Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/100

 going. "I 'm sure you 'll be the best of friends to him; but if you should ever forget him or grow tired of him, if you should lose your interest in him and he should come to any harm or any trouble, please, sir, remember—" And she paused with a tremulous voice.

"Remember, my dear madam?"

"That he's all I have—that he's everything—and that it would be very terrible."

"In so far as I can help him he shall succeed," was all Rowland could say. He turned to Miss Garland to bid her good-night, and she rose and put out her hand. She was very straightforward, but he could see that if she was too modest to be bold she was much too simple to be shy. "Have you no injunctions to give me?" he asked—to ask her something.

She looked at him hard, and then, even though she was not shy, she blushed. "Make him do his best," she said.

Rowland noted the full tone, the ringing depth of voice—this young woman's was a perfect contralto—with which the words were uttered. "Do you take a great interest in him?"

"The greatest interest."

"Then if he won't do his best for you he won't do it for me." She but turned away in silence at this, and Rowland took his leave.

He walked homeward thinking of many things. The great Northampton elms interarched far above in the darkness, but the moon had risen and through scattered apertures was hanging the dusky vault 66