Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/77

 her last night that whatever I might do to my wife I would never beat my mother, and that as for brandy, raw or diluted, I detested it. She sat silently crying for an hour, during which I expended treasures of eloquence. It 's a good thing to have to take stock of one's intentions, and I assure you that pleading my cause, I became agreeably impressed with the elevated character of my own. I kissed her solemnly at last and told her that I had said everything and that she must make the best of it. This morning she has dried her eyes, but I warrant you it is n't a racketing house. I long to be out of it!"

"I'm extremely sorry to have brought things to such a crisis," said Rowland. "I owe your mother some amends; will it be possible for me to see her?"

"If you'll see her it will smooth matters vastly; though, to tell the truth, she'll need all her courage to face you, for she considers you an agent of the foul fiend. She doesn't see why you should have come here and set me by the ears: you're made to poison ingenuous minds and desolate doting mothers. I leave it to you personally to answer these charges. You see, what she can't forgive—what she 'll not really ever forgive—is your taking me off to Rome. Rome's an evil word in my mother's vocabulary, to be said below the breath, as you 'd repeat some profanity or tell a 'low' story. Northampton Mass is in just the centre of Christendom, and Rome far off in the mere margin, benighted heathendom too at that, into which it can do no proper moral man any good to penetrate. And 43