Rosaleen among the artists

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

. . . . . . . . . .

A long time went by. Miss Amy had grown weary beyond endurance. And there stood Rosaleen, leaning against the wall, with her newspaper package under her arm, pallid, solemn, unconquerable.

Suddenly Miss Amy began to cry.

“Very well, you miserable, heartless girl!” she sobbed. “Go, then, if you will!”

Rosaleen went by her, out of the door, and down the stairs. And never again did Miss Amy set eyes on her in this world.

BOOK TWO: AMONG THE ARTISTS

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.