Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/464

 All this to Rowland was ancient history, but his perception of it stirred within him afresh at the sight of Roderick's sense of having been betrayed. That he, under the circumstances, was hardly the person to raise the cry of treason, was a point to which at his leisure Rowland was of course capable of rendering impartial justice; but his friend's present collapse was so absolute that it imposed itself on his sympathies. "Do you pretend to say," the interesting youth went on, "that she did n't lead me along to the very edge of fulfilment and stupefy me with all she suffered me to believe, all she provoked me, invited me, to count upon? It amused her to do it, and she knew perfectly well what she really meant. She never meant to be sincere; she never dreamed she could be. She 's a ferocious flirt, and why a flirt 's a flirt is more than I can tell you now. I can't understand playing with such a relation; for me it can only be a serious thing, but too deadly serious, whether to go in for or to be afraid of. I don't see what 's in your head, my boy, to attempt to defend such a person since you were the first, you 'll remember, to cry out against her and to warn me. You told me she was dangerous, and I pooh-poohed you. You were intensely right; you 're always so intensely right. She 's as cold and false and heartless as she's beautiful—which is saying all; and she has sold her heartless beauty to the highest bidder. I hope he knows what he gets!"

"Oh, my son," Mrs. Hudson plaintively wailed, "how could you ever care for such a dreadful creature?"

"It would take long to tell you, dear mother!" 430