Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/482

 as unconsciously, he believed, and certainly as indirectly as before: he had made no apologies, and she had offered to remit no penalties. After that dreadful scene in Rome which had hurried their departure it was of course impossible that there should not be on the girl's part some frankness of allusion to Roderick's so pronounced and so public perversity. She had been present, the reader will remember, during only half this supreme demonstration of it, and Rowland had not seen her confronted with any absolute proof of the dependence of their friend's equilibrium on a crookedness the more or less in the tortuous progress of Christina Light. But he knew that she knew too much for her trust or her peace—even for the most indulgent view of her dignity: Roderick had told him, shortly after their settlement at the Villa Pandolfini, that he had had a "tremendous talk" with his cousin. Rowland asked no questions about it; he preferred not to have to take this knowledge into account. If the interview had but stirred the waters of bitterness he wished to ignore it for Mary's sake; and if it had sown the seeds of reconciliation he wished to close his eyes to it for his own—for the sake of that shy contingency, for ever dismissed and yet for ever present, which hovered in the background of his consciousness with a hanging head and yet an unshamed glance, and which had only, like a sentry in a narrow niche, to shift from one foot to the other, in order to become a fresh bribe to patience. Was the old understanding "off," or was Mary, in spite of humiliation, keeping it on?— 448