“Not to-day!” he would say. “Wait till I’m alone.”
Enid used to jeer at this.
“Sent home?” she would say, when Rosaleen returned so promptly. But Rosaleen refused to resent this.
“Why in the world should he introduce me to his friends?” she asked. “He only knows me in a—oh, a sort of business way.”
“He doesn’t think you’re good enough,” said Enid.
“Maybe I’m not,” said Rosaleen, unruffled. “I dare say he knows lots of people who wouldn’t want to be bothered with me.”
Not Enid nor Lawrence, nor anyone about her could understand her attitude. They thought her humble, lacking in pride. Even Miss Mell advised her to assert herself more. Whereas it wasn’t really humility, or lack of pride or self-respect; it was her exquisite Irish sense of propriety. She knew exactly where she belonged. And she didn’t hesitate to place Lawrence higher than herself. He was an incomparably greater artist, he was much more important, much more clever. As for his moral worth, she didn’t take that into consideration. She never had made, she never would make, the least effort to judge the morals of other people. She had quite forgiven him his unique outburst, both because he was an artist and outside the pale, and because she liked him. She had more indulgence for him, in fact, than she would have had for her hero, Nick Landry. No doubt because she didn’t expect very much from Lawrence. She went ahead, enjoying his companionship without the least distrust.
He couldn’t have been nicer. To please her he even went so far as to go with her to Miss Waters’ studio. He had met Rosaleen in the street, on her way there.
“She’d be so awfully pleased!” Rosaleen told him. “She admires your work so much.”
He was good-humoured that afternoon, and lazy, indisposed for work; so he turned and walked along with her, like an opulent foreign prince in his impressive fur-lined overcoat and his soft grey felt hat pulled down over his swarthy brow.