Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/470

 from those statues and sit down here and listen to me."

Roderick started, but obeyed with the most graceful docility, choosing a stiff-backed antique chair.

"What do you propose to your mother to do?" Rowland then enquired.

"Propose?" said Roderick absently. "Oh, I propose nothing."

The tone, the look, the gesture with which this was said were horribly irritating, and for an instant an imprecation rose to Rowland's lips. But he checked it, and was afterwards glad he had done so. "You must do something of some sort, you know," he said. "Choose, select, decide."

"My dear Rowland, how impossibly you talk!" his companion hereupon exclaimed. "The very point of the whole thing is that I can't do anything. I 'll do as I 'm told, of course, and be thankful, but I don't call that doing. We must leave Rome, I suppose, though I don't see why. We 've no money, and you have to pay cash, you know, on the railroads."

Mrs. Hudson surreptitiously wrung her hands. "Listen to him, please! Not leave Rome, when we 've stayed here later than any respectable family ever did before! It's this dreadful place that has made us so unhappy. If Roderick 's so relaxed it 's no more than I am, too, and it 's all the poison of the air."

"It 's very true that I 'm relaxed," said Roderick serenely. "If I had n't come to Rome I should n't have risen, and if I had n't risen I should n't have fallen." 436