He sat in his chair, with his coffee on the wide arm beside him, and smiled at the idea of Lida's imaginary English husband here. Of course he wouldn't be, but would be sound asleep beside his wife, with his boots outside the door. When he awakened, he would order, haughtily, breakfast for two in their room—on her money. And every hostess would fall over herself in her haste to entertain them. He would patronize the men, and they would like it and brag that they knew him.
Nothing fanciful in that picture; it would merely be history repeating itself. Jay laughed a little; certainly there was something to be said for Lida's theory, if a man could get away with it within himself.
His father's idea was pretty much the polar opposite—work, keep everlastingly at it; long hours and close attention to detail; go to bed tired; and rise to work. This never had made any appeal to Jay; he always had combated it. He believed in some work but in joy, too; short hours and plenty of play and pleasure. He had taken, in college, too much, perhaps, but he felt that altogether he was more right than his father. He had felt, also, that the one other person who knew most about him, although she worked with his father, in general agreed with him. Her suggestion that he "grow up" was her first personal pronouncement of any sort of criticism of him throughout the many months she had known his most intimate affairs and had had to deal with them. It was, indeed, her first personal intrusion, except when she had cried a little, talking to him, on the morning in the office when he had taken upon himself . . . Lida. Consequently, except when he had been with her, he had never given Ellen Powell
