Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/455

 upon a sofa, where he lounged like a young Pasha bored with a state seraglio; greeting Rowland with hardly more form than if he had been one of the usual guards of such penetralia. The manner of his advent had visibly not been happy; Mrs. Hudson had seated herself near him in mute appeal, while Mary was sunk, up to her firm chin, in one of her eternal pretexts for the fine needle and the occupied attention.

Mrs. Hudson, however, instantly broke out to Rowland. "Oh, we have such comfortable news! Roderick 's now ready to leave Rome."

"It is n't decent to be too glad," said Roderick. "There is n't a harm this place can do us, or has done us, that has n't had something in it we shall ache for again in some better one."

She had but a wan stare for this perversity. "If you mean we shall never get over it—perhaps! And the proof may very well be in your looking so pulled down—whatever that may mean! Isn't he, Mr. Mallet, too thin to live? It shows in all your bones that you need a change. I 'm sure we 'll go wherever in the world you like. Where should you like to go?"

Roderick had let her take his hand, which she pressed tenderly in her own, but he looked at her from terribly far off. "Poor sweet old mother!", he said at last all gently, if very inconclusively.

"My own dear precious son!" Mrs. Hudson as responsively and as vaguely wailed.

"I don't care a straw where you go! I don't care a straw for anything!" 421