Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/115

, he found the girl leaning against a tree while her cousin stood before her and talked with great emphasis. He asked pardon for interrupting them and said he wished only to bid her good-bye. She gave him her hand, and he held it an instant without a word. "Don't forget," he said to Roderick as he turned away. "And don't, in this company, repent of your bargain."

"I shall not let him," said Mary Garland, with a nearer approach to reckless cheer than he had yet heard on her lips. "I shall see that he 's punctual. He must go! I owe you an apology for having doubted that he ought to go!" And her face, in the summer dusk, was new and vague and handsome.

Roderick was punctual, eagerly punctual, and they went. Rowland for several days was occupied with material cares and lost sight of his accepted obsession. But the questions lurking in it only slumbered and they were sharply shaken up. The weather was fine, and the two young men always sat together upon deck late into the evening. One night, towards the last, they were at the stern of the great ship, watching her grind the solid blackness of the ocean into phosphorescent foam. They talked on these occasions of everything conceivable and had the air of having no secrets from each other. But it was on Roderick's conscience that this air belied him, and he was moreover too full of his native claims for any permanent reticence.

"I must tell you something," he broke out at last. "I should like you to know it, and you'll be so glad to know it. Besides, it 's only a question of 81