I
Rosaleen’s great mistake lay in not telling him _then_. Because at this
time he wouldn’t have cared. At this moment she was still a romantic and
thrilling figure, not yet quite flesh and blood, still without flaw or
fault. Her pitiful history would only have enslaved him more completely.
And as he grew to know her better, he would have known her with this
fact, this history in his mind. Whereas, on the contrary, he was
beginning to love a girl who did not exist.
He saw her transcendent kindness, her absolute lack of egoism, her rare
and lovely spirit, but he called it and he thought of it as ladylike
delicacy. It was her soul; he thought it was her manners.
He walked all the way home, reflecting upon her, lost in a revery half
troubled, half delightful. A sweet, a wonderful girl--but obstinate. And
obstinacy he did not like. He was the most outrageous young tyrant who
ever lived. He ruled everyone, he always had ruled everyone. His mother
had never thwarted him, his sister had never rebelled; whatever friends
he had selected in school and college had followed his lead with
satisfactory submissiveness. He had the qualities of a leader; the
immense self-assurance, the severe determination to get his own way, and
he had that magic idea in his mind, which subtly communicates itself and
changes the very atmosphere, which enthralls all minds more sensitive
and therefore less positive--that idea of his own superiority. He came
of an old Carolina family, and he believed himself to be better born
than anyone about him; he had been successful in his studies, and he
believed himself to be cleverer than anyone about him. Appearance didn’t
trouble him; he didn’t think himself handsome, and he didn’t care. He
knew very well that he was attractive, and that people liked him. Even
the fact of being poor didn’t bother him. He wouldn’t stay so.
So, lordly and thoughtful, in his shabby overcoat and his worn shoes, he
mounted the steps of the imposing house in which he was living--his
aunt’s house. She had begged him to live there until he was “settled.”
He had consented; he didn’t feel under obligations; he thought it was
nice of her, but her duty. He would have been glad, in her place, to
help a young Landry to get on his feet.
A respectful Negro butler opened the door, and he entered and went up to
his own room--a handsome and well-furnished room, with bureaus and
wardrobe and chest of drawers all lamentably empty. In the huge closet
hung only a decent suit of evening clothes and some white flannel
trousers, and in two of the bureau drawers lay piles of shirts and
underwear which his aunt herself mended and mended. She wouldn’t have so
much as suggested replenishing his stock; he would have felt himself
grossly insulted.
He had left his beloved mother and sister in Charleston, where they were
living with difficulty on a very small pension, and he took from them
only an incredibly small sum, enough for carfares and that sort of
thing, until he could be earning something. But though waiting was hard
for them and hard for him, he would not be hurried. Until he could find
a place which seemed to him advantageous, he would take nothing. He knew
what he was about. Now was his chance, and perhaps his only chance, to
look about him. He intended to make a good start, to go into a business
in which he could stop. Let him only see an opportunity; he asked no
more.
This evening his plan for the future was changed and enlarged. It
contained, as always, lavish provision for his mother and sister, but it
included Rosaleen. In the course of the next few years he was going to
marry her.
He had, however, too much sense to mention anything of this, to hint at
the existence of a Rosaleen, in that household. It wouldn’t be gallant.
He was supposed to admire his cousin Caroline; not to the point of
compromising himself; everyone knew he wasn’t in love with her. But
while living there and seeing her every day, it wouldn’t, he felt, be
polite to fall openly in love with someone else.
His aunt was a woman whom he thoroughly admired. Possessed of a gracious
and charming worldliness, she had nevertheless the most severe morals,
the most rigid code. She didn’t like New York or its people; she was
shocked at almost everything; she said the women weren’t ladies and the
men weren’t chivalrous; that the people altogether were vulgar and
“fast.” But, she said, she was obliged to live there for the sake of
Caroline’s studies. It wasn’t really quite that; however, her intention
was natural and praiseworthy, and she did her best to accomplish her
unspoken ambition for her child.
Nick Landry enjoyed living there. It was a well-appointed and
well-managed home, with an air of perpetual festivity. There were always
young men about, and theatre parties and dinner parties and little
dances--all the charmed atmosphere of a home with a young girl in it.
Mrs. Allanby had known how to make the place agreeable, even fascinating
for young men. That was her part; to provide Caroline with a matchless
setting. To see Caroline sitting at the piano, under a lamp with a shade
of artfully selected tint, charmingly dressed, and singing in a voice a
bit colourless but so well bred; to know that there would be punch--not
too much of it, for Mrs. Allanby was vigilant,--sandwiches and cakes
such as no one else ever had; and an air of flattering attention, an
enveloping hospitality--wasn’t that a deadly snare? And Nick was the
privileged guest, the man of the house. Of course he liked it!
So that evening while he sat there listening to Caroline sing, and
thinking all the time of Rosaleen, he felt almost treacherous. And just
a little proud of his well-concealed secret. He felt that his dark face
was inscrutable....
Perhaps, he thought, at that very instant, Rosaleen too was sitting at
the piano in her home.