Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/388

 friend injustice in denying him the sentiment of duty. He refused invitations, to Rowland's knowledge, in order to dine at the sordid little table-d'hôte; wherever his spirit might be he was present in the flesh with religious constancy. Mrs. Hudson's felicity betrayed itself in a remarkable tendency to finish her sentences and wear her best black silk gown. Her tremors had trembled away; she was like a child who discovers that the shaggy monster it has so long been afraid to touch is an inanimate terror compounded of straw and sawdust, and that there may even be a gay impunity in tickling the absurd nose. As to whether the love-knot of which Mary Garland had the keeping still held firm, who should pronounce? The young woman, as we know, wore no such favour on her sleeve. She always sat at the table, near the candles, with rather a strenuous-looking piece of needlework. This was the attitude in which Rowland had first seen her, and he thought, now that he had seen her in several others, that, even when maintained with perhaps too deep a discretion, it was not the least becoming.