It was 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 her forever,
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 she would 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 a _waitress_!
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
passionate sensitiveness 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.
“I _promised_ her I wouldn’t tell _anyone_!” she said, 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 want _you_ to 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 for _anything_! 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.”
“And what is that?” he asked.
“Oh,--a nice home and not too much worry--and a family, I suppose,” she
answered.
“Then you expect to go like this, indefinitely, although you admit
you’re neither happy nor useful?”
“I am a little bit useful--to Katie.”
“But I can’t stand it, Rosaleen, if you’re not happy. I’m going to make
you happy. I’m going to arrange for a divorce for you----”
“No, you’re not!” she cried. “I wouldn’t have it!”
“_Why?_”
“Because it’s a horrid, wrong idea,” she had insisted. “With his being
blind--and everything....”
You could never argue with that confounded woman. She never listened to
the voice of reason; she listened to something else--God knows what. And
every act in her life had to be in conformity with this subtle and rigid
authority. She never thought, she never puzzled, about what was right
and what was wrong; she simply knew at once, by instinct. And that was
the end of it. She lived by the rule of a beautiful propriety; she
would never do anything which did not befit her.
Nick had given up, long ago. And now, he had almost come to believe that
her way, if not _the_ right way, was certainly one of the right ways of
living, and that Rosaleen divorced would not have been quite Rosaleen.
Sometimes, when he grew intolerably lonely for her, or when the sight of
her in her white apron flying about waiting on other men incensed and
distressed him more than usual, he would rail at her “obstinate, petty
conventionality.” But she had none the less succeeded in making him
comprehend her point of view; not with words, because she was not gifted
with speech, but in some way of her own, her feeling that in divorcing
Lawrence and marrying Nick she would lose her own especial quality.
“It’s all right for lots of people,” she said. “I haven’t got any
particular prejudice against it. It’s only a _feeling_.... I--well, I
just _can’t_, that’s all.”