Chapter ONE: I

She felt, really and actually, like a new person, and she looked like one, too. She was walking down Sixth Avenue, after an interview with the fashion editor of a big magazine who had said that neither now nor at any possible future time would he use any of her work. It was a sharp November day, and she was still wearing a thin suit, in the pocket of which lay a fifty-cent piece, borrowed from Miss Waters, all the money she had in the world. And still she was happy, profoundly happy. She walked briskly, staring candidly at whatever interested her, no longer trying to be ladylike, and feeling herself for the first time in her life an independent personality, not obliged to please anyone. And she was going home to a place where she was welcome, where she was encouraged and admired--in short, to Miss Waters’ flat.

Miss Waters had taken her in on that terrible evening without asking for a word of explanation. She had simply kissed her and suggested going to bed, and when Rosaleen was lying beside her in the dark, both of them fiercely wide awake, she said not a word, never put a question. The next morning she had got up early and made coffee and toast and brought it to Rosaleen as she lay in bed. At last she had heard the story and she was horrified. She quite agreed that Rosaleen had done well to leave Miss Amy, but being old and more cruelly schooled in the world’s ways, she had seen how much the girl was losing. A home, a roof over one’s head, and food and clothing--she knew the cost of these in money and in effort. She had gone, on her own initiative, to see Miss Amy, to see if she could not rescue something for her lamb. She never mentioned that interview to Rosaleen, and she had tried to forget it as soon as possible. It was a humiliating and complete failure; the European Art Teacher had had very much the worst of it.

She had then devoted herself to heartening this dejected and sorrowful young creature, and with amazing results. Rosaleen was now convinced that the world lay before her, to be conquered by her brush. Freedom from criticism and hostility transformed her. Miss Waters suggested various places where she might look for “art work,” and she went to them without timidity, was never discouraged by refusals. She knew that Miss Waters was glad to have her there as long as she wished to stay, and whatever expense she caused she expected to repay before long. Cheerful and pleasant days, these were. When she wasn’t out hunting jobs, she was with Miss Waters, drawing or helping her in her very easy-going and muddled housekeeping. In the evening they had dinner at little Italian table d’hôtes, they went to “movies,” or they worked at home together. Rosaleen made dress designs to show as samples of her ability, things so spirited and attractive that Miss Waters was surprised.

“I never knew you were so gifted, my dear,” she said. “I knew--I _always_ knew you had talent, but I didn’t know you were so _practical_.”

There was something else that surprised Miss Waters. She couldn’t comprehend how Rosaleen could be so cheerful, after what had happened. But the part of Rosaleen’s brain which was concerned with Nick Landry was shut, was sealed. She was dimly aware that some day she would have to open that door, and examine and comprehend what lay behind it. She knew that Grief was shut in there, and frightful Disappointment. Knew too that through that locked compartment lay the way to her heaven. But she turned aside her head. She went another road.

Cheerful and lively, her cheeks rosy with the winter air, she hurried through the twilit street, up the steps of Miss Waters’ old-fashioned house, and rang the bell. She waited a long time for an answer: she rang again, and still must wait. The flat was on the first floor; standing on the stoop she tried to peer in at the front window, but, unaccountably, the shade was pulled down. She rang once more, almost without hope, sure that Miss Waters must have gone out for a few moments; but this time the door clicked violently, and she entered. Miss Waters was standing at her own front door; she was dressed in a black lace tea gown, with a black jet butterfly in her fluffy white hair; she looked strangely elegant and exalted. And in a voice trembling with excitement, she seized Rosaleen’s hands.

“Many happy returns of the day!” she cried.

“Oh! It was sweet of you to remember it was my birthday!” said Rosaleen, touched almost to tears by the festive dress.

Miss Waters gently pulled her inside the door.

“Now!” she said.

And if she hadn’t a surprise party for Rosaleen!

The shades were all down, the curtains drawn, and candles lighted in the dusty, untidy little sitting room, and it had somehow a mysterious and fascinating atmosphere. It seemed quite crowded with people too, and when she entered they all came forward. There was only one whom she knew at all; Miss Mell, a stout girl in spectacles, who had been Miss Waters’ first pupil, years ago. She came with commendable regularity to visit her old teacher every two or three weeks, and Rosaleen had more than once seen her in the studio, sitting quite still and listening to Miss Waters’ talking, a kindly and amused smile on her face. Then there was a desperately lively girl who ran a tea room, and two agreeable young English women, and a disagreeable, sneering old gentleman with a goatee, whose name she never learned, nor whose business there. And an arrogant, handsome girl with a violin, who played something for them.

Assisted by Miss Mell, Miss Waters served them all with cake and wine and sandwiches, and then brought forth cigarettes, for the conversation which she expected to enjoy.

“They’re all people who _do_ things!” she whispered to Rosaleen.

They all conscientiously endeavoured to behave like a party of artists, to smoke and to talk about “interesting” things. And they created a very fair illusion. At any rate, it made Miss Waters happy.

Miss Mell was very friendly, so friendly that Rosaleen couldn’t help thinking Miss Waters must have told her her history.

“We’re just setting up as artists,” she said, sitting down beside Rosaleen. (They were the only ones not smoking.) “We’ve taken a studio on the south side of the Square, Bainbridge and I. We’re moving in to-morrow. And we want someone else to go in with us, to share a third of the expense. It’ll amount to about twenty dollars a month, a third of the rent, and the gas and telephone, and so on. And I wondered if you’d like to come in with us?”

“I should!” said Rosaleen. “But I couldn’t. I couldn’t afford it. I haven’t got on my feet yet.”

“We intend to work, you know. Hard! And I might be able to help you. Fashions, isn’t it? I know a lot of the people--editors and so on. I wish you would!”

“But--I haven’t a cent!” said Rosaleen. “Nothing at all. If I can find a job----”

“In an office? It’s a pity to do that, if your work’s any good. You have no time left for anything else, and you can’t get ahead. If you work hard, and once get a decent start, you can do far better as a free lance.”

“I know it!” said Rosaleen. “But you’ve got to be able to live while you’re _getting_ a start, and I----”

But the handsome and arrogant young woman had begun to play her violin again, and everyone became silent. It was music which had little to say to Rosaleen; it was austere brain music; but she was enchanted to watch the musician, the exquisite movement of her right arm and wrist, the delicate interplay of the fingers of her left hand, the faint, fleeting shadows that crossed her proud, fine face. She was, Rosaleen thought, very like a picture Miss Amy had of Marie Antoinette riding in the tumbrill.

The piece was ended, and they all applauded.

“That’s Bainbridge,” Miss Mell explained. “My pal, the one who has the studio with me. She’s absolutely a genius.”

Rosaleen regarded her with undisguised admiration.

“I wish I could come with you!” she said, regretfully.

II

Miss Mell and Miss Bainbridge were in that state of exhaustion in which any sort of rest or pause is fatal. They had agreed to go on working until they were really “settled,” with everything unpacked and neat. Enthusiasm had entirely gone now; they were working doggedly, and, secretly, without much hope of ever being done. Miss Bainbridge was on her knees before a packing case filled with papers, drawings, music, and that mass of letters, bills, and receipts one feels obliged to keep. Miss Mell was feebly cleaning out the hearth, which was quite full of the debris of the former tenants.

There was a knock at the door, and they both called out, “Come in!” but without interest.

It was Miss Waters and Rosaleen. Miss Waters beckoned mysteriously to Miss Mell, and they vanished into the back room.

“Have you got your third person for the studio yet?” Miss Waters enquired, anxiously.

Miss Mell shook her head.

“Then you can have Rosaleen!” cried Miss Waters, with triumph. “I’m so glad, for your sake, and for her sake. It’s an _ideal_ arrangement!”

And, seeing that Miss Mell looked only polite and not enthusiastic, she went on:

“You will just love that child! She has the disposition of an angel. Never a cross or disagreeable word. And after all she’s been through!”

“Yes,” said Miss Mell. “She seems very nice. We’ll be glad to have her.”

“You see,” Miss Waters went on, in a whisper. “Yesterday, not an hour after you’d left the house, a letter came for her from that beastly woman I told you about--that Amy Humbert. And in it, my dear, was a cheque for _five hundred_ dollars. It seems that the _nice_ sister had told her on her deathbed to give that to Rosaleen when she was twenty-one. She wrote--this Amy woman, I mean--that she wasn’t legally obliged to give it to Rosaleen, but that she felt it was a moral obligation, and that she always tried to do what was right, and more like that. _You_ know the sort of person, Dodo! Well!... The poor child was wild with joy.... And I advised her to come with you, if it could be done. Five hundred dollars will keep her for a long time, if she’s careful, and she ought to be earning a good living long before it’s gone. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I should think so,” said Miss Mell, thoughtfully.

“Then I’ll tell her!” said Miss Waters, and hastened into the big room, where Rosaleen stood, looking sheepishly about her. Miss Bainbridge had discouraged her attempts at conversation with no great gentleness and the chairs were all filled with things, so that she couldn’t even sit down.

“It’s all right!” cried Miss Waters. “I _am_ so glad!”

“Look round and see how you like it,” said Miss Mell, and they did.

The place seemed to them the very ideal of a studio. It was a dark old room on the south side of the Square, thoroughly dirty and almost past cleaning. There were plenty of mice and other more intolerable vermin, and a musty smell that no airing could banish. But, to compensate, more than to compensate, was the View, the Outlook, the sight of scrawny little Washington Square Park and a glimpse up Fifth Avenue through the Arch. Every visitor they ever had later on admired this view.

It had just the right sort of furnishings, too, left intact by the two former girl artists who were subletting it. Big wicker chairs and little feeble tables, a rug, small, dingy and expensive, a screen, a battered and stained drawing table, candles with “quaint” shades striped purple and yellow. And pieces of hammered brass which should have gleamed from corners but which did not gleam because they were too dirty and the corners were so very dark that nothing within them was visible. The place had altogether an aimless air, a look of being one part work room and three parts play room; it was frivolous in a solemn, pretentious sort of way, neither pretty nor convenient.

But to Rosaleen an enchanted spot, something which seemed to her more like home, dearer to her than any other place in the world. She loved it!

“I’d like to help,” she said. “What shall I do first?”

“The back room,” said Enid. “Otherwise we’ll never get to bed to-night.”

Rosaleen lifted the curtain and went into the back room where they were all to sleep and to do their cooking. A forlorn place, overrun with roaches, and containing two cots, a filthy gas stove, an old sink red with rust, and a dreadful mouldy little thing that had once been an ice-box. There was no window, no light except the gas high overhead. It was depressing, hideous, highly unwholesome, with an air of abandoned domesticity terribly distressing to Rosaleen. She couldn’t endure the thought of food being prepared and cooked in that dark and dirty place. But the others didn’t care at all.

They had got themselves some sort of lunch there before Rosaleen’s arrival; the greasy plates still stood by the sink.

“I’ll make you some tea,” she said, pitying their grimy and back-breaking labour.

She scrubbed out a rusty little kettle and set it on to boil; then she began to wash the dishes and to clean the cluttered, dusty shelf and to set out on it the provisions lying about in bags and boxes. She opened the little ice-box, devoid of ice and smelling most vilely, and saw in there a loaf of bread and an opened tin of milk.

“I wouldn’t _use_ that ice-box if I were you!” she called out, anxiously. “It doesn’t seem--nice.”

“All right!” Miss Mell answered, soothingly.

She made tea and brought it in on the lid of a box for a tray. But it was very poor, cheap tea and it smelt like straw.

“I don’t think it’s a very good brand,” said Rosaleen. “Why don’t you try Noxey’s?”

Miss Bainbridge looked up from her third cup.

“Look here!” she said. “My idea is that you should do all that sort of thing. We can’t and won’t. Mell, give her the money and let her buy everything.... And you’ll see we always have everything we need, won’t you? Things for breakfast, and so on? Dinner I suppose we’ll take outside. I will, anyway. You’d better go out now, I think. First look and see what we need, coffee, rolls, all the proper things. And wood: it would be nice to start a fire here this evening. We didn’t know where to get any.”

Rosaleen went, but she was not too well pleased with the tone of her new companion. And still less did she like her contemptuous indifference to Miss Waters, when she popped in later on to see if she could help. She was by nature resigned and patient, and her training had accentuated this; on her own behalf she would have endured a great deal from Miss Bainbridge. But she had a loyalty for her friends that was fanatical. Her heart had ached for her poor old friend, with her well-meaning sprightliness quashed. When she had gone, when she had called a quavering and gay “Au revoir!” from the foot of the stairs, Rosaleen had turned and resolutely faced the arrogant Miss Bainbridge.

“I----” she began. “I’ll ask you please--not to talk like that to Miss Waters.”

Her mouth was set grimly; she looked at that moment rather like her mother.

“Why?” asked Miss Bainbridge, coolly.

“She’s--she’s old, for one thing.”

“Old enough to die. No, Miss-What’s-Your-Name, I can’t be sentimental about your rather awful old friend. And we don’t want her bothering us here. The sooner she finds it out, the better. If you won’t give her a hint, I will.”

“No,” said Rosaleen, “I won’t.... And I won’t let you.”

“What!” cried Miss Bainbridge. “You won’t let me? Is that what you said? How do you propose to stop me?”

“Well,” said Rosaleen. “I--I suppose I _can’t_ stop you. But I can go away and not hear you. And I will.”

“Good-bye!” said Miss Bainbridge.

Miss Mell intervened.

“See here, Enid, my child, this won’t do! You mustn’t offend Rosaleen. Don’t be too much of a genius!”

“There’s no reason for her to be offended. She’s not personally responsible for Miss Waters. I’ve simply put my foot down about the old imbecile----”

“_But_ the studio belongs to all three of us,” said Miss Mell. “And Rosaleen and I want Miss Waters. It’s two against one.”

Miss Bainbridge had got up and was looking at them with an ugly, narrowed glance. But Miss Mell continued her unpacking, and Rosaleen, instead of quailing, met her look quite calmly. She couldn’t do much with _them_....

She made a real effort to control that unbridled temper, to subdue that fierce pride that could endure no slightest contradiction. She saw, as she could always see, where her own best interest lay; that if she wished to get on with these comrades, she must make concessions.

“Very well,” she said. “Have her, if you want.”

Rosaleen was not to be outdone in magnanimity.

“I don’t want you to be bothered,” she said. “I’ll try to keep her from interrupting your work the least bit. It’s only--if you please won’t be rude to her.... Because she’s really very nice.”

“But can’t you _see_!” cried Miss Bainbridge, with a sort of despair. “I’m not like you. If I’m surrounded by mushy, stupid, jabbering people, it--harms me! If I were kind to people like that, I’d ruin myself. You hear about people being killed with kindness. Well, a great many more people are killed--or destroyed--by _being_ kind. No one who amounts to anything can be so damn _kind_. It’s often necessary to be cruel; and it’s _always_ necessary to be indifferent. My job is to paint--to the very best of my ability. It doesn’t matter how Miss Waters feels. The world isn’t going to be any better or any worse for _her_ feelings.”

Rosaleen reflected for some time. Then she spoke, thoughtfully and firmly:

“I guess Art isn’t as important as all that!” she said.