had the first veneer of their companionability worn off so soon--for Anna?
A new apprehension seized him, and he hurried from room to room to see if instead of censuring Anna, he ought to censure himself. There were so many accidents that might have happened to her. Women have been burned so severely as to faint: they have drowned in a bathtub: they have fallen down dumb-waiter shafts: they have been asphyxiated when the gas-range went out. And to think that only a moment ago, he had been vexed with her. The sight of each room, once so hideously commonplace, now so charming with Anna's artistry and the work of her own hands--her beautiful hands which ought to be so cared for--filled him with contrition and fresh nervousness.