Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/123

 months as well as his own. As he looked back on these animated weeks he drew a long breath of satisfaction almost as of relieved suspense. Roderick so far had justified his confidence and flattered his perspicacity; he was giving a splendid account of himself. He was changed even more than he himself suspected; he had stepped without faltering into his birthright, and was spending money, intellectually, with the freedom of a young heir who has just won an obstructive lawsuit. His eyes still rolled and his voice quavered, doubtless, quite as when they had enlivened the summer dusk on Cecilia's verandah; but in his person generally there was an indefinable expression of experience rapidly and easily assimilated. Rowland had been struck at the outset with the instinctive quickness of his observation and his free appropriation of whatever might serve his purpose. He had not been, for instance, half an hour on English soil before he perceived that he was dressed provincially, and he had immediately reformed his style with the most unerring tact. His appetite for novelty was insatiable, and for everything characteristically foreign, as it presented itself, he had an extravagant greeting; but in half an hour the novelty had faded, he had guessed the secret, he had plucked out the heart of the mystery and was clamouring for a keener sensation. At the end of a month he offered his companion's attention a riddle that took some reading. He had caught instinctively the keynote of the general, the contrasted European order. He observed and enjoyed, he criticised and rhapsodised, 89