Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/64

 it dispassionately, for I'm the only person in the place he has not quarrelled with."

"Has he then no companionship? Who's the Miss Garland you asked about?"

"A young woman staying with his mother, a sort of far-away cousin; a good, plain, honest girl, but not a person to represent sport for the artistic temperament or to minister to the joy of life. Roderick has a good share of the old Southern arrogance; he has the aristocratic temperament. He 'll have nothing to do with the small townspeople; he says they 're 'ignoble.' He can't endure his mother's friends—the old ladies and the ministers and the tea-party people; they bore him to death. So he comes and lounges here and rails at every thing and every one."

This youthful scoffer reappeared a couple of evenings later and confirmed the friendly feeling he had excited on Rowland's part. He was in an easier mood than before, he chattered less extravagantly and asked Rowland a number of rather primitive questions about the condition of the fine arts in New York and Boston. Cecilia, when he had gone, said that this had been the grateful effect of Rowland's eulogy of his work. Roderick was acutely sensitive, and Rowland's intelligent praise had steadied him: he had heard absolutely for the first time in his life the voice of taste and of authority. Rowland recognised afresh, recognised them as irresistible things, his personal charm and his presumable gift. He had an indefinable attraction—the something tender and divine of unspotted, exuberant, confident youth. The next day was 30