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.