Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/478

 a smile as vivid, though perhaps as treacherous, as some flaring mediæval torch, the signal to confederates without. A glance, a word, a motion, made her show her teeth like a friendly she-wolf. This formidable flicker formed her sole substitute for speech with her melancholy mistress, to whom she had been bequeathed by the late occupant of the apartment and who, to Rowland's satisfaction, promised to be diverted from the study of his predicament by the still deeper perversity of Maddalena's theory of roasting, sweeping and bed-making.

Rowland took rooms at a villa a trifle nearer Florence, whence in the summer mornings he had five minutes' walk in the sharp black shadow-strip projected by winding flower-topped walls to join his friends. The life at Villa Pandolfini, when it had begun to fill out its measure, took the rhythm of the slow summer days, during which nothing would have been more open to it than to confess itself charmed to patience. If it was under a sensible shadow this was because it had an inherent vice; it feigned an unconsciousness that it too scantily felt. Roderick had lost no time in showing how little he was still able to save, and as he was the central figure of the small group, as he held its heart-strings all in his hand, it reflected faithfully the eclipse of his genius. No one had ventured upon the cheerful commonplace of saying that the change of air and of scene would restore his spirits; this would have had, in the conditions, altogether too silly a sound. The change had clearly done nothing of the sort, and his companions had at least the comfort of their mute recognition. An essential spring had 444