Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/105

 that she was the daughter of a country minister, a far-away cousin of his mother, settled in another part of the state; that she was one of half a dozen daughters, that the family had scant means, and that she had come a couple of months before to pay his mother a long visit. "It 's to be a very long one now," he said, "for it's settled that she remains while I 'm away."

The fermentation of beatitude in Roderick's soul reached its climax a few days before the young men were to make their farewells. He had been sitting with his friends on Cecilia's verandah, but for half an hour past he had said nothing. Lounging back against a column muffled in creepers and gazing idly at the stars, he kept chanting softly and with that indifference to ceremony for which he always found allowance, though it had nothing conciliatory but what his good looks gave it. At last, springing up, "I want to strike out hard!" he exclaimed; "I want to do something violent and indecent and impossible—to let off steam!"

"I 'll tell you what to do, this lovely weather," Cecilia said. "Give a picnic. It can be as violent, it can be even as indecent, as you like, and it will have the merit of leading off our hysterics into a safe channel, as well as yours."

Roderick accepted with all affability her very practical remedy for his nervous need, and a couple of days later the picnic was given. It was to be a family party, but Roderick, in his magnanimous geniality, insisted on inviting Mr. Striker, a decision which Rowland still more genially applauded. "And