Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/302

 "Not a thousand a year." And Roderick put his hands into his pockets and looked as if he were considering the most colourless fact in the world.

"And in the light of your late interview, what do you make of your young lady?"

"If I could tell you that, it would be plain sailing. But she 'll not tell me again that I 'm a muff."

"Are you very sure you 're much stronger than she was willing to allow?"

"I may be as weak as a cat, but she shall never dare—she shall never care—to say it!"

Rowland said no more until they reached the Corso, when he asked his companion whether he were going to his studio.

Roderick started out of an absence and passed his hands over his eyes. "Oh no, I can't settle down to work after such a scene as that. I was not afraid of breaking my neck then, but I feel in a devil of a shake now. I'll go—I'll go and sit in the sun on the Pincio!"

"Promise me this first," said his companion very solemnly, "that the next time you meet Miss Light it shall be on the earth and not in the air!"

Since his return from Frascati Roderick had been working doggedly at the statue ordered by Mr. Leavenworth. To Rowland's eye he had made a very fair beginning, but he had himself insisted from the first that he liked neither his subject nor his patron, and that it was impossible to feel any warmth of interest in a work on which the baleful shadow of Mr. Leavenworth was to rest. It was all against the grain; he wrought without love. Nevertheless after a fashion 268