Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/108

 time," said Rowland. "But me perhaps you 'll never see again."

"Why then should we attempt to be friends, if nothing is to come of it?" she asked with homely logic. But by this time she had consented and they were treading the fallen pine-needles.

"Oh, one must take all one can get," said Rowland. "If we can be friends for half an hour it 's so much gained."

"Do you expect never to come back to Northampton again?" she went on with detachment.

"'Never' is a good deal to say. But I go to Europe for a long stay."

"Do you prefer that country so much to this?"

"I won't say that my preferences and reasons are all on one side. But I have the misfortune to be rather an idle man, and in Europe both the burden and the obloquy of idleness are less heavy than here."

She was silent for a few minutes; then at last, "In that surely we are better than Europe," she said. To a certain point Rowland agreed with her, but he demurred, to make her say more. "Would n't it be better," she accordingly asked, "to set at some work in order to get reconciled to America than to go to Europe just in order to get reconciled to sloth?"

"Doubtless, but you know work doesn't come to every one's hand."

"I come from a little place where it just does do that," said Mary Garland. "We all work; every one I know works. And really," she added 74