Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/160

 asked with a sympathetic inflexion and looking vaguely at the roughly-modelled figure.

"Oh, it 's all difficult bits! But it 's not the poor old clay. The difficult bit is here!" And Roderick struck a blow on his heart. "I don't know what 's the matter with me. Nothing comes; all of a sudden I hate things. My old things look ugly; everything looks asinine."

Rowland was at first, but only at first, disconcerted. He was in the situation of a man who had been riding a blood-horse at a steady elastic gallop and of a sudden felt him stumble or shy. But he bethought himself that if half the "lift" of intercourse with Roderick was his having fine nerves he himself had no right to enjoy the play of the machine—which was quite definitely what he did enjoy—without some corresponding care for it and worry about it. He immediately recognised the present hour as the very ground of his original act. He saw why he had risked it; he felt a flood of comradeship rise in his heart which would float them both safely through the worst weather. "Ah, you 're simply tired. Of course you 're awfully tired," he said. "You 've a right to be awfully tired."

"Do you think I 've a right to be awfully tired?" Roderick looked at him rather wanly askance.

"Unquestionably, after all you 've done."

"Well, then, right or wrong, I am dog-tired. I really must have done a fair winter's work. I want a big change."

Rowland declared that it was certainly high time they should have a big change, time they should 126