Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/200

 to herself that even a reigning sovereign has slighted her."

"Your report's as solid," Rowland said to Madame Grandoni, thanking her, "as if it had been drawn up for the Academy of Sciences;" and he congratulated himself on having listened to it when a couple of days later Mrs. Light and her daughter, attended by the Cavaliere and the poodle, came to his rooms to look at Roderick's statues. It was more comfortable to know just with whom he was dealing.

Mrs. Light was prodigiously gracious and showered down compliments not only on the statues but on all his possessions. "Upon my word," she said, "you rich young men know how to make yourselves comfortable. If one of us poor women had half as many easy-chairs and nick-nacks we should be famously abused. It 's really selfish to be living all alone in such a place as this. Cavaliere, how should you like this suite of rooms and a fortune to fill them with pictures and bibelots? Christina love, look at that mosaic table. Mr. Mallet, I could almost beg it from you! Yes, that Eve is certainly very fine. We need n't be ashamed of such a great-grandmother as that. If she was really such a beautiful woman it accounts for the good looks of some of us. Where 's Mr. Roderick, whom we all the other day fell in love with—we thought him handsomer than any of his figures. Why is n't he here to be complimented?"

Christina had remained but a moment in the chair Rowland placed for her, had given but a cursory glance at the statues, and then, leaving her seat, had begun to wander round the room looking at 166