Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/474

 few words of parting advice. "You 'll find the Villa Pandolfini very delightful, very comfortable. You ought to be very contented there. Whether you work or whether you do what you 're doing now, it 's a place for an artist to be happy in. But I hope you 'll work."

"I hope to heaven I may!" It was full of expression, but he might have been speaking of some interesting alien.

"When we meet again," Rowland said, "try then to have something to show me."

"When we meet again? Where the deuce are you going?" Roderick demanded.

"Oh, I hardly know; over the Alps."

"Over the Alps! You 're going to leave me?"

Rowland had certainly meant to leave him, but his resolution was not proof against this bare ejaculation. He glanced at Mrs. Hudson and saw that her eyebrows were lifted and her lips parted in delicate reprehension. She seemed to accuse him of a craven shirking of trouble, to demand of him to repair his cruel havoc in her life by a solemn renewal of zeal. But Roderick's expectations were the oddest! Such as they were, Rowland asked himself why he should n't make a bargain with them. "You want me to go with you?" he asked.

"If you don't go I won't—that 's all! How in the name of goodness shall I get through the next six months without you?"

"How will you get through them with me? That 's the question!"

"I don't pretend to say; the future 's a dead blank. 440