“Dear Mr. Landry:“Please don’t come on Wednesday. Please don’tevercome. If you will come to Miss Waters’ studio this afternoon I will explain. But please do not write, because I do not get the letters.”
“Dear Mr. Landry:
“Please don’t come on Wednesday. Please don’tevercome. If you will come to Miss Waters’ studio this afternoon I will explain. But please do not write, because I do not get the letters.”
And it was signed simply “R.”
“And I can’t go to Miss Waters’!” he cried. “I can’t possibly ask for an afternoon off the very first week of this new job!”
“Who is ‘R’?” asked his aunt, gently.
“Rosaleen. What do you make of this, Aunt Emmie?”
“My dearest boy, Ah don’t know anything about it at all, remember! Can’t you tell me something about her?”
“I don’t know much about her. But—I’m interested in her. I—I like her.”
“But what sort of people are they?”
“Oh, fairly decent! Respectable, quiet sort of people, as far as I can see. She’s an orphan—lives with her uncle and cousin. She’s studying art.”
All this sounded reassuring to his aunt. The first shock was over, and she began to feel pity for his trouble. He was so agitated, walking up and down the room, with his sulky, boyish scowl.
“Good Lord! What a situation!” he cried. “She asks me not to come and not to write—and they have no telephone. And she asks me to meet her, so that she can explain, and I’m not able to go. And she may be in trouble of some sort. I think it’s very likely.”
“Shall Ah go there for you this afternoon, and explain?”
“No!” said Nick. But he stopped short, and braced himself for an argument. “But I’ll tell you what youcando, Aunt Emmy!”
Rosaleencame home from Miss Waters’ that afternoon terribly dispirited. He hadn’t come!
The afternoons were growing very short now. The flat was altogether dark when she let herself in, and she went from room to room, to light the gas jets and turn them very low. First in the long hall, then in Mr. Humbert’s room, with its flat top desk covered with papers and its severe orderliness, then in Miss Amy’s room, where, in the mirror over the bureau, she caught a glimpse of herself, still in her hat and jacket, looking oddly blurred and misty in the dim light. Somehow that image frightened her; she hurried into the dining room, her own little cell, and at last, with relief, into the kitchen. Never had the rambling old place seemed so large and so gloomy, or herself so desolate.
She put on her big apron and set to work preparing the supper, a shocking meal of fried steak, fried potatoes, coffee, a tin of tomatoes left unaltered in their watery insipidity, and a flabby little lemon piefrom the baker’s. She was nervous; she fancied she heard sounds from all those silent dimly lighted rooms behind her. She started when a paper bag on the table rattled stiffly all by itself. She was, for once, glad to hear the sound of a key in the lock and Miss Amy’s heavy tread coming down the hall.
She had been to the library; she was carrying four big volumes which she flung down on the dining room couch. Then she looked into the kitchen.
“Mmmm! The coffee smells good!” she said, affably, and went off to her own room. She never offered any assistance, even to setting the table. She considered all that to be Rosaleen’s affair. Nor did she notice that the child looked tired and pale and dejected.
Nor did she notice that Rosaleen ate almost nothing. They had, all three of them, very small appetites, which, when added to their highly unappetizing meals, made life very economical. Moreover, she considered it meritorious to eat very little, and not to enjoy what you did eat.
They finished. Mr. Humbert rose, said, very pleasantly, “Ah...!” and went off to his writing. Miss Amy sat down on the couch to look over her library books, and Rosaleen, putting on her apron again, began carrying out the dishes. She was slow that evening; she didn’t want to finish.
“If I only had a place where I could go and sit by myself!” she thought, not for the first time. “I don’t want to go and sit there withher! And if I go in my own room, she’ll be after me, to see what’s the matter.”
She sat down in the kitchen and began to polish a copper tea kettle which was never used.
Suddenly the door bell rang. She jumped up, pressed the button which opened the down stairs door, and hurried along the passage. But Miss Amy was before her, and stood squarely in the doorway.
In a dream, a nightmare, Rosaleen heard Nick’s voice:
“Miss Humbert?” he asked, politely.
“Iam Miss Humbert!”
“May we see Miss Rosaleen Humbert?”
“There’s no such person,” said Miss Amy.
There was a pause. Then another voice, a feminine one, soft, agreeable, but unmistakably rebuking, said,
“Ah am Mrs. Allanby, Mr. Landry’s aunt.”
“Ah!” said Miss Amy.
“Ma nephew was afraid that perhaps you might not have liked his calling on your cousin——”
“Rosaleen is not my cousin,” said Miss Amy, contemptuously.
Mrs. Allanby was just beginning to speak, whenNick broke in. He couldn’t keep his temper any longer. The spectacle of his beloved and dignified aunt standing outside the door, and being spoken to so outrageously by this woman both shocked and infuriated him.
“Will you kindly ask Miss Rosaleen to step here for a minute?” he said. “We won’t trouble you long!”
His air of disgust, of superiority, stung the unhappy woman to still worse behaviour. Shecouldnot stop; she took a sort of monstrous delight in going on, in defying the warnings of her conscience and her pride.
“Evidently you don’t understand,” she said. “You seem to think the girl is a relative. She isn’t. My sister found her posing for a class of art students, and she felt sorry for her and brought her home. My sister was very good to her, and for her sake I’ve gone on feeding and clothing her. She does a little light work round the place, to pay for her keep....”
Suddenly all her annoyance, her years of irritation with Rosaleen, her ill-temper kept under such iron control, all the suffering she had endured from this false calm, this false pleasantness, this inhuman repression of her natural self, burst forth.
“I’m sick andtiredof it!” she cried. “Such nonsense! The girl, with her airs and graces.... Just a common, low Irish girl.... She’s had advantages I never had in my young days.... I’m sick and tired of it! It’s the final straw, for her to be asking company here.... I won’t have it! It’smyhome, after all, and there’s no place in it whereshecan entertain!”
They were all silent, aghast at her violence, her coarse cruelty. Her voice was loud, so loud as to arouse Mr. Humbert from his work. He thrust his venerable head out of his door, but instantly popped it in again. Miss Amy, horrified at herself, trembling with rage, ready to burst into tears, cried out, suddenly——
“You can just take them into the kitchen!”
And stood aside, pointing down the passage.
“Come along, Aunt Emmie!” said Nick. “Come away before I——”
But she had entered, and was going along the passage. Rosaleen went before her into the kitchen, drew forward the one chair, and droned another in from the dining room. Mrs. Allanby, gracious and kind, sat down, and smiled at Rosaleen.
“Come and sit down beside me!” she said.
Rosaleen shook her head. Mrs. Allanby spoke again, she thought she even heard Nick’s voice, but she couldn’t understand them. They sounded very,very faint. She was dizzy, sick, her ears were ringing. She stood leaning against the tubs, still in her gingham apron, staring at them——
At that charming and beautifully dressed woman, at the scowling young man standing behind her, proud as Lucifer, in thekitchen....
She flung her arm across her eyes.
“Go away!” she cried. “Go away!”
Shedidn’t really know when they had gone. She stood without moving, without hearing or seeing for a long time. Then suddenly the turmoil within her died down and she felt perfectly calm.
She went into her own room and began packing her clothes into a little wicker suitcase, quite carefully and neatly. She hadn’t even troubled to close the door, and inevitably Miss Amy came in.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going away,” said Rosaleen.
“What nonsense! At this time of night! I won’t allow it!”
“You can’t stop me,” said Rosaleen.
Miss Amy was frightened, unspeakably dismayed at what she had done.
“Don’t be silly!” she said. “Let bygones be bygones. I—I’m sorry, Rosaleen. Let’s forget all about it. Get to bed now, like a good girl!”
Rosaleen shook her head.
“No!” she said, “I’ve got to go.”
“You wicked girl! Think of all we’ve done for you!” said Miss Amy, in despair.
“I don’t care,” said Rosaleen.
“I won’t let you take that suitcase, then. It’s mine.”
Instantly Rosaleen began taking her things out of it.
“I’ll wrap them in a newspaper,” she said.
Miss Amy stood there threatening, entreating, arguing, but Rosaleen was like a stone. She did wrap her things in a newspaper; then she put on her hat and coat and went out into the passage. Miss Amy stood with her back against the front door.
“I won’t let you!” she cried. “Where would you go—all alone—at this time of night!”
A horrible fear had risen in her mind. If Rosaleen “went wrong,”shewould be responsible. She didn’t much care what else happened to her, as long asthatwas avoided. But she couldn’t havethaton her conscience.
“Morton!” she cried, desperately. “Morton! Come out and speak to this wicked, headstrong girl!”
No earthly power could have brought the author into this. He didn’t even answer. He got up from his desk and slipped across the room, andveryquietly locked the door.
“I won’t let you out!” cried Miss Amy.
“I’ll stand here till you do!” said Rosaleen firmly.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
A long time went by. Miss Amy had grown weary beyond endurance. And there stood Rosaleen, leaning against the wall, with her newspaper package under her arm, pallid, solemn, unconquerable.
Suddenly Miss Amy began to cry.
“Very well, you miserable, heartless girl!” she sobbed. “Go, then, if youwill!”
Rosaleen went by her, out of the door, and down the stairs. And never again did Miss Amy set eyes on her in this world.
Shefelt, really and actually, like a new person, and she looked like one, too. She was walking down Sixth Avenue, after an interview with the fashion editor of a big magazine who had said that neither now nor at any possible future time would he use any of her work. It was a sharp November day, and she was still wearing a thin suit, in the pocket of which lay a fifty-cent piece, borrowed from Miss Waters, all the money she had in the world. And still she was happy, profoundly happy. She walked briskly, staring candidly at whatever interested her, no longer trying to be ladylike, and feeling herself for the first time in her life an independent personality, not obliged to please anyone. And she was going home to a place where she was welcome, where she was encouraged and admired—in short, to Miss Waters’ flat.
Miss Waters had taken her in on that terribleevening without asking for a word of explanation. She had simply kissed her and suggested going to bed, and when Rosaleen was lying beside her in the dark, both of them fiercely wide awake, she said not a word, never put a question. The next morning she had got up early and made coffee and toast and brought it to Rosaleen as she lay in bed. At last she had heard the story and she was horrified. She quite agreed that Rosaleen had done well to leave Miss Amy, but being old and more cruelly schooled in the world’s ways, she had seen how much the girl was losing. A home, a roof over one’s head, and food and clothing—she knew the cost of these in money and in effort. She had gone, on her own initiative, to see Miss Amy, to see if she could not rescue something for her lamb. She never mentioned that interview to Rosaleen, and she had tried to forget it as soon as possible. It was a humiliating and complete failure; the European Art Teacher had had very much the worst of it.
She had then devoted herself to heartening this dejected and sorrowful young creature, and with amazing results. Rosaleen was now convinced that the world lay before her, to be conquered by her brush. Freedom from criticism and hostility transformed her. Miss Waters suggested various places where she might look for “art work,” and she wentto them without timidity, was never discouraged by refusals. She knew that Miss Waters was glad to have her there as long as she wished to stay, and whatever expense she caused she expected to repay before long. Cheerful and pleasant days, these were. When she wasn’t out hunting jobs, she was with Miss Waters, drawing or helping her in her very easy-going and muddled housekeeping. In the evening they had dinner at little Italian table d’hôtes, they went to “movies,” or they worked at home together. Rosaleen made dress designs to show as samples of her ability, things so spirited and attractive that Miss Waters was surprised.
“I never knew you were so gifted, my dear,” she said. “I knew—Ialwaysknew you had talent, but I didn’t know you were sopractical.”
There was something else that surprised Miss Waters. She couldn’t comprehend how Rosaleen could be so cheerful, after what had happened. But the part of Rosaleen’s brain which was concerned with Nick Landry was shut, was sealed. She was dimly aware that some day she would have to open that door, and examine and comprehend what lay behind it. She knew that Grief was shut in there, and frightful Disappointment. Knew too that through that locked compartment lay the way toher heaven. But she turned aside her head. She went another road.
Cheerful and lively, her cheeks rosy with the winter air, she hurried through the twilit street, up the steps of Miss Waters’ old-fashioned house, and rang the bell. She waited a long time for an answer: she rang again, and still must wait. The flat was on the first floor; standing on the stoop she tried to peer in at the front window, but, unaccountably, the shade was pulled down. She rang once more, almost without hope, sure that Miss Waters must have gone out for a few moments; but this time the door clicked violently, and she entered. Miss Waters was standing at her own front door; she was dressed in a black lace tea gown, with a black jet butterfly in her fluffy white hair; she looked strangely elegant and exalted. And in a voice trembling with excitement, she seized Rosaleen’s hands.
“Many happy returns of the day!” she cried.
“Oh! It was sweet of you to remember it was my birthday!” said Rosaleen, touched almost to tears by the festive dress.
Miss Waters gently pulled her inside the door.
“Now!” she said.
And if she hadn’t a surprise party for Rosaleen!
The shades were all down, the curtains drawn, and candles lighted in the dusty, untidy little sitting room, and it had somehow a mysterious and fascinating atmosphere. It seemed quite crowded with people too, and when she entered they all came forward. There was only one whom she knew at all; Miss Mell, a stout girl in spectacles, who had been Miss Waters’ first pupil, years ago. She came with commendable regularity to visit her old teacher every two or three weeks, and Rosaleen had more than once seen her in the studio, sitting quite still and listening to Miss Waters’ talking, a kindly and amused smile on her face. Then there was a desperately lively girl who ran a tea room, and two agreeable young English women, and a disagreeable, sneering old gentleman with a goatee, whose name she never learned, nor whose business there. And an arrogant, handsome girl with a violin, who played something for them.
Assisted by Miss Mell, Miss Waters served them all with cake and wine and sandwiches, and then brought forth cigarettes, for the conversation which she expected to enjoy.
“They’re all people whodothings!” she whispered to Rosaleen.
They all conscientiously endeavoured to behave like a party of artists, to smoke and to talk about “interesting” things. And they created a very fair illusion. At any rate, it made Miss Waters happy.
Miss Mell was very friendly, so friendly that Rosaleen couldn’t help thinking Miss Waters must have told her her history.
“We’re just setting up as artists,” she said, sitting down beside Rosaleen. (They were the only ones not smoking.) “We’ve taken a studio on the south side of the Square, Bainbridge and I. We’re moving in to-morrow. And we want someone else to go in with us, to share a third of the expense. It’ll amount to about twenty dollars a month, a third of the rent, and the gas and telephone, and so on. And I wondered if you’d like to come in with us?”
“I should!” said Rosaleen. “But I couldn’t. I couldn’t afford it. I haven’t got on my feet yet.”
“We intend to work, you know. Hard! And I might be able to help you. Fashions, isn’t it? I know a lot of the people—editors and so on. I wish you would!”
“But—I haven’t a cent!” said Rosaleen. “Nothing at all. If I can find a job——”
“In an office? It’s a pity to do that, if your work’s any good. You have no time left for anything else, and you can’t get ahead. If you work hard, and once get a decent start, you can do far better as a free lance.”
“I know it!” said Rosaleen. “But you’ve got tobe able to live while you’regettinga start, and I——”
But the handsome and arrogant young woman had begun to play her violin again, and everyone became silent. It was music which had little to say to Rosaleen; it was austere brain music; but she was enchanted to watch the musician, the exquisite movement of her right arm and wrist, the delicate interplay of the fingers of her left hand, the faint, fleeting shadows that crossed her proud, fine face. She was, Rosaleen thought, very like a picture Miss Amy had of Marie Antoinette riding in the tumbrill.
The piece was ended, and they all applauded.
“That’s Bainbridge,” Miss Mell explained. “My pal, the one who has the studio with me. She’s absolutely a genius.”
Rosaleen regarded her with undisguised admiration.
“I wish I could come with you!” she said, regretfully.
Miss Melland Miss Bainbridge were in that state of exhaustion in which any sort of rest or pause is fatal. They had agreed to go on working until they were really “settled,” with everything unpackedand neat. Enthusiasm had entirely gone now; they were working doggedly, and, secretly, without much hope of ever being done. Miss Bainbridge was on her knees before a packing case filled with papers, drawings, music, and that mass of letters, bills, and receipts one feels obliged to keep. Miss Mell was feebly cleaning out the hearth, which was quite full of the debris of the former tenants.
There was a knock at the door, and they both called out, “Come in!” but without interest.
It was Miss Waters and Rosaleen. Miss Waters beckoned mysteriously to Miss Mell, and they vanished into the back room.
“Have you got your third person for the studio yet?” Miss Waters enquired, anxiously.
Miss Mell shook her head.
“Then you can have Rosaleen!” cried Miss Waters, with triumph. “I’m so glad, for your sake, and for her sake. It’s anidealarrangement!”
And, seeing that Miss Mell looked only polite and not enthusiastic, she went on:
“You will just love that child! She has the disposition of an angel. Never a cross or disagreeable word. And after all she’s been through!”
“Yes,” said Miss Mell. “She seems very nice. We’ll be glad to have her.”
“You see,” Miss Waters went on, in a whisper.“Yesterday, not an hour after you’d left the house, a letter came for her from that beastly woman I told you about—that Amy Humbert. And in it, my dear, was a cheque forfive hundreddollars. It seems that thenicesister had told her on her deathbed to give that to Rosaleen when she was twenty-one. She wrote—this Amy woman, I mean—that she wasn’t legally obliged to give it to Rosaleen, but that she felt it was a moral obligation, and that she always tried to do what was right, and more like that.Youknow the sort of person, Dodo! Well!... The poor child was wild with joy.... And I advised her to come with you, if it could be done. Five hundred dollars will keep her for a long time, if she’s careful, and she ought to be earning a good living long before it’s gone. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, I should think so,” said Miss Mell, thoughtfully.
“Then I’ll tell her!” said Miss Waters, and hastened into the big room, where Rosaleen stood, looking sheepishly about her. Miss Bainbridge had discouraged her attempts at conversation with no great gentleness and the chairs were all filled with things, so that she couldn’t even sit down.
“It’s all right!” cried Miss Waters. “Iamso glad!”
“Look round and see how you like it,” said Miss Mell, and they did.
The place seemed to them the very ideal of a studio. It was a dark old room on the south side of the Square, thoroughly dirty and almost past cleaning. There were plenty of mice and other more intolerable vermin, and a musty smell that no airing could banish. But, to compensate, more than to compensate, was the View, the Outlook, the sight of scrawny little Washington Square Park and a glimpse up Fifth Avenue through the Arch. Every visitor they ever had later on admired this view.
It had just the right sort of furnishings, too, left intact by the two former girl artists who were subletting it. Big wicker chairs and little feeble tables, a rug, small, dingy and expensive, a screen, a battered and stained drawing table, candles with “quaint” shades striped purple and yellow. And pieces of hammered brass which should have gleamed from corners but which did not gleam because they were too dirty and the corners were so very dark that nothing within them was visible. The place had altogether an aimless air, a look of being one part work room and three parts play room; it was frivolous in a solemn, pretentious sort of way, neither pretty nor convenient.
But to Rosaleen an enchanted spot, somethingwhich seemed to her more like home, dearer to her than any other place in the world. She loved it!
“I’d like to help,” she said. “What shall I do first?”
“The back room,” said Enid. “Otherwise we’ll never get to bed to-night.”
Rosaleen lifted the curtain and went into the back room where they were all to sleep and to do their cooking. A forlorn place, overrun with roaches, and containing two cots, a filthy gas stove, an old sink red with rust, and a dreadful mouldy little thing that had once been an ice-box. There was no window, no light except the gas high overhead. It was depressing, hideous, highly unwholesome, with an air of abandoned domesticity terribly distressing to Rosaleen. She couldn’t endure the thought of food being prepared and cooked in that dark and dirty place. But the others didn’t care at all.
They had got themselves some sort of lunch there before Rosaleen’s arrival; the greasy plates still stood by the sink.
“I’ll make you some tea,” she said, pitying their grimy and back-breaking labour.
She scrubbed out a rusty little kettle and set it on to boil; then she began to wash the dishes and to clean the cluttered, dusty shelf and to set out on itthe provisions lying about in bags and boxes. She opened the little ice-box, devoid of ice and smelling most vilely, and saw in there a loaf of bread and an opened tin of milk.
“I wouldn’tusethat ice-box if I were you!” she called out, anxiously. “It doesn’t seem—nice.”
“All right!” Miss Mell answered, soothingly.
She made tea and brought it in on the lid of a box for a tray. But it was very poor, cheap tea and it smelt like straw.
“I don’t think it’s a very good brand,” said Rosaleen. “Why don’t you try Noxey’s?”
Miss Bainbridge looked up from her third cup.
“Look here!” she said. “My idea is that you should do all that sort of thing. We can’t and won’t. Mell, give her the money and let her buy everything.... And you’ll see we always have everything we need, won’t you? Things for breakfast, and so on? Dinner I suppose we’ll take outside. I will, anyway. You’d better go out now, I think. First look and see what we need, coffee, rolls, all the proper things. And wood: it would be nice to start a fire here this evening. We didn’t know where to get any.”
Rosaleen went, but she was not too well pleased with the tone of her new companion. And still less did she like her contemptuous indifference to MissWaters, when she popped in later on to see if she could help. She was by nature resigned and patient, and her training had accentuated this; on her own behalf she would have endured a great deal from Miss Bainbridge. But she had a loyalty for her friends that was fanatical. Her heart had ached for her poor old friend, with her well-meaning sprightliness quashed. When she had gone, when she had called a quavering and gay “Au revoir!” from the foot of the stairs, Rosaleen had turned and resolutely faced the arrogant Miss Bainbridge.
“I——” she began. “I’ll ask you please—not to talk like that to Miss Waters.”
Her mouth was set grimly; she looked at that moment rather like her mother.
“Why?” asked Miss Bainbridge, coolly.
“She’s—she’s old, for one thing.”
“Old enough to die. No, Miss-What’s-Your-Name, I can’t be sentimental about your rather awful old friend. And we don’t want her bothering us here. The sooner she finds it out, the better. If you won’t give her a hint, I will.”
“No,” said Rosaleen, “I won’t.... And I won’t let you.”
“What!” cried Miss Bainbridge. “You won’t let me? Is that what you said? How do you propose to stop me?”
“Well,” said Rosaleen. “I—I suppose Ican’tstop you. But I can go away and not hear you. And I will.”
“Good-bye!” said Miss Bainbridge.
Miss Mell intervened.
“See here, Enid, my child, this won’t do! You mustn’t offend Rosaleen. Don’t be too much of a genius!”
“There’s no reason for her to be offended. She’s not personally responsible for Miss Waters. I’ve simply put my foot down about the old imbecile——”
“Butthe studio belongs to all three of us,” said Miss Mell. “And Rosaleen and I want Miss Waters. It’s two against one.”
Miss Bainbridge had got up and was looking at them with an ugly, narrowed glance. But Miss Mell continued her unpacking, and Rosaleen, instead of quailing, met her look quite calmly. She couldn’t do much withthem....
She made a real effort to control that unbridled temper, to subdue that fierce pride that could endure no slightest contradiction. She saw, as she could always see, where her own best interest lay; that if she wished to get on with these comrades, she must make concessions.
“Very well,” she said. “Have her, if you want.”
Rosaleen was not to be outdone in magnanimity.
“I don’t want you to be bothered,” she said. “I’ll try to keep her from interrupting your work the least bit. It’s only—if you please won’t be rude to her.... Because she’s really very nice.”
“But can’t yousee!” cried Miss Bainbridge, with a sort of despair. “I’m not like you. If I’m surrounded by mushy, stupid, jabbering people, it—harms me! If I were kind to people like that, I’d ruin myself. You hear about people being killed with kindness. Well, a great many more people are killed—or destroyed—bybeingkind. No one who amounts to anything can be so damnkind. It’s often necessary to be cruel; and it’salwaysnecessary to be indifferent. My job is to paint—to the very best of my ability. It doesn’t matter how Miss Waters feels. The world isn’t going to be any better or any worse forherfeelings.”
Rosaleen reflected for some time. Then she spoke, thoughtfully and firmly:
“I guess Art isn’t as important as all that!” she said.
Thenext afternoon they were all settled peacefully at work. They had agreed to give up the idea of getting all in order first; they had decided that they would do a little every day.
Miss Mell was at work on an oil painting representing a white tiled bathroom in which sat a heavenly fair young mother undressing a baby on her lap, while near her were playing two misty, wistful little children in bathgowns. In the air, over their heads, was a huge tin of talcum powder, and beneath the picture were the words—“THAT COM’FY, SILKY, CUDDLY FEELING WHICH ONLY FEATHERBLO POWDER CAN GIVE.”
It was an order; she had enough commissions ahead to keep her busy for months. She made it her business to suit her clients and their public; if she had any tastes of her own, she set them aside. She had good sense and shrewdness and no illusions of her own greatness. She wished to earn a living by drawing, because she was fond of it and did itfairly well. She never used the word “Art,” never expressed an aesthetic opinion. The advertising agency for which she did most of her work considered her in all things perfect and especially created to fill their wants.
Miss Bainbridge was stippling the background of a little pen and ink sketch—a bizarre thing which she was going to try on a brand new art magazine. It was a woman, nude except for an immense black cloak sprinkled with white stars which floated from her shoulders. She stood alone on an immense stage with a background of black dots; and before and below her was a swimming sea of eyes. She called it “Failure.”
Rosaleen too was working, but neither contentedly nor successfully. The more she saw of the others, the less she thought of herself. They worked with such industry, hour after hour. They didn’t seem to have the slightest trace of her fatal desire for distraction. After she had been drawing for an hour or so, she always became intolerably restless, so that even washing dishes was a relief.... By the side of Enid Bainbridge she felt as some poor little clergyman, struggling incessantly to feed and clothe his family, sick with cares and worries of this world, might feel by the side of Saint Paul. Enid worshipped her god with a single heart. Not formoney, not for praise, not for any conceivable reward, would she do anything but her best. Even her ruthlessness, her selfishness, had in them something sublime. She was the priestess, sacrificing all things on her altar. Rosaleen, while disagreeing with her as to the relative importance of art in life, nevertheless venerated her devotion.
She wanted very much to ask their opinion of the design she had just made, but she didn’t venture to interrupt them. She regarded them covertly; Miss Mell in her gingham apron, with her calm, bespectacled face cheerfully intent on her painting; Enid Bainbridge bending over her drawing with desperate intensity.... She had beautiful hair, Rosaleen observed, and she knew how to dress it.
She got up and crossed the room, very quietly, so as not to shake the floor, and sat down before the hearth to bait a mouse-trap. The place was overrun with mice; they had disturbed her horribly the night before.
And suddenly the industrious silence was broken by a tremendous knock at the door.
“Comein!” called Miss Mell, in her cheerful, encouraging voice.
The door opened, so widely that it slammed against the wall, and in walked an enormously fat man, with a swarthy face, an upturned mustacheand a monocle dangling by a broad black ribbon. He was dressed with extreme care, with well-creased trousers, a fastidious necktie, and fawn-coloured spats; but the greater part of him was enveloped in a flowing grey linen smock.
They all stared at him, astonished; he was so extraordinary. He stared at them.
“I heard,” he said, “that there were three little female artists up here, and I came in to look them over, to see if they were pretty and interesting, or not. I live downstairs, my children, and my name is Lawrence Iverson.”
“I’ve seen some of your work,” said Enid, carelessly. “In the Kremoth Galleries. Rather good.”
He looked critically at Enid, but she met his glance with one quite as cool and appraising.
“Who areyou?” he asked. “To call my work ‘rather good’?”
“No one much,just yet,” she answered.
He crossed the room and fixing his monocle, examined her work.
“Not even ‘rather good,’”he said. “Clever—cheaply clever. Trick stuff—all in one dimension. Worthless.”
“No, it isn’t,” she contradicted. “It’s what I mean it to be, anyway. It expresses what I want it to. Now, a thing like that ‘Idols’ you did is what Icall a failure. You had something you wanted to express, and you didn’t. It didn’t mean anything.”
“My God! Young woman, I never mean anything.... But you’re the perfect school marm ‘doing art.’ You’re concerned with ideas, because you have a brain, a little tiny one, but no soul. You don’t know what beauty is. What, you girl, does a treemean? What does a lovely armmean? I give my pictures names because people won’t buy them without names. But the names are all damn nonsense, just to make the fools talk. For instance, I will conceive a group, of perfect, heart-breaking harmony, three figures in attitudes which form a complete and exquisite design.... You see that sort of thing once in a while, without forethought. I saw, the other day, a woman bending down from the top of a flight of steps to take a bag a grocer’s boy was reaching up to her. They made the most beautiful combination of curves God ever allowed....You’renot bad looking....”
Enid paid no attention to this compliment. She frowned.
“You’re wrong,” she said, after a while. “I’m not that sort—the school marm.... But youdidhave an idea in that picture of yours. I think you wanted it to be ironic and terrible. And it wasn’t.It was only severe. You missed what you aimed at. But Idon’tcare about ideas....”
“Keep quiet, sensitive, egotistic, female thing!” said Lawrence Iverson. “Why do you care what I think about you? I don’t care—I couldn’t possibly care—what you thought about me. Now to show you—what mood are you trying to get in your little picture there? Explain it! If it means something, what does it mean? Eh?”
“It’s the sensation of an actress who knows she’s failing——”
“Oh bosh! Oh rot! Oh stale, idiotic futility! So we have here the portrait of a sensation! Well, here is what you want.”
He took Enid by the arm and pulled her to her feet; then he sat down on her chair and began to draw with her pen, in strong, fine, sure lines, the figure of a woman, in a strange attitude, half defiant, half cringing.
“There’s your silly idea,” he said. “Without any black dots or white stripes.... You can’t draw. No woman can. But it’s pretty to see them try. I approve. I approve of you all. Even the trying will give you some faint comprehension of what I accomplish. But now, my dear little souls, put down your work and let us become acquainted!”
“Wasn’t he awful?” said Rosaleen, with a sigh of relief, when he had gone.
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Miss Mell. “That’s only his way. He’s really a very well known artist.... What are you laughing at, Enid?”
“At him,” she answered. “And his babyishness. And his airs. Why, he’s crazy about women. You can seethat. I’ll have him eating out of my hand in a week or two.”
Butthe next morning when Miss Mell opened the door to put a bundle of rubbish out into the hall she found there a neat little package, and in it a sketch of Rosaleen standing with the mouse-trap in her hand, startled and puzzled.
“To you!” he had written. “Because you look just as a little female artist ought to look. All soul. Of course, you haven’t any soul. But I will help you to play being an artist, because of your lovely soulful artist eyes.”
“Hum!” said Enid. “She’d better not have that. It won’t do to let her get conceited. She’s too useful.”
And she tore it into pieces and threw it into the fire.
“My dear!” cried Miss Mell. “I don’t think that was right!”
“Rot!” said Enid. “He’s simply trying to show that he’s not attracted by me. Can’t you see?”
“What I can’t see,” said Miss Mell, thoughtfully. “Is—which is the most unbearably conceited—you or Lawrence Iverson?”
“He is,” said Enid, “because he’s older. It gets worse, always.”
He came up again that afternoon; and, though they hadn’t spoken of it, they were all three quite sure that he would come, and were waiting for him.
He went over to Miss Mell.
“Your work,” he said, “is entirely hopeless. And you don’t care. You’re really the cleverest of the lot. You know what you’re doing. You’re earning a living.... But I can’t look at it. It’s too obscene.”
She smiled good-humouredly, without looking up from the picture of a small boy and a big package of coffee “For My Mudder.”
“And you,” he said to Enid. “You’re so infernally puffed up with pride in your work and your fine body that you can’t see the truth. Nothing butcrazy visions. What you ought to be is an artist’s model. That is what you were intended for.”
“That’s a part that wouldn’t suit you very well,” she answered, looking at his great, ungainly bulk.
“Cheap!” he said. “Cheap wit. Cheap impudence. My skeleton is largely covered with fat, which is a source of great discomfort to me. And it seems humourous to you. Very well; that is Enid. Now this sweet child, Rosaleen, is promising. She is innocent, naïve. She sees what is, because she is rather too stupid to imagine what is not. I am going to teach her.”
“To see what is not, I suppose,” said Enid. “Go ahead, then. Of course you’ll spoil her. She was useful before. She used to cook the meals and go to market and sweep and mend our clothes. Now she’ll want todraw.”
“So she shall draw! She shall be my Galatea. I shall create an artist with my own breath.”
He sat down beside the alarmed and confused Rosaleen and began to instruct her. He was wonderful. He explained with exquisite lucidity; he was patient, he was kind. But Rosaleen was too nervous to profit by his teaching. Her hand trembled pitiably.
“Very well, then, my dear,” he said, kindly, “I’ll wait until you’re more used to me. But in the meantime, don’t touch a pencil. Every stroke you draw is a step on the road to perdition.”
He patted her shoulder and left her, and began walking up and down the room.
“Don’t!” said Enid, impatiently. “It shakes the floor.... Sit down and smoke.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Why don’t you work?”
“Still the school marm. You imagine you can ‘be an artist’ by sitting over your work all your life. You haven’t the wit to see that art is the outcome of experience——”
“No, it isn’t. Unless it’s your ancestors’ experience. It comes with you when you’re born. Art is the result of impressions——”
“And how do you get impressions, woman, except through experience?”
“Some people can get a vivid impression by looking at a blank wall. It’s inside, not outside. What you call experience is nothing but distractions, interruptions....”
“Young woman, whatIcall experienceisexperience. I’m not a timid female thing.”
Then he began to boast—of how he had lived, how he had felt, what he had seen. He swaggered amazingly, pacing up and down the room, stroking his little black mustache, continually fixing hismonocle with a tremendous grimace. Rosaleen was lost in bewilderment. She couldn’t for the life of her tell whether he was joking or serious, whether his talk was brilliant or idiotic. She could get no clue from Miss Mell, for she was still working and apparently paying no heed. Enid’s face had its usual fierce and scornful look, her voice its usual impatient vigour. She longed to have this man interpreted.
She waited until Enid had gone out to the theatre that evening, and then, when she and Miss Mell were alone together in their candle-lighted studio, with a fire burning and a great air of peace and comfort, she said:
“Isn’t that Mr. Iverson—queer?”
“Not so queer as he pretends to be,” she answered, which gave Rosaleen very little help.
“Don’t you think he’s—sort of like Enid?”
“Oh, mercy, no!” cried Miss Mell. “What makes you think that, Rosaleen?”
Rosaleen couldn’t quite explain.
“They’re both so—they’re such—they talk——”
“They’re both very rude, if that’s what you mean. But Enid’s rude because she’s so honest, and Iverson’s rude as a pose. He’s a famous poseur.”
That was Greek to Rosaleen. Miss Mell saw her puzzled frown and expatiated.
“I’ve met him before,” she said. “He doesn’t remember me, though. I’ve seen him two or three times. And I’ve heard a great deal about him. He’s a remarkable man—in some ways. But a poseur.... He affects that bluntness, but he’s not sincere.... I don’t think anyone could be less like Enid. To begin with, he hasn’t any self-control. They say he has the most terrific temper. He quarrels with everyone. And he’s perfectly reckless; he doesn’t care what he does. I’ve heard the most extraordinary stories about him. He’s like a madman. And yet very greedy. He runs after people with money. While Enid—but you must know Enid a little by this time. She’s never reckless. She always knows what she’s doing, and she’d rather cut her heart out than do anything to injure her career. And as for toadying, shecouldn’t. She cares no more for money than a baby.”
“You think a lot of Enid, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do!” said Miss Mell.
There was a pause.
“Well—do you like—him?” asked Rosaleen.
“No,” said Miss Mell. “Not much. And don’t you, either!”
But Rosaleen couldn’t help liking him!
He didn’t come up the next afternoon. Rosaleen, going out on an errand, had of course to pass thedoor of his studio on the floor below, and from within she heard a most pleasant sound of feminine voices, gay, light, well-bred voices. On her way in again, she had paused for just a moment outside that door, and the hidden festivity was still going on; she heard the clink of silver on china, and those nice voices again. Later on, from the window upstairs, she saw a motor car glide up to the door in the dusk and stand there waiting, until finally two exquisitely dressed women came out and entered it, escorted gallantly by Lawrence Iverson. They drove off, leaving him standing bare-headed in the street.
Miss Watershad become terribly excited when Rosaleen told her.
“Mydear! NotLawrence Iverson! Right in the samehouse! Isn’t that marvellous! Now tell me all about him!”
Rosaleen tried, but not very successfully.
“But come and see him for yourself,” she said. “He’s sure to come in again some afternoon soon.”
“Oh, no!” said Miss Waters, hastily. “I don’t think I will, dear. It would make me too nervous.”
After that she wasn’t seen so often at the studio. She would dart in during the morning, perhapsleaving a pupil at her home, and chat with Rosaleen for a little while, but always on edge, ready to flit away. It made her very happy to observe the happiness of her favourite. And she alone was able to comprehend the things that made up that happiness. She could understand the joy that seized Rosaleen whenever she had been out on a frosty morning, when she crossed the snow-covered Square and entered the room with its crackling fire and saw the two girls working in absolute quiet. She loved even the careless and shiftless housekeeping, the things brought in from the delicatessen, salads in paper boats, cold sliced meats, buns, rolls, cakes. They rarely cooked anything; they went out every night to dinner, either to an Italian table d’hote or to the tea room in the basement; when Enid wasn’t with them, they always asked Miss Waters, and frequently the two English girls who had a dressmaking establishment near by would join them. They were nice, jolly, sophisticated girls and Rosaleen liked them. She used to go now and then to their place, which they call “Fine Feathers,” and they would give her “pointers” about making her own clothes.
The tea room in the basement was kept by the desperately lively girl who had been at the birthday party; she was from the Middle West, and she wasblessed with the name of Esther Gosorkus. She had enormous, babyish blue eyes and oily brown hair always done with a wide fillet of blue ribbon. She was enthusiastic and friendly and agreeable beyond belief; she adored everyone. Yet she was able to charge hair-raising prices for her food, and for the Antiques which she also sold down there. Enid always called her The Fool.
“She can’t be a fool,” said Miss Mell. “She’s making pots of money.”
“Plenty of fools can do that,” said Enid. “Set a fool to catch a fool! Of course! They prey on one another.”
Miss Gosorkus’ connection with Art was vague; still she wore smocks and went to studio parties; she talked about the Artists’ Colony, and considered that she belonged to it. She used to come up to the studio rather often, and had to talk to Rosaleen, because the other two gave her no encouragement. But Rosaleen thought her jolly and rather nice, and when she went out marketing, used to stop in at the Tea Room and Antique Shop and buy sandwiches for lunch, or if there were something palatable in course of preparation, she would buy three portions and bring them upstairs to her friends. Not very often, though; for she was fastidious about food, and Miss Gosorkus’ methods seemed to her morethan questionable at times. She had to see it all done by Miss Gosorkus and the coloured cook before she would buy.
The mornings generally fled by in work of this unartistic nature, in marketing, in making up the cots, washing the dishes, and “attending to things.” After lunch was eaten and cleared away she would always sit down resolved to work earnestly, but often Lawrence Iverson came in, and while he was there, she dared not draw a line.
Perhapsthe very foundation of her satisfaction with life lay in Lawrence Iverson’s kindness. He would come swaggering up and talk outrageously, unpardonably to Enid, look with a groan over Miss Mell’s shoulder and call her work “filth for the hungry hogs.” But he would look at Rosaleen’s dress designs and simpering fashion plates quite seriously, and advise her, with wonderfully practical advice.
What most touched her though was his niceness to Miss Waters. The poor old thing was trapped one day, and couldn’t get away; had to stand there in all her preposterousness, in her fur coat and her battered hat, and allow that most elegant and critical artist to be presented to her. Rosaleen was frightened, thinking of Enid’s rudeness. But Iverson wasnotrude; on the contrary he was very polite, very friendly. He talked to her about Paris, and she was transported to the Seventh Heaven. Just to recall the names of the streets! (She didn’t know very much else of the city.) She went off with Rosaleen almost idiotic with pleasure.
“Lawrence,” said Enid, when they had gone, “you make mesick!”
“Why?” he enquired, twirling his little mustache.
“You’re a regular, old-fashioned stage villain,” she said. “All the trouble you’re taking—all the elaborate plots—to get that silly little kid.”
“Hold your tongue!” he said, flushing angrily. “Let’s have no more of your beastly female obsessions.”
Twodays later he came upstairs unexpectedly early, before lunch, and found Rosaleen peeling mushrooms in the dark back room. It made him furious; he swore at Enid and Miss Mell and called them beastly exploiters.
“Rosaleen,” he said. “Come downstairs with me and work.”
“Don’t you go!” said Enid. “He’s a villain. He has evil designs upon you.”
Rosaleen turned crimson.
“Oh, go along!” said Miss Mell. “It’ll do you good, Rosaleen. You can take care of yourself.”
“Of course she can!” said Enid. “All the little burgesses know how to do that. Lawrence, if you want to love Rosaleen, you’ll have to pay for her mushrooms all the days of your life!”
Hetook 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 lookeddifferent.... 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 thematterwith 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—youcouldn’tknow—how I hate anything of that sort.... Andyou!... I didn’t think it wasinyou.”
“It’sinall 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 aboutthat? 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.
Afterthat 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 itwasn’treally 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 fromLawrence. 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 youtellme?” 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.
Thetime 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.