Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/487

 "I can tell you very little. It came on with Mrs. Hudson's doing me an injustice—for the first time in her life. And now I 'm already better."

This scant passage confirmed for Rowland an impression he had tried positively to cultivate. He was but too aware of the shocked, scared element in Mrs. Hudson's view of her son's "sentimental" infidelity, but he was surer than ever now that the young man himself, much more than his wronged bride-that-was-to-be, had been marked by it for her indulgence. She was fond enough, obviously, of her serviceable little cousin, but she had valued her primarily, during the last two years, as an assistant priestess at Roderick's shrine. Roderick had paid her the compliment of asking her to become, at his later convenience, his wife, but that poor Mary's own, and her present, convenience was sharply involved appeared not to have occurred to his mother. Her understanding of the matter was of course not rigidly formulated, but it was as if she felt that Rodderick and she together sufficed as victims, without their counting in their kinswoman. It would be Rowland and Rome and the artistic temperament that had victimised them, but it would be the people naturally enamoured of Roderick most of all. He had been wretchedly upset—that was enough; and Mary's duty was to join her patience and her prayers to those of a disinterested parent. He might feel the force of charms greater than Mary's; no doubt women trained in the subtle Roman arts were only too proud and too happy to make it easy for him; and it was very presuming in a plain second 453