So, lordly and thoughtful, in his shabby overcoat and his worn shoes, he mounted the steps of the imposing house in which he was living—his aunt’s house. She had begged him to live there until he was “settled.” He had consented; he didn’t feel under obligations; he thought it was nice of her, but her duty. He would have been glad, in her place, to help a young Landry to get on his feet.
A respectful Negro butler opened the door, and he entered and went up to his own room—a handsome and well-furnished room, with bureaus and wardrobe and chest of drawers all lamentably empty. In the huge closet hung only a decent suit of evening clothes and some white flannel trousers, and in two of the bureau drawers lay piles of shirts and underwear which his aunt herself mended and mended. She wouldn’t have so much as suggested replenishing his stock; he would have felt himself grossly insulted.
He had left his beloved mother and sister in Charleston, where they were living with difficulty on a very small pension, and he took from them only an incredibly small sum, enough for carfares and that sort of thing, until he could be earning something. But though waiting was hard for them and hard for him, he would not be hurried. Until he could find a place which seemed to him advantageous, he would take nothing. He knew what he was about. Now was his chance, and perhaps his only chance, to look about him. He intended to make a good start, to go into a business in which he could stop. Let him only see an opportunity; he asked no more.
This evening his plan for the future was changed and enlarged. It contained, as always, lavish provision for his mother and sister, but it included Rosaleen. In the course of the next few years he was going to marry her.
He had, however, too much sense to mention anything of this, to hint at the existence of a Rosaleen, in that household. It wouldn’t be gallant. He was supposed to admire his cousin Caroline; not to the point of compromising himself; everyone knew he wasn’t in love with her. But while living there and seeing her every day, it wouldn’t, he felt, be polite to fall openly in love with someone else.
His aunt was a woman whom he thoroughly admired. Possessed of a gracious and charming worldliness, she had nevertheless the most severe morals, the most rigid code. She didn’t like New York or its people; she was shocked at almost everything; she said the women weren’t ladies and the men weren’t chivalrous; that the people altogether were vulgar and “fast.” But, she said, she was obliged to live there for the sake of Caroline’s studies. It wasn’t really quite that; however, her intention was natural and praiseworthy, and she did her best to accomplish her unspoken ambition for her child.
Nick Landry enjoyed living there. It was a well-appointed and well-managed home, with an air of perpetual festivity. There were always young men about, and theatre parties and dinner parties and little dances—all the charmed atmosphere of a home with a young girl in it. Mrs. Allanby had known how to make the place agreeable, even fascinating for young men. That was her part; to provide Caroline with a matchless setting. To see Caroline sitting at the piano, under a lamp with a shade of artfully selected tint, charmingly dressed, and singing in a voice a bit colourless but so well bred; to know that there would be punch—not too much of it, for Mrs. Allanby was vigilant,—sandwiches and cakes such as no one else ever had; and an air of flattering attention, an enveloping hospitality—wasn’t that a deadly snare? And Nick was the privileged guest, the man of the house. Of course he liked it!
So that evening while he sat there listening to Caroline sing, and thinking all the time of Rosaleen, he felt almost treacherous. And just a little proud of his well-concealed secret. He felt that his dark face was inscrutable....
Perhaps, he thought, at that very instant, Rosaleen too was sitting at the piano in her home.