Rosaleen among the artists

No sooner had she got inside the door than the tears began to fall; and all the way up the four flights of dark stairway they were raining down her cheeks. She had to wipe them away before she could see to put the latchkey into the lock.

Everything neat, orderly, familiar; just as she had left it a few hours ago, and all seeming in its blank sobriety to rebuke her for her desperate hopes. She went into her own bare and chilly little room and lay down on the cot there, sobbing forlornly, clutching in her hand the card he had given her--a sort of talisman by means of which she could reconstruct the enchanted hour of that afternoon. She remembered every word he had said, every detail of his appearance. And, recollecting them, wept all the more to think what she must forego.

“_Of course_, I’ll never see him again!” she cried. “I’ll have to forget all about him....”

But she knew that she could not forget him. It seemed to her that she had never seen so remarkable, so attractive a person. His face, when he had turned round, that thin, dark face with its haughty nose, the underlip scornfully protruding, the serious regard of his black eyes....

She had not particularly noticed him at first, except as a gaunt and rather shabby young man sitting on the bench behind her on top of the bus. She had been absorbed in watching Fifth Avenue, which had, on that bright October afternoon, the absurd and exciting festival air it so unaccountably assumes. She was solemnly happy, singing under her breath, looking down at the people, the shops, the motor cars that were going by; when there came a sudden violent jolt and the coin she was holding had leaped out of her hand and fallen to the street below. And it was the only one she had!

She had sprung up in a panic; ready to jump off the bus and walk all the long way home, but at the top of the little stairway she had met the conductor coming up.

“FARE!” he had said, with suspicion.

“I just dropped it--a minute ago!” she explained. “I was ... I had a quarter in my hand--and it fell out....”

“Oh, it did, did it?” said he.

“I’ll get off at once,” she said.

“Oh, yes!” said the conductor. “Of course you dropped it! But you just happened to be where you wanted to get off when you dropped it, though, didn’t you?”

She gave a miserable, deprecating smile, anxious only to escape from this humiliation, to get away. When suddenly that young man had got up, put a dime into the conductor’s register, and raised his hat ceremoniously to Rosaleen.

“Allow me!” he had said.

“OH! Thank you!” she had cried. “Thank you!...”

“Not at all!” said he.

She had resumed her seat on the bench ahead of him, and tried to look with exaggerated interest at the street. But she was terribly distressed. She felt that she hadn’t said enough--not nearly enough. Surely she ought at least to suggest repaying him, or something of that sort;--not to sit there and ride along, with her back turned to him.

And though of course she couldn’t know it, he was just as troubled. He had heard her say that she had dropped a quarter, and it occurred to him that she might very well need the rest of it badly, for more carfare, perhaps, or something else very necessary.... In the course of time the idea became intolerable. He leaned forward and touched her gently on the shoulder; and she had turned to regard him with alarmed grey eyes.

“I beg your pardon...” he began. “But ... I’d be very glad ... if you would permit me....”

He saw that she didn’t comprehend.

“I overheard you say that it was a quarter you had dropped,” he said. “If you--perhaps you particularly wanted the change...?”

“Oh!... No!... No, thank you very much, indeed, but I don’t. I’m going right home. I--No, thank you just the same!”

She was so immeasurably grateful that she could not bear to turn her back on him; she faced him, confused, but smiling, passionately anxious to be nice to one who had been so nice to her.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” she had said.

“Yes, it is!” said he. “Very!”

She kept on smiling, but it was a strained and wretched smile, and the colour in her cheeks deepened. A ridiculous, an intolerable situation! She couldn’t keep on in that way, twisted half round in her seat, and smiling and smiling.... She had to turn away.

But a little later she turned back again.

“Isn’t that florist’s window lovely?” she had said.

“Yes, it is!” he answered. “Very!”

He, too, wished to be nice, but couldn’t; and once she had resumed her normal position, although then he thought of a number of things he wished to say, he couldn’t suddenly make remarks to her back. Neither could he touch her on the shoulder again, for he considered that would be vulgar. So after much thought, he finally got up and standing beside her and holding fast to the back of the seat to keep his footing on the lurching deck, he asked her if she could tell him what building that was?

She did so, gladly.

“I haven’t been in the city long,” he said, with a chivalrous desire to give her information about himself. “I’m from Charleston.”

“Oh, are you? Do you like it here?”

“No,” he answered, promptly. “Not much.”

She was a little taken aback at that, and while she was thinking of a polite rejoinder, the young man had taken from his pocket a leather case, and was proffering a card.

MR. NICHOLAS LANDRY.

“Thank you!” she murmured.

He waited a moment, hoping perhaps for some sort of reciprocation, but none came. So--

“May I sit down?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, do!” she answered.

A long time seemed to go by.