Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/499

 in old keepsakes and annuals, from the vignettes on music-sheets and the drop-curtains at theatres; an Italy we can never confess ourselves—in spite of our own changes and of all the local perversions and the lost causes, as well the gained—to have ceased to need and to believe in. The companions turned aside from the little paved footway that clambered and dipped and wound and doubled beside the lake, and stretched themselves idly beneath a fig-tree on a grassy headland. Rowland had never known anything so divinely soothing as the dreamy softness of these early autumn hours. The iridescent mountains shut him in; the small waves beneath him fretted the white pebbles at the laziest intervals; the festooned vines above him swayed just visibly in the all but motionless air.

Roderick lay observing it all with his arms thrown back and his hands under his head. "This suits me," he said at last; "I could be happy here and forget everything. Why not stay here for ever?" He kept his position a long time and seemed lost in his thoughts. Rowland spoke to him, but he made vague answers; finally he closed his eyes. It seemed to Rowland also a place of irresistible persuasion, with the very taste of the lotus in the air. Suddenly Roderick turned over on his face and buried it in his arms. The movement had been a nervous spasm, but our friend nevertheless winced, on his jerking himself round again and sitting up, at the sight of his suffused eyes. Roderick turned to him, stretching out both hands to the lake and 465