"Have you given them a fair trial?"
"Should n"t you say so? It seems to me I have behaved beautifully."
"You have done very well; I have been building great hopes on it."
"I have done too well, then. After the first forty-eight hours my own hopes collapsed. But I determined to fight it out; to stand within the temple; to let the spirit of the Lord descend! Do you want to know the result? Another week of it, and I shall begin to hate them. I shall want to poison them."
"Miserable boy!" cried Rowland. "They are the loveliest of women!"
"Very likely! But they mean no more to me than a Bible text to an atheist!"
"I utterly fail," said Rowland, in a moment, "to understand your relation to Miss Garland."
Roderick shrugged his shoulders and let his hands drop at his sides.
"She adores me! That "s my relation." And he smiled strangely.
"Have you broken your engagement?"
"Broken it? You can"t break a ray of moonshine."
"Have you absolutely no affection for her?"
Roderick placed his hand on his heart and held it there a moment.
"Dead--dead--dead!" he said at last.
"I wonder," Rowland asked presently, "if you begin to comprehend the beauty of Miss Garland"s character. She is a person of the highest merit."
"Evidently--or I would not have cared for her!"
"Has that no charm for you now?"
"Oh, don"t force a fellow to say rude things!"
"Well, I can only say that you don"t know what you are giving up."
Roderick gave a quickened glance. "Do you know, so well?"
"I admire her immeasurably."
Roderick smiled, we may almost say sympathetically. "You have not wasted time."
Rowland"s thoughts were crowding upon him fast. If Roderick was resolute, why oppose him? If Mary was to be sacrificed, why, in that way, try to save her? There was another way; it only needed a little presumption to make it possible. Rowland tried, mentally, to summon presumption to his aid; but whether it came or not, it found conscience there before it. Conscience had only three words, but they were cogent.
"For her sake--for her sake," it dumbly murmured, and Rowland resumed his argument. "I don"t know what I would n"t do," he said, "rather than that Miss Garland should suffer."
"There is one thing to be said," Roderick answered reflectively. "She is very strong."
"Well, then, if she "s strong, believe that with a longer chance, a better chance, she will still regain your affection."
"Do you know what you ask?" cried Roderick. "Make love to a girl I hate?"
"You hate?"
"As her lover, I should hate her!"
"Listen to me!" said Rowland with vehemence.
"No, listen you to me! Do you really urge my marrying a woman who would bore me to death? I would let her know it in very good season, and then where would she be?"
Rowland walked the length of the room a couple of times and then stopped suddenly. "Go your way, then! Say all this to her, not to me!"
"To her? I am afraid of her; I want you to help me."
"My dear Roderick," said Rowland with an eloquent smile, "I can help you no more!"
Roderick frowned, hesitated a moment, and then took his hat. "Oh, well,"
he said, "I am not so afraid of her as all that!" And he turned, as if to depart.
"Stop!" cried Rowland, as he laid his hand on the door.
Roderick paused and stood waiting, with his irritated brow.
"Come back; sit down there and listen to me. Of anything you were to say in your present state of mind you would live most bitterly to repent.
You don"t know what you really think; you don"t know what you really feel. You don"t know your own mind; you don"t do justice to Miss Garland. All this is impossible here, under these circ.u.mstances. You "re blind, you "re deaf, you "re under a spell. To break it, you must leave Rome."
"Leave Rome! Rome was never so dear to me."
"That "s not of the smallest consequence. Leave it instantly."
"And where shall I go?"
"Go to some place where you may be alone with your mother and Miss Garland."
"Alone? You will not come?"
"Oh, if you desire it, I will come."
Roderick inclining his head a little, looked at his friend askance. "I don"t understand you," he said; "I wish you liked Miss Garland either a little less, or a little more."
Rowland felt himself coloring, but he paid no heed to Roderick"s speech.
"You ask me to help you," he went on. "On these present conditions I can do nothing. But if you will postpone all decision as to the continuance of your engagement a couple of months longer, and meanwhile leave Rome, leave Italy, I will do what I can to "help you," as you say, in the event of your still wishing to break it."
"I must do without your help then! Your conditions are impossible. I will leave Rome at the time I have always intended--at the end of June.
My rooms and my mother"s are taken till then; all my arrangements are made accordingly. Then, I will depart; not before."
"You are not frank," said Rowland. "Your real reason for staying has nothing to do with your rooms."
Roderick"s face betrayed neither embarra.s.sment nor resentment. "If I "m not frank, it "s for the first time in my life. Since you know so much about my real reason, let me hear it! No, stop!" he suddenly added, "I won"t trouble you. You are right, I have a motive. On the twenty-fourth of June Miss Light is to be married. I take an immense interest in all that concerns her, and I wish to be present at her wedding."