I
At first he couldn’t believe it. He thought it was; he followed her for
two blocks; then he decided it wasn’t, and suddenly she had stopped to
look in a shop window, and he knew. He was shocked. This the pretty,
endearing kid of two years ago, this haggard, hollow-cheeked woman so
shabbily dressed, without gloves, with worn old boots, with that air of
haste and anxiety!
“Rosaleen!” he said.
She whirled round and looked into his face with startled eyes.
“Why!” she cried. “_Mr. Landry!_”
He took her little bare hand and looked down at her, distressed beyond
measure by the change in the poor little thing. But smiling, to hide his
disturbance.
“Where are you off to, in such a hurry?” he asked, “I’ve been trying to
catch you up for a long time.”
“I’m going home.”
“Still living up-town?”
“No; down in Washington Square.”
He couldn’t endure to let go of her hand, he couldn’t endure the thought
of losing her; the tenderness and affection he had felt for her two
years ago came back a hundredfold now. A tenderness that wrung his
heart. To see her so shabby, so thin, so anxious, and still with her
lovely, luminous grey eyes....
“Can’t I walk with you part of the way?” he asked.
“I was going in the ‘L’,” she said, doubtfully.
“But you’re not in a hurry?... Have you had lunch?”
“Oh, I couldn’t!”
“Nonsense! Come on!”
She wavered; and he instantly took advantage of her irresolution by
taking her arm.
“Please!” he said. “It’s Saturday, the one day I don’t have to hurry.”
And, so afraid was he of any silence between them, that he began to talk
about nothing; about how he had come up to Tiffany’s from his office, to
see about a watch he was having repaired. About how fine the weather was
for March, and how lively Fifth Avenue looked, and so on, until they
were outside the little restaurant he had decided upon.
“I can’t, Mr. Landry! I look too--awful!”
“Rosaleen, you couldn’t look awful. And if I don’t mind, I don’t believe
anyone else will complain.”
She followed him to a corner table and sat down, confused and
embarrassed, opposite him. She was so conscious of her bare hands, her
carelessly dressed hair. He ordered a substantial lunch, and then leaned
across the table, to look at her.
“You’re much thinner,” he said. “Why? You don’t look well!”
“I’m all right,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m not all right,” he answered. “I’ve never been all right since I was
fool enough to let you go.”
“Oh, no!” she said, with a bitter little smile. “Don’t pretend you’ve
been thinking of me all the time. I know better!”
“No,” he said, in his serious way. “I’m not saying I’ve thought of you
all the time. What I mean is, that I realised long ago--that you were
the--the right one--the only woman in the world for me....”
She smiled again, but with tears in her eyes.
“Let’s not be silly!” she said. “Let’s just be good friends.....”
“No!... Look here, Rosaleen.... I wish I could tell you how I feel....
At first, I’ll be honest--At first I was angry. I felt that you hadn’t
been fair with me.... I thought I’d forget the whole thing. But I
couldn’t. I wrote to you, twice. And then when you didn’t answer, I
thought--it was over. It haunted me. I promise you, Rosaleen----”
She laid her hand very lightly on his arm.
“Please--let’s not bring it all up again?” she said. “It _is_ all
over.... Tell me how you’ve been getting on. You look--splendid.”
And she really thought he did. He was well-dressed, he had a prosperous,
an important air; he was no longer a boy, but a man, and a mighty
self-confident man.
“I’m doing very well,” he said. “But I want to hear about you.”
“Oh!... I’m an artist!” she said, laughing. “A regular professional
artist.”
“Are you? It doesn’t seem to agree with you.”
“It isn’t the work that disagrees with me; it’s the not getting any
work. I’m poor!”
“Do you support yourself? Don’t you live with--those Humberts any
longer?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “You see ... I’m married.”
“_Rosaleen!_” he cried.
For a few moments he was silent, looking at her, filled with an immense
regret, a remorse that stifled him.
“Who?” he asked at last.
“An artist.”
“But--doesn’t the fellow support you? Doesn’t he--work?”
“He tries. But he’s nearly blind.”
“Good God! And you support him?”
“I do the best I can. Only I’ve been sick.”
“No!” he cried. “Rosaleen, this is horrible! What can I do to help you?”
“Don’t!” she said. “You’ll make me cry.... You--you make me so--so sorry
for myself....”
They couldn’t finish their lunch, either of them. Landry paid the check,
and they rose. But as she was passing out in front of him, he stopped
her.
“Rosaleen,” he said. “They have very good chocolates here. You used to
like chocolates. Let me get you a box!”
But now she was crying, and he hastily turned with her into a quieter
street.
“No cause for tears!” he said, cheerfully.
“I know it!... But I’m--I’m a fool.... I’m nervous, I guess....”
“I’ll take you home.”
“No, I’d _rather_ not, Mr. Landry!”
“Don’t you want to see me again?”
“Yes, I do. Any evening--this evening, if you like.”
He wrote down the address.
“But I don’t like to let you go like this!” he said. “I don’t think
you’re fit. Let me get you a taxi?”
“No, thanks, really I’m perfectly all right!”
She smiled at him to convince him. And with a long hand clasp they
separated. He stood looking after her, with a pity almost beyond his
endurance. So this is what she had come to! Shabby, hungry, running
about looking for work to support a blind husband. He could see before
him the kid in the sailor blouse, in Miss Waters’ studio....
The girl he ought to have married. He could have spared her all this. It
was _his_ fault, all of it his fault.