Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/162

 hurt him. It was as if he were probing for safety. Well, he should have it. Rowland met this long look, and then his friend laughed. "Go and amuse yourself better too!"

Rowland grasped him by the hand. "I 'll do exactly what you desire. I shall miss you, I need n't assure you, and I dare say you 'll occasionally give a howl, even, for me. But I 've only one request to make—that if you get into trouble of any kind whatever you 'll immediately let me know."

They began their journey, however, together, crossing the Alps side by side, muffled in one rug, on the top of the Saint-Gothard coach. Rowland was going to England to pay some promised visits; his companion had no plan save to ramble through Switzerland and Germany as fancy should guide him. He had money that would outlast the summer; when it was spent he would come back to Rome and find the golden mood again awaiting him there. At a little mountain village by the way Roderick declared that he would stop; he would scramble about a little in the high places and doze in the shade of the pine-forests. The coach was changing horses; the two young men walked along the village street, picking their way between dunghills, breathing the light cool air and listening to the plash of the fountain and the tinkle of cattle-bells. The coach overtook them, and then Rowland, as he prepared to mount, felt an almost overmastering reluctance.

"Say the word," he exclaimed, "and I 'll stay with you." 128