Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/178

 friend sigh with a sense of more contrasts than one. He had not been out of Italy, but had delved deep into the historic heart of the lovely land and gathered a wonderful store of subjects. He had rambled about among the unvisited villages of the Apennines, pencil in hand and knapsack on back, sleeping on straw and eating black bread and beans, but feasting on local colour, making violent love to opportunity and laying up a treasure of reminiscences. He took a devout satisfaction in his hard-earned results and his successful economy. Rowland went the next day by appointment to look at his sketches, and spent a whole morning turning them over. Singleton talked more than he had ever done before, explained them all, and told some honest anecdote, mainly comical and at the expense of his knowledge of "life," about the production of each.

"Dear me, how I've chattered!" he finally sighed. "I 'm afraid you would rather have looked at the things in peace and quiet. I did n't know I could talk so much. But somehow I feel very happy; I feel as if I had taken a kind of stride."

"That you have," said Rowland. "I doubt whether any patient worker ever took a longer in the time. You must feel much more sure of yourself."

Singleton looked for some moments with great interest at a knot in the floor. "Yes," he ventured at last to acknowledge, "I feel much more sure of myself. I know better what I 'm about." And his voice dropped as if he were communicating a secret which it took some courage to impart. "I hardly like to say it, for fear I should after all be mistaken. 144