Chapter FOUR: I

She was lost in an apathy of despair. He had come and he had gone, this lover for whom she had been waiting for years. In all her solitude, her restlessness, her great discontent, that had been her great hope; any day she might meet him, any day it might happen, and her life would really begin at last.

And now it was over; he was gone, and there was nothing further to expect. She let herself into the flat--her home--her prison--her grave.

There was a great bolt of white stuff lying folded on the sewing machine to be made up into respectable and sturdy underclothing for Miss Amy. After she had taken off her hat and jacket and washed her hands, she sat down before this work, which she usually attacked with such earnestness, such professional interest. But her heart failed; she let the scissors drop idly in her lap; to-day she could not work, to-day she didn’t care. Her sombre eyes stared straight before her, at the transparency of moonlit Venice.

“Oh!... If I’d been alone, we’d have taken a walk together ... I’d have had a chance to be--attractive.... Now, of course, I’ll never see him again. How can I? I don’t know where he lives.... He’ll never bother with me any more. Why should he? Of course, he knows lots and lots of beautiful society girls....”

She sat there, thinking of the charming women he must see every day, and who must of course all love him. She was sure that he knew dozens of girls prettier, more accomplished, a hundred times more fascinating than herself. And yet felt sure that if she had a proper chance, she could win him, felt that there was some peculiar quality in her which was in no other living woman.

The afternoon dragged by in a weary and painful waking dream. She hurried through the preparations for dinner, resentful of anything that distracted her long reveries. Nothing else held the slightest interest for her. If she _could_ get him back? If she would ever see him again? If the beneficent Fate which had brought him to her would still direct the thing, would help her once again?

They sat at the table, they talked, their usual constrained and formal talk. Then Miss Amy went out and her brother returned to his room and his great work--his romance of the time of Nero.

Rosaleen really admired it, without any particular interest in it. And she felt a very feminine satisfaction that the man in the house had found for himself an occupation which kept him quiet, and out of the way. Every evening for years he had shut himself into his room directly after dinner, to write. He had begun this romance when he had first come to the city, but he did not progress rapidly, for he had often to interrupt its course while he studied. His studying consisted in reading “Quo Vadis” and “Ben Hur” and dozens and dozens of other novels of the same sort, and making diagrams of their plots, according to a scheme he had adopted from his well-read manual--“The Road to Authorship.” On large sheets of paper he drew a wavering curve upward to the Climax, then down, then perhaps up again two or three times, for all the little anti-climaxes. Each character had its own wavering line, leading up and down, crossing or running parallel to the “main theme.” In a big exercise book he kept an index of the characters he had most admired in all these novels, with little sketches of their histories, traits, etc.

He now felt altogether familiar with that epoch. He knew just the proper set of characters for the scene, a Christian slave girl, a gigantic, faithful and muscular porter, a humourous pariah, and so on, and all the unfortunate crew of pious and humble folk predestined from the first chapter for martyrdom. A romantic work, for Mr. Humbert was romantic, in a masculine way, you must know, about facts, not about people.

He enjoyed this literary work with immeasurable relish. It completely distracted his mind from his business, from his home, from Life. He didn’t care much for Life. It was too rough, too complicated, too large. He was glad also to forget about his sister, whom he dreaded, and Rosaleen, who worried him by her helplessness. She was a good, kind girl, but he hadn’t much of an opinion of her. Uninteresting.... Her only hope lay in marrying a decent, respectable man who would look after her, and her chance of finding and securing such a man seemed to Mr. Humbert very remote.

He heard her stirring about in the kitchen, alone in there, washing the dinner things. He shook his venerable head.

“Poor Rosaleen!” he said, with a sigh.

II

Rosaleen had, in her long exile, cultivated a demeanour, an expression which was quite unfathomable by her housemates. She had a sort of meek and lowly grace, so much the air of the grateful child rescued from poverty, that it never occurred to them to regard her as anything but this regulation type. Miss Amy had seen others of the same sort in the course of her charitable labours. Of course, Rosaleen was grateful, or, as Miss Amy preferred to put it, appreciative; how could she logically be anything else? Miss Amy was not aware that in Rosaleen there was no logic, no reason, and it must be admitted, very little justice. She was completely composed of feeling. She had a perpetual resentment against the Humberts which no sense of obligation could assuage. She passionately preferred her frequently intoxicated and always avaricious mother; although Miss Amy was undeniably a good woman and her mother was no more and no less than a human being. Self-interest was absolutely lacking in Rosaleen. She cared not a whit what you did for her, or could do for her. She had an inexhaustible fund of devotion, of intense and absurd affection, but it was not to be bought, it was not even to be won. She had pity, mercy, compassion beyond measure, but it went only by favour.

And she had a limitless fortitude. She was not a fighter; she was not one to struggle for what she desired; her strength was in her terrible resignation, her fatalistic endurance. She would weep--she was weeping now--for this probable lover whom she had lost, but there was no rebellion in her grief. From her very early days she had learned to look upon life as a sad and ironic affair, from which one could expect little.

“Ah, that’s the way of the world!” her mother would say, but always of some disaster.

And it was no doubt the way of the world that this had happened.

III

When Friday came she didn’t go to Miss Waters’. She had not intended to tell Miss Amy she wasn’t going, but to her dismay Miss Amy suddenly returned at noon, and found her playing on the piano, one of the babyish pieces of her small repertory, taught her by Miss Julie: “The Brownies’ Ball.” Small consolation in that sprightly little tune for a suffering heart, but it was all the music she could make, and she needed music.

“What are you doing at home?” asked Miss Amy. “Isn’t it your day for going to Miss Waters’?”

“I don’t feel well,” said Rosaleen. “I have a headache.”

“Then you’d better lie down, instead of sitting drumming on the piano.”

“I feel better when I’m sitting up, Miss Amy.”

“I dare say you’re bilious. Put on your things and go take a good brisk walk.”

“I don’t feel a bit like taking a walk!” Rosaleen protested, but in vain.

“All the more reason for going!” said Miss Amy. “That sluggishness is a symptom. Run along now!”

She stood by grimly while the miserable and reluctant girl got ready and went out. Then she went into the kitchen for a glass of water, and she saw hanging up on a rack one of her blouses, beautifully laundered that morning by the child who said she had a headache. It hung before her, soft, lustrous, every little gather in place, the collar so crisp and smooth, the embroidery standing out in fine relief. It looked like.... Did it look like a reproach?

IV

Saturday followed, a busy day, devoted to house-cleaning. Rosaleen swept and dusted and cleaned, took down curtains, beat rugs and sofa cushions, and baked a cake, all according to custom. And Sunday, too, passed as it always did. They all went to church in the morning, and spent the afternoon in dignified drowsiness. Even Rosaleen was affected; she sat in the front room with them, reading a book, but near the window, so that from time to time, when there was an interesting sound of footsteps or voices, she could look out into the street. So many couples going by, arm in arm....

On Monday she was quite ready to go to Miss Waters’ again. Art had lost its charm, to be sure, but it was something after all. Very little compared to Love, but a great deal when compared to solitary confinement.

She went into the studio and sat down before her still unfinished landscape, opened her paint box, and tried to begin her work.

“Is that you, Rosaleen?” called a cheerful voice from the bedroom.

“Yes, Miss Waters.”

“You naughty girl!”

“I know it.... I’m sorry I didn’t come down on Friday. But....”

“My dear! I was young once myself! I don’t blame you, not the least bit in the world. I don’t blame you for forgetting all about work! He’s _per_fectly charming!”

“_Who!_” cried Rosaleen.

“Oh, I know all about it!” said Miss Waters archly. “That nice young man of yours. You know that day we went to the library together? Well.... He came tearing after me as I was walking down Fifth Avenue, and he asked me if you’d gone home.... The most beautiful manners, my dear!... A real Southern gentleman!... He was so disappointed when he found you’d gone. He said he’d seen us go _in_, and he was waiting for us to come _out_. And he walked all the way down here with me, talking about you all the time. And I said why didn’t he go to call on you? And he said he would--that very evening.”

“_Oh!... Miss Waters!_”

The desperation in her voice startled the European Art Teacher. She came out of her bedroom, still fastening the crooked little “vestee” of her brown dress.

“Did you miss him?” she asked, anxiously.

“He never came!”

“That’s queer! He said he would.... He sat down and talked--the longest time.... No one could have been nicer.... He asked all sorts of questions about you.”

“Well, what did you _tell_ him?” cried Rosaleen. “He never came!”

Miss Waters sat down and thought, with a deep frown.

“My dear, it couldn’t have been anything I said. Not possibly. I didn’t speak of you except as an artist. I said how talented you were. And what a lovely disposition you had. Nothing else at all.”

No one could have better appreciated the situation than Miss Waters, no one could have better understood the need for the most extreme care and caution in dealing with men. The poor defrauded creature was convinced that at least three of the sentimental “disappointments” of her past had come from trifling mistakes she had made, minute errors of judgment which had frightened away the elusive and fastidious male. Her eyes filled with tears.

“My dear!” she said. “I hope there’s no misunderstanding! So many young people have had their lives absolutely wrecked and ruined by misunderstandings.”

Rosaleen shook her head.

“No,” she said. “There isn’t any misunderstanding. There couldn’t be.... But I don’t understand it.”

She picked up her brushes and began to paint, and Miss Waters, to keep her company, sat down before her easel, to put the finishing touches to a copy she was making of one of her earlier works--“The School,” she had called it, five puppies and five kittens, some in dunces’ caps, some wearing spectacles. She was aware that she could no longer conceive and execute such paintings now, she had to be satisfied with imitations of her past virtuosity.

Absorbed in their dismal reflections, they scarcely noticed the flight of time. Miss Waters looked up startled when the clock struck one.

“_One o’clock!_” she observed. “I never imagined! Rosaleen, you must stay and have lunch with me!”

Rosaleen had nothing on earth to go home for, so she agreed, and the hospitable Miss Waters rushed out to the French delicatessen nearby, where she could buy curious and economical things.

And whom should she see on the corner but that young man, standing there patiently! She came up behind him, cautiously as a hunter stalking a deer, and touched him on the arm.

“Well!” she cried, in pretended surprise. “Mr. Landry!”

She knew that he was waiting for Rosaleen, but she knew also that he wouldn’t like her to know that. Oh, she did understand something of men! She knew that his pride must be saved at any cost. So, when she saw a bus drawing near, she pretended to believe that he was about to get into it, and entreated him not to.

“Oh, don’t get in!” she cried. “I wish you’d just stop in at my studio and have a little lunch with Rosaleen and me. You’re not in too much of a hurry, are you?”

He smiled down at the dishevelled and anxious creature with streaming white hair--like a witch, he thought. He was pleased that she thought he had been waiting for the bus, and he was very glad that neither she nor anyone else knew that he had waited there on that corner on Friday as well, remembering what he had been told were the days and hours of Rosaleen’s lessons. And he was delighted that he could see Rosaleen and pretend that it was accidental. He was surprised and a little ashamed at his own longing to see her, by this feeling which he could not deny or resist, for a girl of whom he knew nothing.

“I’d be very pleased,” he said. And turned and walked down the street, with Miss Waters hanging on his arm, both pockets of her famous fur coat bulging with delicatessen.

“How is your work coming on?” he asked Miss Waters. “‘The School?’ The one you showed me?”

“Oh!” she cried, archly, delighted at his remembering. “The idea! I haven’t done much more on it since then. However, I’ll show you.”

She led him down the hall, and at the door of her flat turned, with a finger at her lips.

“Surprise her!” she whispered.

Landry followed her to the studio and stood obediently quiet on the threshold, to contemplate his unconscious Rosaleen. And became lost, absorbed in looking at her.

She seemed so much younger, like a school girl, in her sailor blouse, with her fair, untidy hair and her serious preoccupation with her work. How dear she was! How innocent and fine and lovely!

“Rosaleen!” called Miss Waters, in a voice trembling with excitement.

Rosaleen glanced up, to meet the serious and unsmiling regard of her hero.

They were both confused, embarrassed, almost alarmed; their eyes met in a glance singularly bold and significant, belying their formal smiles, their casual words.

“I missed you the other day,” said Landry.

“I know ... I was sorry ... I had to hurry home....”

He crossed the room and stood beside her, looking down at her drawing.

“It’s very pretty,” he said, with constraint. “What is it for?”

“Oh!... Just a picture!”

Miss Waters had been watching them like a stage director.

“Sit down, Mr. Landry!” she said.

“I don’t like to interrupt Miss Humbert’s work....”

“Nonsense! She’s a very good pupil, you know, and she can afford to take a little holiday, now and then. And you’re going to stay and have a little lunch with us, aren’t you?”

He yielded, because he hadn’t the heart to do as he wished--to ask Rosaleen out to lunch and leave the poor old creature behind.

“I’ll have something nice and tasty ready in a jiffy!” she cried. “Rosaleen, you entertain Mr. Landry!”

They were left alone, Landry standing beside Rosaleen, both of them speechless. He looked stealthily down at her, at her light hair, at the soft colour in her cheeks, at her pretty childish throat rising from the open neck of her sailor blouse. And he bent down and kissed her cheek.

She didn’t look up; she bent lower over her work.

“Rosaleen!” he said. “You darling!”

“I’m awfully glad to see you!” she murmured. “I thought....”

“What did you think?”

“I thought--perhaps I shouldn’t ever see you again.”

“I had to come,” he said, truthfully, “I couldn’t help it.”

And fell silent, startled by his own words, by his own course of conduct, so altogether different from what he had planned. He had particularly wished to avoid seeing Rosaleen alone. He had certainly not expected to kiss her, or to want to kiss her. He walked across the room and pretended to be looking at Miss Waters’ picture. He was ashamed of himself; he had no business to kiss her; it was dishonourable and unkind. He stole a glance at her, and saw her, still bending over her work, but with flaming cheeks and a hand that trembled. He couldn’t bear that! He strode over to her.

“I’m sorry!” he cried.

Of course she didn’t answer; he didn’t expect her to.

“Please let me come to see you!” he went on. “I want to know you better.... I’ll tell you all about myself....”

“Oh, no!” she cried. “I can’t! Really I can’t! I can’t have anyone! I’m sorry, but--I can’t!”

“But--can’t I see you again, then? Don’t you--won’t you let me...?”

“Yes, I do want to see you,” she answered candidly. “Only--not at home. Can’t we meet somewhere?”

“But don’t you see?” he said with an earnest scowl. “It--it isn’t the thing. If you’ll let me come to your house, and--more or less explain myself, it makes everything quite different. If I could see your parents....”

“I--they aren’t my parents. It’s--an uncle.... But--what could I tell them, anyway? If I said I’d met you like that, on the bus----”

“I quite understand that. But you could say that you’d met me here at Miss Waters’. You have, you know. It would be true.”

“No!” she protested, with such vehemence that he was startled. “I can’t let you come. I’ll meet you somewhere----”

“Look here!” he said, severely. “You can’t--it’s not the thing for a girl like you to be meeting a man on street corners, like a servant girl.”

Her face grew scarlet.

“Very well!” she cried. “You needn’t see me at all then!”

He retreated instantly before her wrath.

“All right!” he said, hastily. “I _will_ meet you--anywhere you like.”

“Oh, no you won’t!... I’m not going to....” A sudden loud sob interrupted her. “ ... not--like--a servant girl....”

He was horrified at the sight of tears in her eyes.

“I didn’t mean that!” he cried. “Please don’t! Please don’t! I think you--you’re perfect!”

And before he knew it, his arm was about her shoulder, and her head pressed against his chest, a clumsy, a boyish embrace.

“Don’t cry, darling!” he entreated.

She remained motionless. And with a respectful hand he touched her hair.

“Please meet me!” he said.

“In the library--on Wednesday--at four.”

She didn’t ask; she commanded. And he submitted.

V

Miss Waters entered with the lunch on a tray, and young Landry sprang to assist her. He was, Rosaleen observed, remarkably nice and tactful with Miss Waters. He ate what she had provided and praised it. Afterward she brought out a white china flower pot half filled with moist, bent cigarettes, and offered him one; took one herself, too, though it caused her to cough horribly and would very likely make her sick. However, it gave a European touch. She was enchanted with the atmosphere, to find herself nonchalantly smoking cigarettes in a studio in the company of a young and attractive man.

She had a rhapsody of praise for him after he had gone, and Rosaleen listened to it with delight. Then she too went home. She was proud, triumphant, exultant. But it was a most perilous joy; she dared not examine it. Those words haunted her. She mustn’t meet him on street corners--like a servant girl.

She was dusting the top of Mr. Humbert’s desk.

“What else am I?” she asked herself, with terrible bitterness. “They talk about my ‘advantages,’ and my being a ‘member of the household’.... But what am I really?”

She flung down the cloth.

“Oh, what’s the use!” she cried. “It might just as well end now, better end now--than after he finds out.”