Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/353

 had n't already, as it seems to me, other lights, regard you as a very sick man. I can't imagine that if Miss Garland knew how sick she should n't at once feel that her place is at your side."

Roderick looked at him for some time darkly and askance. "Is there more in this than meets the eye?"

"More—?"

"I mean is it a deeper scheme than my poor wit can fathom?"

Rowland had come back to Rome with his patience reinstated, but these words gave it again a mortal chill. "Heaven forgive you!" he none the less resolutely answered. "My idea shouldn't surely be beyond your comprehension—though it ought, I think, to be beyond your suspicion. I 've tried to befriend you, to help you, to inspire you with confidence, and I 've failed. I took you from your mother and that young lady, and it seems to me my duty to restore you to their hands. That 's all I have to say."

He was going, but Roderick forcibly detained him. It would have been but a rough way of expressing the case to say that one could never know what particular reaction any touch of that young man would produce. It had happened more than once that when deservedly hit hard he had received the blow with a noble mildness. On the other hand he had often resented the lightest taps. The secondary effect of Rowland's present admonition seemed reassuring. "I beg you to wait," he said, "to forgive that shabby speech and to let me think it over." And he walked up and down and publicly considered. At last he stopped; the reign of all reason was in his face. It 319