CHAPTER THREE

“Dear Rosaleen:“You must not be offended when I say that I have noticed that you are in straitened circumstances. I hope you look upon me, as I look upon you, as an old friend, and you must allow me the privilege of helping you. Do not hesitate to tell me at any time if you think I can be of use.“Always faithfully your friend,“Nicholas Landry.”

“Dear Rosaleen:

“You must not be offended when I say that I have noticed that you are in straitened circumstances. I hope you look upon me, as I look upon you, as an old friend, and you must allow me the privilege of helping you. Do not hesitate to tell me at any time if you think I can be of use.

“Always faithfully your friend,“Nicholas Landry.”

And he enclosed a cheque.

When he had addressed and sealed the letter, he sat back in his chair and contemplated his surroundings with a frown. He had been writing at a little desk in the corner of the library; there beside the table in the centre of the room sat his august andbenevolent aunt, in her discreet black dinner gown, embroidering. Through the open door he could see young Caroline in the next room sitting before the piano, hands idle in her lap, her face upturned to the young man standing beside her.... It hurt him intolerably. Now, when he would have been able to give to his wife—not a setting quite so luxurious as this, but at least peace, dignity, and comfort, he was compelled to see this beloved creature in degrading and sordid poverty.

He had done remarkably well. He had had a small legacy from an uncle. His sister had whimpered a little when he refused to spare her the price of one new dress from it, but she had soon been brought to approve his severity. He had known where to place his money; it had gone into a growing young firm of ship brokers, and himself with it, and he saw ahead of him just the future he had planned.

The financial future, that is. But not the home he had imagined. He was not a man easily attracted by women; in fact, he rather disliked them. He was not impressionable, not emotional; he was one of those absurd and incredible creatures capable of loving one woman all through life. And not through any conscious and pompous effort, either. He saw plainly that he would never want anyonebut Rosaleen, and he saw, too, with equal plainness, that he could not have her. The idea of intriguing to win her from her husband never entered his head. He would not even say to himself that he loved her; he simply said that he regretted her, bitterly, profoundly. His point of view was either honourable or sentimental, whichever way you choose to see it, but it was sincere. He didn’t deceive himself; but he saw not the faintest danger of any catastrophe. He knew he could trust himself to go on seeing Rosaleen, just as he knew he could trust her. He was not at all afraid of this woman who borrowed money from him. Instead, he said to himself—

“Thank God I’ve got something to give her!”

Noanswer came to his letter; in fact, it was never answered and never mentioned by either of them. The cheque dropped into that bottomless pit which was their household exchequer.

A week later he decided to stroll down to the Square, and perhaps to visit Rosaleen.... It was a wonderful Spring evening, filled with that cruel promise, that hope never defined, never fulfilled, that wayward melancholy that is the spirit of everysuch hour. It touched Landry profoundly; the cries of the children at play sounded plaintive in his ears; he even saw a futile pathos in the street lights that glowed so blatantly against a sky not yet entirely darkened. There was a faint breeze blowing, and in the little park the swelling branches of the bare young trees swayed mildly.

He went upstairs, to find the studio door open and a party going on, the room crowded and turbulent. Lawrence recognised him at once, and welcomed him with delight.

“Just in time!” he cried. “Put your hat and stick in the back room and come in and get a drink!”

Still aloof and enchanted by the Spring night, Landry somewhat reluctantly obeyed, and pushing aside the curtain, entered that private apartment into which he had observed Rosaleen disappearing from time to time. A horrible little black hole with nothing in it but a wide bed with sagging springs that nearly touched the floor, and, all round the walls, hooks upon which hung the motley clothes of the household. Nothing else; no rug on the floor, nor a chair; evidently all the rest of their earthly possessions had gone into the big studio.

He laid his hat and stick on the ragged white counterpane, and returned to the party. The key to the situation was not in his hands; he saw noneof the pathos of it; he saw merely a crowd of noisy and vulgar people who were drinking too much, making too much of a row, dancing with abandon to the music of a wretched phonograph. Rosaleen hurried about, an anxious hostess, changing records, filling glasses, talking to this one and that; now and then she danced, but perfunctorily. No one paid much attention to her. She wore the same dark red silk smock and bronze slippers she had worn on the evening of his first visit, but by the garish light of four gas jets, he could see now how worn and shabby this finery was.

But there was a great deal which he could not see. He could not see the frightful fear of solitude in Lawrence’s heart which made him welcome this riff-raff, these people who could be raked in at an hour’s notice, lured by whiskey, by the perfect freedom allowed them. None of his old friends came any more, or Rosaleen’s. They had lost their footing, and they knew it well. But Lawrence didn’t care, so long as there was noise and life about him, so long as he was not alone. And Rosaleen, in her unbounded pity for him, would have watched devils dancing there with joy if it had given him comfort.

Landry was completely out of his element. He was really miserable. The punch was not good, the floor was sticky, the girls were hectic and peculiar;he was very anxious to get away, but without offending Rosaleen. He saw her hurry into the back room and, as he was standing near the curtains, it was easy to slip in after her, unnoticed.

“Rosaleen,” he began, but stopped in surprise. “Why are you putting on your hat?”

“I’m going out,” she said.

“It’s nearly eleven. Where are you going?”

“Oh!... To the delicatessen!” she cried, with the first trace of irritability he had yet seen in her.

“Now?”

“Yes, now!” she cried, and he was amazed to see tears in her eyes. “Why do youbotherme so? Let me alone!”

“I don’t want to bother you, Rosaleen,” he said. “But—if you’re going alone, let me come.”

“No,” she said. “You can’t. They’d all notice.”

“Let them! You surely don’t care for the opinion of that crew! And anyway, they’ll think I’ve gone home.”

She had got her hat on now.

“Come on, then!” she said, and led him through a door hidden by hanging coats and wraps, into the hall.

She went furiously fast, and they didn’t exchange a word all the way to Sixth Avenue. She entered a brilliantly lighted shop with a white tiled floor andadvanced to the high glass counter. And began ordering the most amazing list—soap, bread, pickles, salad, cake, bacon. It made a huge bundle. Landry tried to take it from her.

“No!” she said. “You said you were going home!”

“I’ll take you to the door first. Rosaleen, give me that package and don’t be so disagreeable! What’s the trouble?”

“I’mtired!” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nasty, Mr. Landry!”

She let him take the bundle, and they began to retrace their steps.

“Youarean extraordinary girl!” he said. “I can’t understand you. Do you always do your marketing a little before midnight?”

“I do it when I can!” she answered, with a sigh. “When I can get the money for it.”

“But—” he began, but stopped short. Had she got the money at that party? And from whom?

Hecouldn’t help talking about it. He began at breakfast the next morning, to his aunt.

“I’ve come across a very sad case,” he said. “Girl I used to know some time ago. And now she’s married to an artist—rather prominent in the past, but now he’s going blind. And they’re as poor as possible. What can you do to help, in a case like that?”

Mrs. Allanby reflected.

“Aren’t there societies, dear, to help needy artists?”

“They don’t want charity!” he said, with his quick frown.

“Whatdothey want?”

He regretted having brought up the subject now. But his aunt could not be stopped.

“Can’t the wife do something to help? Perhaps Ah could get someone interested in the case. If you’ll give me the name and address, Nick....”

“No! That’s not what I meant. I wanted you to think of some way thatIcould do something for them.”

“I don’t suppose they’d care where the help came from, dear boy....”

“ButIwould!” he said, angrily.

“Youwould?” she said, and then was silent, with a tact a shade too obvious. He was heartily sorry he had ever mentioned the thing.

His food seemed to choke him, when he thought of Rosaleen in want. He felt gross, decadent, pampered, when he thought of her running throughthe streets in her slippers, carrying immense packages. He began, ridiculously, to deprive himself of things. It somehow gave him consolation to make himself less comfortable.

He wrote to her again, and enclosed a larger cheque. (He the prudent, the practical!)

“Dear Rosaleen:“You must let me help you. If you won’t think of yourself, think of others. You will wear yourself out, living like this. Tell me how I can be of service.”

“Dear Rosaleen:

“You must let me help you. If you won’t think of yourself, think of others. You will wear yourself out, living like this. Tell me how I can be of service.”

This letter, too, was never answered, and when four days had gone by, he decided to go down there and see for himself how things were going. It was a bright, quiet Sunday and he had contemplated asking her to go for a walk, so that they could have a serious talk. But he found Lawrence sitting alone in the studio.

“Rosaleen’s gone out,” he said. “I’m alone, and you can’t imagine how I dislike being alone. Sit down and talk to me, won’t you? Of course I quite realise that I’m not the magnet, and so on, but nevertheless.... Eh?”

In common decency, Nick was obliged to comply.

“Do you know,” Lawrence went on, “one of theworst things about this thing is the monstrous jealousy it brings out. I’m jealous of Rosaleen. Not as a husband, you understand; I’m not capable of that. I’ve never been able to understand it. Why distress oneself so inordinately for the frail creatures? Why not expect the worst? No, I’m jealous of her because she can see and I can’t. And she doesn’t need to see.... I hate her for it, sometimes.... Good God!... I’m growing worse and worse. Everything is hazy now, as if there were a film over my eyes. It—maddens me. I’m always trying to brush it away....”

He groaned, and drew his hand across his forehead.

“Let me grumble, young man!” he said. “Try to listen to me with a little human compassion. Try to think what it means—not tosee.”

“Yes,” said Landry. “I knew two or three chaps in the army....”

“Oh, asses! Young, healthy lustful animals, filled with their illusion that they’ve saved the world with their blindness. Butme! What comfort have I? Landry, if I were God Himself, I couldn’t invent anything more exquisitely hideous than that—to make anartistblind! An artist, who lives—who feeds himself on colour, whose ecstasy is in a line,whose heart and soul are only to be reached through his eyes.... What an idea, eh?”

“Yes,” said Landry. “It must be pretty bad.”

But still he couldn’t help feeling more sorry for those young chaps he had known, blinded in the war, who had had to renounce all the pleasant ways of life. A fellow like Lawrence, with a brain, a fellow who couldtalk, didn’t, somehow, seem as pitiful to him as those inarticulate, suffering boys. Lawrence was queer, he was eccentric, and he no doubt had queer and eccentric consolations unknown to those others. He sympathised with Lawrence; certainly. But his mind strayed to Rosaleen.

Where had she gone? And with whom? He thought about it with growing uneasiness. At last he took the bull by the horns.

“Where has Rosaleen gone?” he asked, in a tone as Bohemian and casual as he could make it.

“With a new man,” said Lawrence. “A gentlemanly illustrator. Ah, well!... What can one expect?”

Just as Lawrence was beginning one of his terrible dissertations on cooking, there was a knock at the door, and a curly haired young man entered. He asked for Rosaleen without ceremony.

“Out with Brindell, taking a walk,” said Lawrence. “Sit down, Matthews, and have a drink!”

His manner was a curious blend of contempt and a terribly anxious hospitality. He despised these two young men, but he wished above all things to keep them there to talk to. Ambrose Matthews was a little more to his liking than Landry; he was able to see his point of view, and to discuss in all its subtle intricacies the anguish of the unfortunate artist. This never failed to astound Landry. He didn’t see what possible comfort it could be to Lawrence to dissect his sufferings, to describe so vividly as to re-live his most horrible moments.

“I should think you’d rather try to forget it,” he observed, rather bluntly.

Ambrose Matthews explained.

“My dear fellow, that’s the worst possible course. To repress, to conceal, and all that sort of thing.... What we need is to drag everything out into the sunlight. There the weeds will perish and the hardy plants thrive.”

“Sunlight doesn’t kill weeds,” said Lawrence. “I don’t talk for the benefit of my psyche, or my subconscious self, or my soul; I talk because it interests me.”

Landry got up.

“I’ll have to be getting along!” he said. “Will you tell Rosaleen I’m sorry I missed her?... Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

“You might run in next door and get me a package of cigarettes,” said Lawrence. “I’ve begun to smoke.”

Resentful and sulky, Landry did this, and when he returned with them, he found Ambrose Matthews waiting for him.

“I’ll walk a part of the way with you,” he said, and, as was his habit, took his companion’s arm.

“You haven’t seen Rosaleen’s latest, have you?” he asked.

“Latest what?” demanded Landry, stiffly.

“Latest—I don’t know what to call us. Latest One to Be Borrowed From. He’s the fifth, to my knowledge. And why do we do it? She’s not even grateful. It’s an interesting case.”

Landry withdrew his arm, under the pretext of lighting a cigarette.

“Not so interesting forher,” he said. “Poor girl!”

“It’s a sort of perverted sex instinct,” said Ambrose. “Her training has been so repressive that she’s afraid to accept love, so she substitutes money——”

“Rot!” said Landry, violently. “It’s nothing but an ‘instinct’ to get something to eat for herself and her husband.”

Then Ambrose said that it was perhaps a perverted maternal instinct.

“She ought to have had children,” he said. “As it is, she lavishes on him the maternal love she would have given to them.”

“She’s not perverted at all,” said Landry. “What you choose to call perverted is whatIcall—good.”

Butit worried him frightfully. He made up his mind to remonstrate with Rosaleen, and he wrote her another note.

“Will you meet me at the Ritz at four to-morrow? I want to talk to you alone for a few minutes, please.”

“Will you meet me at the Ritz at four to-morrow? I want to talk to you alone for a few minutes, please.”

At breakfast the next morning came her answer.

“Dear Mr. Landry: Please don’t ask me to do that. I never do. You can always see me here whenever you like.R. I.”

“Dear Mr. Landry: Please don’t ask me to do that. I never do. You can always see me here whenever you like.

R. I.”

This astonished him. He hadn’t expected any objection. He felt suddenly desolate and unhappy;he felt that he was not Rosaleen’s own particular friend, who could be permitted all privileges; she was treating him as she would any man; he was simply one of a crowd....

But he went, that same evening. The studio was crowded with people, most of whom he had seen there before. But there was one man whom he did not know, but whom he knew must be the gentlemanly illustrator. A well-dressed, nice-looking young chap, with a silent air of observing, not too favourably, all that went on before him. And his eyes followed Rosaleen all the time, and for her and her only he had a quick and subtle smile.

A feeling which he refused to recognise took possession of Landry, a rage that shook the very foundation of his self-control. He went over to the corner where they stood talking.

“You promised to talk to me alone!” he said, with a manner he had never used before in his life—an outrageous insolence. “Come out and walk round the park, will you?”

Brindell looked at him, at first astonished, and then very angry.

“Who the devil isthis?” he asked, turning to Rosaleen.

“An old, old friend,” said Rosaleen, hastily. “Excuse me, please, Mr. Brindell, just for a few minutes?”

“Come on! Put on your hat and coat!” said Landry.

Rosaleen shook her head.

“No; we can talk in here,” she said, and led him into the back room. “Mr. Landry, what made you so rude?”

“Do you borrow money from that—popinjay?” he demanded.

He was glad to see the shocked colour that rose in her thin face; he wanted and intended to be outrageous.

“You—haven’t any right to talk like that!” she cried. “I——”

“I have. I’ve lent you money. You’re under obligations to me.... Iwon’t haveyou doing this! Haven’t you any pride? Any self-respect?”

“Hush! Don’t talk so loud!... Oh, Mr. Landry, howcanyou!”

“Haven’t you any decency?” he went on, furiously. “You’re common talk, you and your ‘friends.’ I’m ashamed of you!”

“Mr. Landry!” she cried, amazed. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m disgusted!” he said. “I’m....”

He looked at her, standing before him, the harassed and solitary creature who had endured so much, who suffered such indignities without being overwhelmed. There she was, in her mountebank costume, her red smock, her bronze slippers, with her pale and anxious face.... He thought of the complexity, the mystery of these dealings she had had with men, and he hated her.

“I’mthroughwith you!” he said.

He pulled down his hat from the hook where he always left it, and opened the door into the hall.

“No!... Mr. Landry!” she whispered, clutching at his coat. “Don’t! Please don’t go like this!”

But he looked at her with a glance so scornful and full of loathing that she dropped her hands hastily.

But before he had got to the street door, she came running down the stairs after him; he heard the clop-clop of her slippers, which were too large and left her foot at every step.

“Mr. Landry!” she cried. “Please!... I don’t want you to misjudge me.... I thought you would understand!”

“I don’t!” he said, briefly.

“But what else can I do? How can we live?”

“Does your husband know that you do—this?”

“Of course!” she cried, astonished. “He’s the one who—he asks me to.”

They were standing outside the door of what hadbeen Lawrence’s old studio; the hall was entirely dark; he couldn’t see her at all. That made her voice seem quite different; it reached him a disembodied sound, miraculously sad.

“I never meant to tell anyone,” she said. “But now I’d like to tell you. It’s wrong. It’s weak. I ought just to do what I think right and not care if Iammisunderstood. But I can’t.”

She was still a moment.

“Let’s go into the tea room downstairs. Miss Gosorkus is upstairs and I don’t think there’ll be anyone there.”

Theysat there for hours, at a tiny table, in a corner of the dimly lighted shop, crowded with miscellaneous objects, embroidered smocks, brass candlesticks, pictures, books, curios, baskets. The red curtains were drawn across the windows, the door was closed; they were undisturbed, isolated during the course of that most pathetic of human struggles—that forever unsuccessful effort of one soul to explain itself to another. With utter earnestness, sincerity, with justice and compassion for Lawrence, Rosaleen tried to give Landry the story of her marriage. She had only one motive—that this man should not think her worse than she was. She felt that if he could be brought to seewhyshe had done this and that, he would no longer blame her. She wished to make him see how inevitable it had all been.

She began with the day that Lawrence had come to her room to kill himself. She and Miss Waters had tended him with frightened assiduity all the afternoon, but in vain. His malady was beyond their reach. His malady was despair. He had beenthrough an experience that day which had wrecked his soul. The doctor had told him that he was going blind, and that nothing could prevent it.

Terror had seized him. He had thought at once of the only person he knew who was capable of sustained and disinterested kindness, and he had fled to Rosaleen, to die in her compassionate presence. His attempt, however, wasn’t successful, whether from lack of knowledge or from reluctance even he himself never knew. He hadn’t really harmed himself at all; the blood-letting seemed in fact to make him feel better, to clear his brain. He could perfectly well have got up and walked off at any moment, but he preferred to lie with closed eyes, savouring his anguish. And permitting an exquisite sense of consolation to creep into his soul.

Rosaleen and Miss Waters worked desperately over him; they washed his face with cold water again and again. They made tea for him, and toast, and the smell of the toast revived him. He ate it, mournfully, still with his eyes closed. They bathed his forehead with Rosaleen’s cherished “Florida water.” Once Miss Waters laid her cottony-white head on his chest, to listen to his heart, but being too modest to unbutton his waistcoat, she didn’t obtain much information. However, she knew it was the thing to do, and it impressed Rosaleen.

He lay there for two days; a most embarrassing situation. Miss Waters came to stop with Rosaleen, and they slept on the floor of the studio, because Rosaleen said it might make him think he was causing trouble if they pulled the other cot out of the room where he lay. The thought of causing trouble, however, was not one of Lawrence’s worries. He would wake up in the night and groan, so horribly that Rosaleen and Miss Waters would cling to each other and weep. He asked for wines and delicacies which they could ill afford. But his selfishness made him all the more appealing to Rosaleen.

On the third day, late in the afternoon, he got up, bathed, shaved, and dressed. Rosaleen disposed him in the wing chair, and went to the corner to fetch cigarettes for him.

“What would you like for dinner?” she asked.

He said he didn’t care; anything nice....

“Won’t you take something now?” she entreated. “A nice hot cup of cocoa?”

“No; not cocoa.”

He sighed and once more closed his eyes, which frightened Rosaleen.

“WhatcanI do for you?” she asked.

“Stay near me!” he said. “Don’t leave me alone!”

“Of course I won’t!” she answered.

He stayed there in the studio for nearly three weeks, sitting about in his dressing gown, smoking and reading. One day he ordered a taxi and sent Rosaleen to the flat where he had been living, to fetch him a long list of things, including his painting materials, and when she returned, he set up his easel and began to work.

“I may have six months more, you know,” he said. “I can see almost as well as ever now. The colours aren’t quite so clear, perhaps....”

Rosaleen was delighted to see him taking an interest in something; she had for so long looked upon him as an invalid, almost unable to move, for whose recovery she was more or less responsible. She felt that this new interest in his work might serve to rouse him from that apathy which so distressed and alarmed her. She sat watching him, with affection, with admiration. He was singing to himself, in a deep, growling basso, and working just as she had seen him working in his studio downstairs.... When suddenly he flung down the brushes and fell on his knees, so heavily that the room shook.

“Oh, my God!” he cried. “I can’t bear it! I can’t live!... It’s goingfrom me!... Oh, let me die! Let me die...!”

She had rushed across the room and was on her knees beside him.

“Lawrence!” she cried. “Dear Lawrence! Don’t give way! Don’t take it so hard! They say that bl—that people who can’t see are very happy. You’ll find other things—allsortsof other things—to interest you!”

“Be quiet!” he cried, sternly. “Don’t dare to tell me such things!”

He rose heavily to his feet and went over to the window.

“If it had come at once!” he said. “If everything had been blotted out at one stroke, I could have endured it.... But to see it coming on, to know what’s going to happen.... No!” he cried, suddenly. “Iwon’tstand it! I won’t try!”

For weeks Rosaleen had no other thought but to try to comfort him. She was glad to use what remained of her five hundred dollars to buy him the things he wanted. His tastes were luxurious, above all, in matters of eating and drinking; he liked quail or sweetbreads for breakfast, and for dinner exotic things of which she had never heard before. And he wished a glass of good white port every day with his lunch. And what he asked for she got, if it were in any way possible.

Shemade no attempt to explain to Landry her reasons for marrying Lawrence. It had been with her purely a spiritual matter, a valiant effort at consoling him. The material aspects of the thing didn’t trouble her; she didn’t even regard it as a sacrifice. She knew that she didn’t love him as she had loved Nick Landry; she had felt for him only that kindly affection she was ready to feel for any human creature. But she believed that in marrying him she would be doing something worthy, something of use; that she would be serving God.

Lawrence didn’t know this; he honestly believed that Lawrence Iverson, even if he were blind and penniless, was a brilliant match for Rosaleen.

They were married at City Hall, with no friend present except Miss Waters, who wept all the time, and they went back to the studio, to take up their joint life there without any sort of festivity, any celebration. Lawrence had said that he could not stand it, that he was in no mood for that sort of thing; but as a matter of fact, he was ashamed of Rosaleen. He would have been proud to be her lover, but he was ashamed to be her husband. He didn’t mention that he was married to anyone; there were no announcements sent out, no notice in thepaper. No one sent a present, except Miss Waters; no one came to call upon Rosaleen.

Lawrence had been just emerging from Bohemianism to the respectability of success. He had lived with order and comfort; he had been invited about, flattered, more or less “lionized.” But he was not yet really established; he had no solid footing in that upper world, that “society” he so worshipped. He had no prestige to give Rosaleen, even if he had wished to do so. As a matter of fact, he carefully concealed the fact of his marriage from all these people.

The first invitation he got after the wedding was to a tea.

“You haven’t got anything suitable to wear,” he told her. “I’ll have to go alone.”

After establishing this precedent, he found it quite easy. He never suggested her accompanying him.

He was still fairly nice to Rosaleen in those days, although he was beginning to grow exasperated with her. She insisted upon being always his servant; never his friend, his comrade. She was always constrained; she never talked freely about what interested her; instead she was forever anxious to hearten and encourage Lawrence, to “draw him out”; she pretended to be interested in what interested him. He knew that she was prepared to endureeverything, to forgive everything, out of compassion, and it was intolerable. He could never reach her; he could never make any sort of impression upon her; the coarsest talk made no stain on her heart, no evil knowledge could disturb her; she was incorruptible, by reason of her divine stupidity.

His gentleness vanished; he allowed himself to be as irritable as he pleased. He could still see well enough, but he had been forbidden to use his eyes, and he was like a caged animal. He used to walk up and down the studio, groaning.

“How are we going to live?” he demanded, one day.

“I think I can get work,” said Rosaleen, promptly, “if you won’t mind being left alone part of the time?”

“Do it then! Do it!” he cried.

She tried, she tried faithfully, but her work was no longer good. She was too anxious to please. A blight had settled on her, her fancy was destroyed, her developing facility with her pencil was checked, and she had not had sufficient experience to go on without thought or effort, like a machine. She made next to nothing; and the day came, inevitably, when there was no money left. Lawrence had come home from somewhere in a taxi, and there hadn’t beenenough in his pocket to pay the tariff. He had come upstairs to ask Rosaleen for three dollars.

She had handed him a five dollar bill.

“It’s all I have,” she said. “All I have to buy dinner with....”

“What!” he bellowed. “No more? What do you do with what you earn? Eh?”

“I don’t earn very much, Lawrence. And I use it to pay for things——”

He went down and paid the chauffeur. Then he re-entered the room and went over to the table where she was working. He snatched up the card she had been painting—three fat robins on a telephone wire, with nine gold bells underneath bearing the letters ofMerry Xmas.

“Painting?” he said. “This is painting, eh? Good God!...Thisgoing on in the room withme!... Rosaleen, you are no longer an artist. It’s too blasphemous!”

He picked up her four cherished camel’s hair brushes and snapped them into bits; then he tore up her cards and took up all the debris he had made, together with her paint box and her blocks of paper, and threw it all out of the window.

“Finished!” he said. “Go back to your pots and pans, wench, and leave such matters to your betters!”

Ithad seemed to her sometimes that he was not a human being at all. She was not able to tell what was buffoonery and what was real. If there were anything real in him.... It filled her with despair; she wondered if she had really done him any good. And when she doubted that, there was no foundation left for her life. If it hadn’t helped him, then all her misery was in vain, the terrible years which stretched before her would be filled with a pain quite useless, quite barren.

Her health began to fail. The irregular life, the fantastic meals Lawrence insisted upon, the noisy parties which kept her up night after night until almost dawn, the unceasing anxiety and unhappiness were too much for her. She did her very best; she was kind, patient, and loyal; she struggled to stifle her dreadful regrets, her disillusionment, she clung desperately to the one belief that kept her from absolute despair, the belief that she was indispensable, that Lawrence needed her and could not do without her.

He had singularly few friends. He knew almost every artist of reputation, but casually. He had been engrossed in his desire to enter society, and he hadn’t troubled much with his colleagues. His chiefobject in “entering society” had been to find a rich wife; and although he knew that any such thing would now have been impossible, still he blamed Rosaleen in his heart.

At last he had started this infernal “borrowing.” And Rosaleen had consented. It outraged her pride, her self-respect, her dignity; but it didn’t seemwickedto her. She thought that perhaps it was her duty to sacrifice this pride and self-respect for the sake of her husband. One man after the other....

Landry interrupted her.

“Didn’t they ever make love to you?” he asked, brutally. “Didn’t they expect anything in return? Or were they all fools—like me?”

“I hardlyknow!” she said, wearily. “I never bothered.... I only had to get money....”

“Which you knew you couldn’t repay. That didn’t bother you either, did it?”

“Yes, it did! But I always hoped and hoped that some day I could, in some way. Mr. Landry, what was I todo?”

“There are women who’d rather die than be dishonourable.”

Her pale face flushed again.

“I wouldn’t have done it for myself,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought of such a thing.... But Icouldn’tlet Lawrence want!”

Landry stood up.

“Listen to me, Rosaleen!” he said. “There’s just one hope for you. Either you leave this demoralising, degrading atmosphere at once—or——”

“Or what?” she asked, with interest.

“Or else I’m done with you.”

She shook her head sadly.

“No,” she said. “It’s no use talking like that. I shouldn’t dream of leaving him, ever. I only wanted you to understand. I couldn’t bear for you not to. But I see that you don’t. Do you, Mr. Landry?”

“I don’t know!” he said, miserably.

They were silent for a very long time. The ceiling shook from the dancing feet in the studio overhead, but no sound reached them. They were completely isolated in there, behind the drawn red curtains. At last Rosaleen looked up.

“Anyway,” she said. “I think the best thing is—not to see each other any more.”

She waited.

“Don’tyou?” she asked.

He regarded her, the unhappy wife, the victim of so many peoples’ selfishness, and it suddenly occurred to him that after all, she wasn’t much more than a young girl. Only twenty-four.... The thought startled him. She was so young, so friendless, and yet so strong. She hadn’t gone under, she was not destroyed. What did that wretched “borrowing” amount to anyway? How had he dared reproach her with it?... He felt as if he could never take his eyes from that worn face, with its beautiful honesty and benevolence. After all, there must be some force in her forlorn youth that was greater than intellect, more irresistible than beauty, something indestructible, beyond his comprehension....

He turned away, dazzled by his vision.

“Yes,” he said. “Itisbest!”

Rosaleenwent upstairs to the studio, where the party was still going on. It didn’t seem possible; she felt as if days had gone by, almost as if she were a ghost coming back from another world. Nothing had happened, and yet everything had changed. Still the same row, the same love-making, the same hectic gaiety. Apparently no one had noticed her hours’ absence; she didn’t count, anyway, except to Mr. Brindell, and he had long ago gone home.

She went on with her superfluous hospitality. She was neither sleepy nor tired, nor was she in any way annoyed by the prolongation of the party. She was willing to continue indefinitely, winding up the phonograph, filling glasses, now and then dancing with a solitary man; she was in a waking dream, completely indifferent to the real world about her.

Lawrencewas sleeping soundly. Very cautiously Rosaleen got up and barefooted made herway across the dusty floor of the studio to a chair near the window.

It was very early, not yet five o’clock; before her lay the Square, lonely and calm under a pallid sky across which filmy white clouds went flying. She could see, faintly, the strong white arch and beyond it the long, misty avenue, where the rows and rows of lights still gleamed. Her mind was working rapidly and futilely, spinning like a wheel in a void. She saw everything, observed everything, with remarkable vividness. She heard two men’s voices come suddenly out of the early morning quiet, talking loudly in Italian, they began abruptly, from nowhere, with a ringing sound of footsteps; they disappeared as abruptly and left the square as quiet as before.

Yes; of course! It was Nick Landry she wanted to think about, that dear boy with his quiet laugh that was balm to her soul after the sneers, the guffaws, the hysteric shrieks she was obliged to hear every day. Nick with his fastidious ways, his reserve so like her own, with his divine youth.... She recalled with a smile his lean, dark face, his quick frown, his voice, his gestures. She allowed herself to dwell upon him, to think of him with undisguised tenderness and pain, because it was her farewell to him. He was like herself. He wouldnot come any more. He was like herself; they would not meet again; he felt as she did, about this, and about all other things. Thedifferencebetween him and all these others with their Right to Love, their Right to Happiness, their Right to One’s Own Life! Both Nick and herself considered above all the Right of Other People to exist unmolested—Lawrence’s Rights, for instance....

Lawrence had shouted with laughter over those cheques from Nick. He had called him a sentimentalist. He said, and Ambrose Matthews said, and Enid said, and so many of the others said, that sentimentality was the curse of the world; that muddle-headed, unreasoning sentimentality was what ruined people’s lives. That the thing to be desired, the great panacea, was clear-sightedness, was enlightened self-interest. And yet Lawrence existed through her sentimentality and that of the good-humoured fellows who had lent their money. It was sentimentality which had caused Nick to help them, which now caused them to part....

Rosaleen observed that this fiercely scorned and detested sentimentality very often caused people to act with the greatest nobility. While common-sense and enlightened self-interest seemed frequently to bring forth incredible baseness.

She thought of things quite new to her; she sawlife in a new, a larger way. She saw the desolate and bitter goal toward which her road led; and she was ready to set out on that road. It was the high moment of her life. It was the great triumph of her spirit, so horribly wounded, so valiant.

. . . . . . . . . .

She was startled by the harsh voice of Lawrence, and turning she saw him standing in the doorway of the back room, in his dressing gown.

“What the devil are you doing?” he asked. “Why did you get up at this time? It’s just struck five.”

“Nothing,” said Rosaleen. “Just—thinking. I couldn’t get to sleep again. I thought I’d like to sit by the window and get some air....”

He laughed.

“I see!” he said. “Well, it’s as good a time as any other for a little chat—a little explanation.”

He groped his way in and sat down.

“Now, then!” he said. “Suppose you tell me where you went with that fellow last evening, eh?”

She was startled. She hadn’t thought he had noticed. He had said nothing, even when all the people had gone and they were alone together.

“Oh.... Just downstairs to the tea room!”

“And why?”

“Oh ... to talk quietly!”

“To borrow money?”

“No.”

“Why not? We have nothing in the house. Why didn’t you borrow?”

“I—didn’t want to.”

“Why not? Has the worm turned?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

“Just philandering, eh? Noble, high-minded philandering? A few tears and so on, for him to pity you? So that he’ll pay without being asked? Hypocrite! Coward! Oh, you cheap, cheap worthless little coward!”

“Lawrence!” she said. “Don’t be so unkind!”

“You’re not unkind, are you? Eh? You try to make a fool of me in the most charitable possible way. Eh? It doesn’t touch my heart, fair Rosaleen, because I don’t care a fig for you, but I have still a vestige of pride left! Enough tocurseyou!” he ended, with sudden ferocity.

“Lawrence! You musn’t say that! You know I don’t make a—You know that I’m—loyal to you, always.”

“You lie. You sit there and tell that puppy how badly I treat you. He thinks you’re a martyr and I’m a bully. I’ve seen it this long time. The next time you see him you’ll recountthisscene, eh?”

“He’s gone. I’m not going to see him again.”

He laughed again.

“Gone, eh? Why? He got sick of you, I suppose. Who wouldn’t?”

“Hedidn’tget sick of me!” said Rosaleen, quietly, but with a quivering lip.

“Ah!... Of course not!... He thought it was his duty to go? That’s the way those good little boys get themselves out of an awkward situation.”

“No!” said Rosaleen. “I—wanted him to go.”

“But it wasn’tveryhard to get rid of him, was it?”

“Yes! Yes! It was!” she cried.

“Then why did you do it, may I ask? His money was extremely useful.”

“Lawrence!” she cried, in a sort of despair. “Don’t you realise that all people aren’t—like that? Don’t you know that there are somegoodpeople?”

“You mean yourself, I take it. You want me to realise how much better you are than me? Is that the idea?”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t mean myself. I meant him ... Mr. Landry. Thereare—good people.Heis good.”

“Do you love him?”

She was amazed and shocked.

“Do you?” he asked again.

She thought for a moment, and then she said, “No!” For it was not the love Lawrence meant.

“Do you loveme?”

“I—I don’t know, Lawrence....”

“Then why, may I ask, do you stay with me?”

“I—because I—want to do what is right. I want to be—loyal.... I want to—to help you.”

“You don’t. You’re not really any use at all. You’re so slow and thick-witted. You can’t even make a living. You borrow money for me, it is true, but that’s not so hard. I could do that better alone. I’ve only endured you out of pity, because if I turned you out, you’d starve to death—or, as they say in the books—you would meet with ‘worse than death.’ You’ve no character.”

“You’re going too far!” she cried. “I can’t stand everything!”

“Oh, yes, you can! Instead of pride, you’ve got your sanctimonious self-satisfaction. You cry instead of hitting back.”

She clenched her hands and stood, with blazing cheeks, and passionately beating heart, fighting to keep silent.

“Iwon’thurt him!” she told herself. “He’s blind and lonely. No matter what he says, I’ll remember that I’m all he has in the world, and that he needs me. Iwon’tsay anything that will hurt him!”

“What are you doing now?” he asked. “Praying? That’s right. Pray for a pure heart and then ask for a little money, while you’re about it.”

There was a long pause.

“Well,” she said cheerfully, at last. “Let’s not quarrel, Lawrence! Shall we have breakfast?”

“A little less of the martyr, if you don’t mind. I suppose it’s as refreshing as a Turkish bath, isn’t it, to feel that you’ve given up all for duty?”

“But I don’t like it!” he cried, suddenly, in a voice that startled her. “Your renunciations and your nobilities and your resignations, and all the rest of your bag of tricks, nauseate me. I don’t really believe I can stand you any more.”

He lumbered over to the window and threw it open. Rosaleen flung herself upon him in terror, imagining that he was going to throw himself out. But he pushed her away violently.

“Taxi!” he bawled, in a voice that reverberated through the street. “Taxi!”

The horrible, bellowing voice filled Rosaleen with panic fear.

“Please,pleasedon’t!” she entreated. “Please, please, please don’t! Lawrence! I’ll telephone for a cab! Oh,pleasedo come in!”

But he bawled again.

“Taxi!”

And a voice below answered him.

“Hey! Keep calm! Here y’are!”

“Wait!” said Lawrence, and drew himself into the room again.

“Lawrence, what are you going to do!” she cried.

“Get dressed!” he said, “and be quick about it!”

She began to put on her clothes with cold and trembling hands. By the time she had finished, he was quite dressed and fumbling at the familiar hook for his overcoat and hat. Then he pulled down Rosaleen’s jacket.

“Here!” he said. “Put this on!”

“Oh, Lawrence!” she cried. “What——”

He lurched over to her and flung the jacket round her shoulders, and grasped her fiercely by the arm.

“Come on!” he said, with a laugh.

“Where?” she cried, but he did not answer.

He shut her into the cab, and spoke in a low tone to the driver; then he climbed in beside her, and they started off.

“Lawrence!” she entreated. “Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for! Please, Lawrence, tell me where we’re going!”

But he never said a word. He lighted a cigar and leaned back, smoking, with a smile on his face.

She shook him frantically, she implored him; agreat terror had taken possession of her. She tried to open the door and jump out; she didn’t care if she were killed, so long as she could escape from this horribly smiling man. But he pulled her back with an oath.

They went on and on; she didn’t notice where. At last they stopped before a house and Lawrence got out, pulling her after him; he stumbled up the steps and rang the bell. He stood there waiting, still grasping Rosaleen by the arm, hatless, shivering in the cold mist. At last the door was opened by a servant.

“Here’s a lady to see Mr. Landry!” cried Lawrence, and with a push he sent Rosaleen stumbling inside. Then——

“I give you back your sacrifice!” he called, with a laugh, and was gone, slamming the door behind him. She could hear him shouting with laughter all the way down the steps.

Rosaleenstood where she had fallen against the hat rack, while the maid stared at her. She couldn’t speak or move; it came across her mind that perhaps she was dying....

“You better sit down!” said the girl, moved by compassion. “You look sick!”

Rosaleen sank into a carved chair with an enormously high back; and the maid, on her way upstairs to fetch Mr. Landry, looked back and saw her there, erect, her feet modestly crossed, her trembling hands resting on the arms.

But when Nick came rushing down, she had gone.

Anafternoon of unparalleled gloominess. It had been dark all the day long, and now toward evening a savage rain had come on, driven by a cold March wind. In his rain-coat and waterproofed boots he could in a way defy the storm, but it affected him nevertheless; it depressed him horribly.

He had been on his way home, a bit earlier than usual, sitting in the Elevated train and staring morosely out of the window at the drenched city, finding it uglier, colder, more sordid than ever before. When that curious impulse seized him, that longing he knew so well; it was a sort of spiritual thirst, an intangible desire to be assuaged by an intangible satisfaction. He got out of the train at Thirty-Eighth Street, instead of at Seventy-Second, where he belonged, and hurried east.

His destination was a little restaurant on Fourth Avenue, a compromise between the severe, white tiled cafeterias and Dairy Lunches, and the moreluxurious sort. It had separate tables and table cloths, curtains across the windows and a carpet on the floor. But was, nevertheless, very cheap, and, it must be admitted, somewhat nasty. Not the place one would have picked out for a man as prosperous, as fastidious as this one.

It was very early, and the place was empty. He opened the glass door and entered, went at once to a table in a corner and took off his dripping hat and his overcoat and hung them on a brass hat-rack beside which stood a great Japanese jar for umbrellas. A man of thirty-five or so, with a neat black moustache and a dark and saturnine face, well-dressed, in a conservative sort of way.

He didn’t sit down when he had taken off his coat; he remained standing, looking about him. And in a moment a waitress came hurrying over to him, a hollow-cheeked, brown haired young woman of thirty, her fragile grace encased in a stiffly-starched white apron.

“Hello!” she said, with a serious smile.

“Hello!” he answered. “I felt I had to see you.... Howareyou?”

“All right, thank you! What will you have?”

“Sit down for a while!” he said. “It’s too early to eat. Anyway I’ll have to go home for dinner.”

“You must take something!” she said. “Theywon’t like it if you just sit here without ordering.”

He picked up the menu, but after a frowning scrutiny, threw it down.

“Anything that’s not too poisonous,” he said. “And hurry back, Rosaleen, before the place begins to fill up.”

She returned presently with her tray, set his dishes before him, and sat down opposite him, leaning her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.

“You must have known I wanted to see you to-day!” she said.

“Don’t you always?”

“Yes, of course. But specially to-day. Because little Petey’s sick, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“Have you had a doctor?”

“Yes; but I don’t like him. I don’t think he’s much good. I want a better one.”

“I’ll see you get one.... What’s the trouble?”

“Fever,” she said. “And headache, and he’s sick all the time.... Poor little fellow!”

She stared ahead of her with troubled eyes.

“I can’t help being worried,” she went on. “The doctor says it’s just a bilious attack, but he’s been sick for four days, and he seems to be growing worse. Katie’s dreadfully upset.... I did wish I could speak toyou.”

“Why didn’t you telephone or write?”

She shook her head.

“I wouldn’t like to do that!” she said. “But I did hope you’d come soon.”

It was curious that they practically never looked at each other, these two. The proprietress, who had witnessed this friendship for the past five years, and with favor, because of the trade it brought, had often observed that. She had so often seen them sitting thus, at a table, looking past each other, and not speaking very much. It was her theory that they met outside, and that the man was a millionaire with a jealous wife, and that he adored her waitress. A romantic and delightful theory; she was not above recounting it as a true tale to certain friends. And it was especially nice because this most flattering attention didn’t at all unsettle Rosaleen; she was invariably prompt, careful and good-tempered, a little aloof, but that was no fault.

He didn’t touch his dinner to-night. He got up and thrust his arms into his overcoat again.

“Telephone to Doctor Denz as soon as you go out,” he said. “I’ll stop on my way home and arrange with him.... Try not to worry, old girl.... And you could telephone me at the office to-morrow, if you wanted.”

“Thank you, Mr. Landry!” she answered.

As he always did, he put the money for his meal and the tip under his plate in a guilty way, and went off. But at the door he turned again, and raised his hat. And Rosaleen returned a slight wave of the hand.

Itwas a day marked by Fate as an important one—as the beginning of a new phase. Landry, however, was not in the least aware of this. He went on his way, absorbed in thought, still very serious, but unreasonably consoled, as he always was by these absurd and inarticulate interviews with Rosaleen.

He still lived in his aunt’s house. He had, as he became more prosperous, made an attempt to set up an individual establishment with his mother and sister, but they didn’t like New York; they weren’t happy there; they pined for Charleston, and he had sent them back. And, in spite of his independence and his fastidious bachelor habits, he was very much alarmed at the idea of setting up for himself. He had pretended to his aunt and to himself that he wished to find a cosy little flat and a good valet, but he had never really looked for either. His aunt wished for nothing better than to keep him with herforever, the house revolved about him; he had a bedroom and a study, and he was waited upon like a Sultan.

By minute degrees and in a quite incomprehensible manner, he had become accountable to his cousin Caroline. If he came in late, he explained to her why, and where he had been. If he went to a dance or a dinner without her, he returned prepared to give her all the details. He even made an effort to observe and remember things about which he knew he would be asked.

Caroline was now twenty-seven, and as far as ever from getting married. She was a chilly, languid young Southron with a pallid, freckled face and beautiful fine gold hair; she had a sort of frigid charm which sufficed to attract men, but which couldn’t hold them. She had innumerable “beaux,” but she had never had a man seriously in love with her. It was a severe misfortune for her; she had no other aim, no other interest in life except marriage; her days were becoming flat and weary beyond toleration to her, and a fatal resentment against men was creeping over her. Her cousin Nick was perfectly well aware that she would have married him if he had offered, but that did not flatter him, because there were several others whom she would just as soon have had, and at least one whom shewould have preferred. He certainly didn’t love Caroline; he didn’t even admire her, but he had for her a genuine enough sort of brotherly affection and a small secret fear. He was never quite sure what she would do.

Everything went just as usual during dinner that evening; there was the same effort to entertain and distract the man which he had grown to consider a matter of course. If either his aunt or Caroline had sat at the table preoccupied or melancholy, he would have resented it deeply. Even a headache, if it permitted the sufferer to appear at all, must be accompanied by a wan smile and an air of interest. Then after dinner they went into the library, and as usual his aunt implored him not to work, but to rest and amuse himself, and complained that they saw so little of him. He was distrait, though, and anxious to get away to his little study where he could think in peace; he excused himself on the plea of work, and was making his escape when Caroline beckoned him into the little music room.

“Come here, Nickie!” she called, imperiously.

He obeyed, and she made him sit down beside her on the sofa.

“Ah’ve been hearing tales about you!” she said severely.

He smiled at her.

“Let’s have them!”

“Jim saw you. Ah’m shocked!... He was over on Fou’th Avenue last week, surveying, and he says he stopped in at a funny little place there for a bite of lunch. And there he saw you in a corner with one of the waitresses——”

“Pshaw!” said Nick. “If that’s the worst he can do——”

“He said she was a right pretty girl. And sitting down at the table with you....”

“Very likely. Why not?”

Now Caroline had considered this tale of absolutely no importance, when she began. She had simply wished to bring it up so that they might have a little gallant badinage. But now it looked otherwise. Nick was really annoyed, and something more than annoyed. He evidently wished to get away from her and not to speak of this episode. Nick and awaitress! It hardly seemed credible; and yet Caroline was ready to believe the worst where men were concerned.

She went over to the piano and began to play; her one sure refuge from any difficult situation, and while she played, Nick slipped out of the room. He was curiously disturbed. This was the first time in five years that anyone had got word of his interviews with Rosaleen. He shrank with passionatesensitiveness from any intrusion into this secret world, this intangible, ineffable companionship.

Five years! He lighted a cigar and sat down to contemplate it, with pain, with limitless regret, and yet finding a sweet consolation in their silent fidelity.

For five years he had had to watch Rosaleen living that barren and difficult life....

He recalled that day, when the parlourmaid had waked him up to tell him that there was “a lady downstairs to see you, sir.” A hatless, very pale lady, who had been pushed in at the door by a man who immediately disappeared. There was no trace of her when he got downstairs; he had gone out on the front steps in his dressing gown to look up and down the street, but without seeing anything. Directly he was dressed, he had gone to Lawrence, and Lawrence had lied impudently and borrowed money. He had said he didn’t know where Rosaleen had gone, or why, or if she would ever return.

He recalled his tremendous two weeks’ battle with Miss Waters. Day after day he had gone to entreat her, to bully, to cajole, to trick her into giving him Rosaleen’s address. And she had always wept bitterly and refused.

“Ipromisedher I wouldn’t tellanyone!” shesaid, over and over. “And you above all! Oh, Mr. Landry! I can’t!”

“Don’t you trust me?” he had demanded. “Do you think I’d annoy or persecute Rosaleen?”

“Of course I don’t!”

“If you’re really her friend,—if you’re thinking of her welfare, you’ll tell me where she is. She may need help.”

In the end he made use of a shameful device—a theatric threat which even now made him blush. He told Miss Waters that if she wouldn’t help him to see Rosaleen, he was going to kill himself; he had even brought an old revolver with him. And to save the life of this young hero, Miss Waters had told him the name of the restaurant where Rosaleen worked.

He recalled his first visit there; how he had sat at one of the tables, watching Rosaleen hurrying about, taking orders, carrying her heavy tray, submissive and alert....

He had waited outside for her for hours. But she wouldn’t let him take her home.

“I’m living with a married sister,” she had told him. “I’m perfectly all right there. But I don’t wantyouto come there, Mr. Landry!”

They had walked down Fourth Avenue and over into Madison Square Park, where they had wandered for hours that windy Autumn night. She had spoken quite freely about her own people, about her mother in Philadelphia, about this sister, the only member of the family with whom she had kept in touch. She was married to a shipping clerk, and there were three small children, the youngest of whom was Petey. And they were very poor.

“You must let me help you!” said Nick. “There’s no reason—no sense in your living this way.”

“No,” she said, very resolutely. “I wouldn’t! Not foranything! I dare say you didn’t believe me when I told you—that time—that for myself I wouldn’t have thought of—borrowing. But it was true. I’d rather be as poor as poor, and be independent. And have my self-respect.”

“But you don’t want to go on like this? Being a—waitress, and living like this. You don’t want to lose all that you’ve gained—to slip out of the class where you belong....”

“I don’t belong to any class,” she answered. “That’s the whole trouble. I don’t belong anywhere. I wish I’d been let alone. I wish I’d stayed like Katie.”

“But you——” he began, and ended by murmuring something about “education” and “advantages.”

“What good does it do?” she asked. “I’m not happy and I’m not useful. And in my heart I don’t want anything better—or even anything different—to what Katie wants.”

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