Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/207

 a crooked path, it was no fault of his; he had given him, he would continue to give him, all that he had offered him—friendship, sympathy, counsel, patience. He had not undertaken to make him over.

If Rowland felt his roots striking and spreading in the Roman soil, Roderick also affected him as having flung all questions to the winds. More than once he heard him declare that he meant to live and die within the shadow of Saint Peter's and that he cared little if he should never again draw breath in American air. "For a man of my temperament Rome is the only possible place," he said; "it's better to recognise the fact early than late. So I shall never go home unless I 'm absolutely forced."

"What's your idea of 'force'?" asked Rowland, who had noticed from far back the unalloyed respect that he entertained for his temperament. "It seems to me you 've an excellent reason for going home some day or other."

"Ah, you mean my engagement?" Roderick answered with unaverted eyes. "Oh yes, of course there 's always that funny fact to be reckoned with. I call it funny, poor dear little fact," he went on, "because it savours so of Northampton Mass, and be cause Northampton Mass seen from here somehow is so funny. To work Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom into the same picture—the same picture of one's life as the Pincian and the Palatine—is rather a job. But Mary had better come out here. Even at the worst I 've no intention of giving up Rome for six or eight years, and a union deferred for that length of time would be too absurd." 173