Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/170

 There are a lot of Roman people here, English and American; I live in the midst of them and talk nonsense from morning till night. There 's also some one else; and to her I don't talk sense, nor, thank goodness, mean what I say. I confess I need a month's work to take out of my mouth the taste of so many lies."

These lines brought Rowland a due perturbation; the more that what they seemed to point to surprised him. During the long stretch of their comradeship Roderick had shown so little impatience to see what was vulgarly called life that he had come to think of that possibility as a cancelled danger, and it greatly perplexed him to learn that his friend had apparently proved so pliant to opportunity. But Roderick's allusions were ambiguous, and it was possible they might simply mean that he was out of humour with idleness and mere personal success—he could so easily have so much of that—and was fretting wholesomely over his absent work. It was a very good thing certainly that tried debauchery should so particularly not lead him on. Nevertheless the letter needed to Rowland's mind a key: the key arrived a week later.

"In common charity," Roderick wrote, "lend me a hundred pounds! I 've gambled away my last franc—I 've made a villainous heap of debts. Send me the money first; lecture me afterwards!" Rowland sent the money by return of post; then he proceeded, not to lecture, but to think. He hung his head—he was acutely disappointed. He had no right to be, he assured himself; but so it was. 136