Chapter THREE: I

He took her by the hand and led her down the dark stairs, and flung open the door of his room ceremoniously. An immense room, which ran from the front to the back of the house. It was bare, plain, neat as a pin, no draperies, no artistic ornaments. And yet it had a fine air of luxury. There was a splendid wood fire in the grate, and before it stood a waggon with a silver tea service, brightly polished. Every one of the chairs, ranged severely against the walls, was rare and beautiful; the rug on the floor was a fine Chinese one. The walls were bare, not a single picture to be seen but the one he was completing, on an easel near the window.

He was wonderfully polite. He settled Rosaleen at a little table and brought her all the materials she required.

“Now, my dear child,” he said. “Just what is it you want to do?”

“Well,” said Rosaleen. “I’m afraid I’ve got to think about making money.”

“Ah! Who hasn’t? Very well, then, so you shall!”

He encouraged her very much. She sat at the little table working patiently all the afternoon. They hardly spoke. He was at work on his own canvas, but he took time now and then to go over to Rosaleen and make a suggestion or a correction. She had never worked so well before; the finished figures delighted her.

When the light began to fail, he pushed the easel into a corner and stretched.

“Now, nice Rosaleen, make tea!” he said.

She did her best, but tea-making was an exotic art for her; she understood nothing of its possibilities.

“Dear creature!” he cried. “I don’t want a concentrated essence of tea!”

He took the charge from her, and began very deftly to do it himself. Then he handed her a cup of delicate, fragrant, clear amber liquid (which she privately considered much too weak). She drank it dutifully, disappointed that there wasn’t so much as a cracker or a piece of bread to go with it.

“Shall I wash the tea things for you?” she asked, when they had finished.

He smiled.

“I have a person for that, thank you. No; let’s talk instead. We’ve never had a talk alone.... Won’t you tell me something about yourself?”

With her release from the Humbertian atmosphere, Rosaleen had lost her former humility. None of these people would care in the least who her mother was. She wasn’t ashamed now. She was rather glad of a chance to place herself, to explain that she wasn’t “Miss Humbert.” She told him candidly, and he seemed to hang on her words. Indeed, his interest became embarrassing, for after she had ceased to speak, he still continued to stare at her with a curious intensity. Somehow his face looked _different_.... She stirred uneasily.

“I’d better be going, I think,” she said. “They’ll----”

But he stopped her as she was about to get up, with a hand on her arm.

“No!” he said. “No!...”

“Why?” she asked.

His great staring eyes made her terribly uneasy.

“I’ll really have to go,” she said. “It’s late.”

He let her rise this time, but rose himself as well, and suddenly caught her in his arms.

She was for an instant too much astounded to struggle. But as he tried to kiss her, she gave him a vigourous push.

“Let me go!” she cried. “What’s the _matter_ with you?”

He couldn’t delude himself that she was acting; he could see too plainly the horrified incredulity in her eyes. He saw that he had made a mistake.

He released her at once.

“Rosaleen!” he said. “I--apologise!”

She turned away without answering and went to the door. But he went in front of her.

“Don’t be unreasonable!” he said. “I’m sorry. I can’t say any more, can I? I didn’t mean anything. Shake hands and say you forgive me!”

Rosaleen shook her head.

“I can’t!” she said, with a faint sob. “You don’t--you _couldn’t_ know--how I hate anything of that sort.... And _you_!... I didn’t think it was _in_ you.”

“It’s _in_ all men,” said Lawrence, gloomily.

“No, it isn’t!” said Rosaleen, thinking of that one quite perfect man she had lost.

“I tell you it is!” said Lawrence, beginning to grow angry. “What do you know about men?”

Rosaleen didn’t answer, but he saw a tear running down her cheek.

“Bah!” he shouted. “Don’t be tragic, for God’s sake! Why should you make such a row about _that_? You’re none the worse, are you, in health, morals or purse, because I tried to kiss you?”

“Yes, I am!” said she, stubbornly. “I’ve lost something I thought a lot of.... My confidence in----”

“Don’t say confidence in me! I won’t allow women to have confidence in me. It’s insulting. Go on, if you want to! Go upstairs and cry and snivel and have a scene with your two precious friends.”

She was half way up the stairs when he came bounding after her.

“Rosaleen!” he whispered. “Please! Be friends again! I’m sorry. But I’m sure you understand!”

Against the ancient flattery of that appeal she had no defense. She took the big hand he proffered.

“All right!” she said, with her absurd, her heavenly benevolence.

II

After that he behaved very well. He was a most gallant and generous friend, and a valuable one. In spite of his swagger, his bombastic talk, in spite of his fatness and foppishness, he had undeniably a grand air, a sort of magnificence. He saw to it that she was well treated by the others, and that she had an advantage over them. It lay in his hands to bestow prestige, and he did so. She became tenfold more important, more significant. He knew how to manage this. He gave Rosaleen privileges which he permitted to no one else. Enid and Dodo were very rarely invited into his studio, but Rosaleen worked there two or three days a week.

He hadn’t gone so far as to be seen in public with her, though. He didn’t even take her to his own exhibition. He was a conspicuous and, in certain circles, a well-known figure; he was very careful. He sometimes gave her tickets for private views, and so on, or even for theatres and concerts. He sent up chocolates and flowers from time to time, and the foreign art journals to which he subscribed. But he drew a line. He never asked Rosaleen into his studio when there was anyone there. More than once when she had come down as she had been told to do the day before, and knocked at his door, he would put out his head and stare at her through his monocle.

“Not to-day!” he would say. “Wait till I’m alone.”

Enid used to jeer at this.

“Sent home?” she would say, when Rosaleen returned so promptly. But Rosaleen refused to resent this.

“Why in the world should he introduce me to his friends?” she asked. “He only knows me in a--oh, a sort of business way.”

“He doesn’t think you’re good enough,” said Enid.

“Maybe I’m not,” said Rosaleen, unruffled. “I dare say he knows lots of people who wouldn’t want to be bothered with me.”

Not Enid nor Lawrence, nor anyone about her could understand her attitude. They thought her humble, lacking in pride. Even Miss Mell advised her to assert herself more. Whereas it _wasn’t_ really humility, or lack of pride or self-respect; it was her exquisite Irish sense of propriety. She knew exactly where she belonged. And she didn’t hesitate to place Lawrence higher than herself. He was an incomparably greater artist, he was much more important, much more clever. As for his moral worth, she didn’t take that into consideration. She never had made, she never would make, the least effort to judge the morals of other people. She had quite forgiven him his unique outburst, both because he was an artist and outside the pale, and because she liked him. She had more indulgence for him, in fact, than she would have had for her hero, Nick Landry. No doubt because she didn’t expect very much from Lawrence. She went ahead, enjoying his companionship without the least distrust.

He couldn’t have been nicer. To please her he even went so far as to go with her to Miss Waters’ studio. He had met Rosaleen in the street, on her way there.

“She’d be so awfully pleased!” Rosaleen told him. “She admires your work so much.”

He was good-humoured that afternoon, and lazy, indisposed for work; so he turned and walked along with her, like an opulent foreign prince in his impressive fur-lined overcoat and his soft grey felt hat pulled down over his swarthy brow.

He didn’t stay long. Once in the street again he turned on Rosaleen with a scowl.

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” he thundered, in a voice so loud that all the passersby turned to stare.

“Tell you what?” Rosaleen asked, frightened.

“What the woman did in there? Why didn’t you tell me what blasphemous crimes she committed? Good God! The woman should be flayed alive!”

“Oh, don’t!” entreated Rosaleen. “Please don’t talk so loud--and please don’t say horrible things about Miss Waters!”

“Stop!” he said. “Never mention that name again!”

Rosaleen was glad to escape from him that time, and she never did mention Miss Waters’ name to him again.

III

The time came inevitably when they felt the call to give a party. It was almost simultaneous; they never knew quite whose idea it was. They were all of them filled with enthusiasm, but it was more tremendous for Rosaleen, because it was her first.

They borrowed a phonograph from the “FINE FEATHERS” girls, and Miss Mell seriously undertook to teach Rosaleen to dance. Every evening after dinner Enid would put on a dance record and Miss Mell, pinning up her skirt so that her feet could the better be observed, would steer Rosaleen through the steps of fox-trot, one-step and waltz. Enid would criticise. But even she admitted that Rosaleen had a gift.

“It’s Irishness,” she said. “They’re all nice dancers, I notice; all those downtrodden, suffering nations, Poles and Irish, and so on. Queer, isn’t it?”

The invitations circulated mysteriously and casually, and were as casually accepted. But it was none the less a festivity which required great preparations. Rosaleen bought a new dress and Miss Mell made over an old one. But Enid refused to make any further concession than a new blouse, to be worn with her everyday skirt. And yet, on the night of the party, when she was dressed, she was amazing. It was a low cut blouse, and quite thin enough to reveal the matchless lines of her shoulders, the perfection of her supple arms, her lovely throat. And she wore a pearl necklace, a genuine one, which she never explained. It was the first time that Rosaleen had realised her striking beauty, or the full extent of her arrogant charm. Even in her new dress, with her hair arranged so prettily, she felt, for a moment, just a little miserable beside Enid.

Miss Mell was dumpy and unobtrusive and correct, and according to her custom, completely covered by a large gingham apron until the last minute. She and Rosaleen cooked the early dinner, but Rosaleen couldn’t eat and she would hardly allow them to, either. She hurried them so anxiously, so that she could get everything ready before the party came. Enid sprinkled powdered wax on the floor, and Rosaleen and Miss Mell pushed all the furniture back against the walls. Then they lighted all the candles, under their purple and yellow shades; then on a table in a corner they arranged their refreshments, salad, cake and sandwiches got from Miss Gosorkus, and a bowl of punch. Miss Mell had oiled the phonograph and bought some new records, and she instructed Rosaleen in the art of manipulating it.

“Be careful when you wind it up!” she cautioned. “Something’s wrong. It rocks so. I’m afraid of its tipping off the table.”

The preparations were completed very early, and the happy Rosaleen had nothing to do but sit near the window to wait, where she could see the lights glittering up Fifth Avenue, and the buses sailing to and fro.

Presently Enid joined her, sat on the window sill, perfectly still, perfectly silent. She didn’t even move when Lawrence came in, urbane and indulgent, in evening dress. Rosaleen and Miss Mell welcomed him with smiles; they were, and they were willing to show that they were, tremendously flattered at his coming to their party.

“I’ve brought some champagne,” he said. “It’s in the hall, in a pail of ice.”

“How _nice_!” said Miss Mell.

He bowed politely. Then he turned his attention to Enid, sitting on the window sill.

“Well, my beauty!” he said, in his harsh voice, “Looking out there for a new sweetheart?”

Enid’s voice came, singularly flat and dispirited.

“No,” she said. And after a pause. “I dare say I was looking for God.... What an empty looking heaven, isn’t it?”

“On the contrary. I hear it’s extraordinarily crowded with planets and constellations and that sort of thing. And probably ghosts.”

“Do you believe in ghosts--really?”

“No, my dear; I have no fears.”

“Fears!” cried Enid. “Fears!... I wouldn’t call it a _fear_. I’d call it a hope.... Oh! Don’t I wish I could see a ghost! I’m--I’m always looking for something like that. Something to show that we don’t end.”

“Aha! You’re afraid of death, are you?”

“No!” she said, impatiently. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care when or how I go. I don’t care whether I become an angel or a devil, or a puff of breath in a great god’s mouth. Or a ghost. So long as it doesn’t _end_.”

“It _does_ end,” said Lawrence. “Rest assured of that.”

“Don’t you care?”

“My dear creature, I shall never know it. I’ll never be conscious of this highly unpleasant annihilation. It’s only the dread of it. And that doesn’t exist if you refuse to think of it.”

“But suppose there’s someone else you’re longing and longing to see again?”

“Now!” he cried, triumphantly. “Now we’re getting at the mystery of your life. It’s a dead lover!”

“Oh! You and your beastly obsession with lovers!” she cried, almost with a sob. “It’s a--child’s ghost....”

“Be thankful it’s out of this brutal, hostile world, then,” said Lawrence. “Where’s Rosaleen? She lives in another nice little world, all by herself.”

“Perhaps hers is the real world,” said Enid. “I wish I could think so.”

IV

It was a wonderful ecstatic evening, the sort Rosaleen expected of artists. The studio was crowded, suffocatingly hot, filled with a joyful young riot. Except for Lawrence, they were all young. There was Miss Gosorkus and a man she had brought, there were the two English girls with three of their countrymen, there was a male cousin of Miss Mell’s and three young ships’ officers known to her, and two old friends from her art school. There was a distrait young Frenchman desperately in love with Enid, and a lot of other people who drifted in and out. There was a terrific amount of noise; they were wilfully, exaggeratedly noisy; they sang, shouted and stamped. The old phonograph blared its loudest, and the couples danced as best they could in the crowd. They drank the punch and the champagne and grew wilder and wilder. Rosaleen, astonished and delighted, believed herself actually to be witnessing one of those “orgies” so often mentioned in the papers as taking place in artists’ studios. It was not till long, long afterward that she realised how innocent, how decent, how happy it really was, how young....

At first she was rather ignored. Enid was so dazzling that she captured all the strangers, and the rest of the crowd all knew Dodo Mell and went to her in preference to Rosaleen. But, by the time the thing was in full swing, she, too, had at last secured the exclusive attention of someone; she, too, like Enid, like Devery, younger of the English girls, like the two Art School girls, had a man standing at her side and admiring her when he wasn’t dancing with her. She didn’t know his name or who he was, but he was amusing and rather attractive; a curly-haired, black-eyed young man, looking rather like a sprightly devil, with outstanding ears which gave him a singularly alert air.

Suddenly, almost of one accord, they all wearied of dancing.

“Let’s go out somewhere,” said Rosaleen’s young man. It was the classic suggestion, and they all agreed joyfully.

“I’ll take you all to the Brevoort for supper,” said the magnificent Lawrence.

Rosaleen was passing about a basket of cigarettes, and she happened at that instant to be standing at his elbow. And she said, with polite and surprised joy:

“How _nice_!”

He turned and looked at her, fixed his monocle and stared at her.

“I’d forgotten all about _you_!” he said. “What are _you_ doing?”

“Having a lovely time!” she told him, with a smile.

“You look very pretty,” he said. “Very sweet....”

And she fancied, half ashamed of the fancy, that again his face changed as it had done that afternoon in his studio.

He bent his lordly head.

“I want to speak to you!” he whispered. “Slip into the back room and wait!”

A little reluctant, but very curious, she did so; and for five very long minutes stood in there, with the gas turned low, and the two cots piled with imposing male overcoats and sticks, and the furs and wraps of the girls. The sound of the music and the dancing feet made her impatient: someone shouted “One more before we go! Put on a _good_ record, Enid!” She really couldn’t have endured it much longer, if Lawrence hadn’t come. But, though he had said he wanted to speak to her, he stood there speechless, fingering his monocle, not even looking at her. At last he said:

“Er ... Rosaleen!... It occurred to me--wouldn’t you like to stop for your Miss Waters?”

She thought she had never heard a kinder, a more generous idea.

“Why, yes, I _would_!” she said. “It’s very nice of you to think of that!”

“Then we’d better arrange this way. You go downstairs with the others, but slip into my studio. The door’s open and it’s dark; no one will notice you. Then I’ll make some excuse to get away from them, and I’ll come back here with a taxi.”

“A taxi! We won’t need a taxi. It’s only a step. And I don’t see why we need to make such a secret of it all----”

“Enid would make a row,” he said with a frown. “No; do it my way, if you please!”

V

The dawn was coming when the taxi drew up to the door. Lawrence got out, helped Rosaleen to descend, and while he paid the enormous reckoning she stood in the dim street, over which hung that strange air of suspense which comes before the sunrise. The street lights still burned, but against a palely clear sky; the sparrows in the park were beginning to stir.

Lawrence opened the front door with his key and they entered the dark hall, musty with the smell of cooking, of paints. Outside his own door he held out a hand and she took it; an immense, fat hand.

“Now then, it’s all _right_, isn’t it?” he said, with exaggerated heartiness. “No ill feeling, is there? We’re the best of friends?”

“Oh, yes!” said Rosaleen, brightly, and in her mind added:

“If only I can get away from you and never, never set eyes on you again ...!”

A desolating weariness was upon her; her limbs were like lead as she climbed the stairs. Her chief desire was not to wake Mell and Bainbridge; the idea of having to talk to them, to open her lips even to answer them, was intolerable. She had had her fill of talking that night.

For the sake of ventilation the girls always slept with the curtains between the rooms drawn back and the studio windows open; and so it was now. She could see them there in the back room, solemnly still, on their cots, with the faint breeze of the sunrise blowing through the big room and lifting a fine, cindery dust from the hearth. Rosaleen sat down near the window and rested her head on her arms, on the broad sill.

Now that the sun had got up, the whole thing began to assume the character of a nightmare. Her tired brain began to confuse the memory of Lawrence with the drawing of a gargoyle she had seen in his studio the day before. In a blurred memory she seemed to see him as a sort of monster who had for hours and hours been sitting by her side and talking. Talking and talking and talking. And about what, do you suppose, but to urge her to run away with him. She had said she _didn’t want to_, but he had considered that of no importance. He had considered it a matter for logic, for reasoning. He had tried to show her the advantages; and when she persisted in saying that she didn’t want to, he had become offensive and horrible. He had never had the faintest intention of going after Miss Waters; the taxi, by his command, went speeding through Central Park, up Riverside Drive, went on through roads and streets unknown to her, while Lawrence talked, shouted, bullied her. She had never imagined anything so horrible. And yet she wasn’t afraid of him. Perhaps some feminine instinct informed her that a talking man, like a barking dog, is not to be feared.

And, quite suddenly, touched by some obscure impulse, he had become sorry. He had called himself a brute and a beast; he said he must have been mad, and she was privately inclined to agree with him. She didn’t know that it was his theory that women are to be won by force, by daring. With her, love could only be the outcome of sympathy. She could only love a man because she liked him. But she was not so much angry at Lawrence as disgusted and astonished. When he begged for her forgiveness she gave it promptly, and hoped that this would be the end of this immeasurably painful scene. But it was not enough. Nothing would do but a reconciliation, and for this it appeared necessary to go to a road house and have supper and more champagne. She sat at the table with him in the crowded, noisy dining-room, while he acted the jovial host; she had a constrained but polite smile for his pleasantries. She had been as diplomatic with him as if he had been a lunatic.

All the way home he had worshipped her as an angel. He said he wasn’t fit to live in the same world with her....

And now, with the world awake, the sun shining, the streets alive, for the first time since the wretched fiasco, Rosaleen began to weep for young Landry.