I
Nick crossed the room and sat down beside Miss Gosorkus, scowling and
pale.
“You’re _sure_?” he asked.
“Sure?” she repeated, enquiringly.
“About Iverson. About his being dead?”
“Why, of course, I am! I....”
“How did you hear of it?”
“A friend of mine in Paris....”
“Will you give me the address and let me write to her?”
“_Him._ It’s a gentleman,” said Miss Gosorkus with a smirk.
“Give me _his_ address then.”
He had taken out a note-book and a fountain pen, and sat waiting while
Miss Gosorkus somewhat reluctantly gave the information. Then he got up
and looked about for Rosaleen. She was not there. He approached his
aunt.
“Order a taxi when you’re ready to go,” he said, in a tone designed to
discourage questions. Then said good-bye curtly to Miss Waters, and
hurried off.
It was raining fiercely when he reached the street, but he felt
nevertheless obliged to walk. He set off across the Square and up Fifth
Avenue, a solitary figure in the broad and deserted street.
The barriers were all demolished. She was free--after all these years;
no obstacles separated them. And instead of joy, terror and alarm had
seized him. The idea of marrying her seemed monstrous. He didn’t want
to! And the more he didn’t want to, the more inexorably did he feel
obliged, compelled to do so without delay. It was a debt of honour, to
be paid instantly, without reflection.
He was determined to follow her home to that squalid and horrible flat,
and insist upon the earliest possible wedding. She would, of course,
have all sorts of tiresome and irritating objections which he would have
to override. He would have to be masterful, resolute, fervent, and there
was nothing of that sort in him. He felt singularly cold and aloof; he
felt the strongest sort of inclination to run away from the whole
affair. He said to himself that he wanted a “chance to think it over,”
but really he did not. He wished, on the contrary, to forget it, never
to think of it again. Romance had departed from his Rosaleen. She was no
longer tragic, pitiful, inaccessible. She was nothing more or less than
a very obscure and ordinary woman whom he was in honour bound to marry.
Quite suddenly he saw his folly, the outrageous thing this was, to waste
and ruin his life through this profoundly unsuitable marriage, which
would bring him nothing but unhappiness. What was he going to do with
her? He remembered her in the studio days, shabby, worn with humiliation
and distress, he remembered the shocking scene in the Humberts’ kitchen;
he remembered her--most painful memory of all--in the restaurant, in her
white apron, carrying her big tray.... He was ashamed of her....
He clenched his hands as he walked along, and his face was grim and
desperate. He remembered how he had loved Rosaleen, and love appeared to
him as something intangible and silly. What the devil did it amount to?
_Why_ must he do this? He had got on very well without her thus far....
Now he would have to change his life completely; he would have to leave
his comfortable quarters at his aunt’s and go off to live somewhere
alone with Rosaleen. As he was prepared to make this immense sacrifice
for her, he felt justified in dwelling upon the small and intolerable
details. What would his friends say, his business associates?... He
would be ashamed of her.... Barren and disgusting duty, flat and insipid
beyond measure....
He had reached the house on Third Avenue and entered it, rang the bell
in the vestibule and ascended the dirty stairs, in the dark and the foul
air. Katie opened the door for him, and admitted him grudgingly, almost
with hostility. She did not like him, and, like Rosaleen, her favour was
not to be won by benefits. No matter what he did for her and for her
family, she would _never_ like him, because he was condescending and
superior. She took him into the parlour, and he sat there for an hour,
quite alone, with one dim, ghastly jet of gas burning inside a fluted
blue china globe. At intervals the elevated trains came rushing past,
and blotted out every other sound and perception from his startled and
affronted brain; then in the lull he would hear Katie’s voice in the
kitchen talking to the little children. It was ten o’clock, but there
was no air of its being bedtime, or evening. The woman was still
working, the children still playing; one might have imagined their days
to be endless.
Sickened and depressed, and utterly disheartened, Landry got up.
“Please tell Rosaleen I’ll come again to-morrow,” he called.
It had cleared when he came out into the street again. He set off
homeward, wondering where Rosaleen might be. Did she, too, feel it
necessary to walk and to be alone? He was certainly not sorry to have
missed her; he was glad that he was to have an opportunity for planning
a proper, gentlemanly speech. He felt that if he were to come face to
face with her now he could say nothing better than--
“I suppose there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get married now.”
It never occurred to him to wonder how she was feeling, what she was
thinking. He was simply convinced that her attitude would be irritating.