Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/432

 woman, sir, and if the Saints above don't know all about me it is n't my fault. But had n't they, with their own very hands, just given me their reward? I would have lain down in the dust and let her walk over me; I would have given her the eyes out of my head if she had taken a fancy to them. No, she's a cruel, wicked, heartless, unnatural girl! I speak to you, Mr. Mallet, in my dire distress, as to my only friend. There is n't a creature here that I can look to—not one of them all that I have faith in. But I always thought everything of you. I said to Christina the first time I saw you that you were a perfect gentleman, a real one—different enough from some I could name! Come, don't disappoint me now! I feel so terribly alone, you see; I feel what a nasty hard heartless world it is that has come and devoured my dinners and danced to my fiddles and yet that has n't a word to throw to me in my trouble. The mere money I 've spent, all round, to do it—I could speak of that too if I cared!"

While this high tide was flowing Rowland had had time to look round the room and to see the Cavaliere sitting in a corner, like a major-domo on the divan of an ante-chamber, pale, rigid, inscrutable. "I have it at heart to tell you," he said, "that if you consider my friend Hudson—"

Mrs. Light gave a toss of her head and hands. "Oh, it 's not that! She told me last night to bother her no longer with Hudson. Hudson, forsooth! She did n't care a button for Hudson. I almost wish she did; then perhaps one might understand it. But she does n't care for anything in the wide world except to do her 398