Mrs.Hudson tossed her head and timidly bristled."This from you, Mr.Mallet!" she said with an injured air which Rowland found harrowing.
But Roderick, most characteristically, did not in the least resent his friend's assertion; he sent him, on the contrary, one of those large, clear looks of his, which seemed to express a stoical pleasure in Rowland's frankness, and which set his companion, then and there, wondering again, as he had so often done before, at the extraordinary contradictions of his temperament."My dear mother," Roderick said, "if you had had eyes that were not blinded by this sad maternal vanity, you would have seen all this for yourself; you would have seen that I'm anything but prosperous."
"Is it anything about money?" cried Mrs.Hudson.
"Oh, do write to Mr.Striker!"
"Money?" said Roderick."I have n't a cent of money;I 'm bankrupt!"
"Oh, Mr.Mallet, how could you let him?" asked Mrs.Hudson, terribly.
"Everything I have is at his service," said Rowland, feeling ill.
"Of course Mr.Mallet will help you, my son!" cried the poor lady, eagerly.
"Oh, leave Mr.Mallet alone!" said Roderick."I have squeezed him dry;it 's not my fault, at least, if I have n't!""Roderick, what have you done with all your money?" his mother demanded.
"Thrown it away! It was no such great amount.I have done nothing this winter.""You have done nothing?"
"I have done no work! Why in the world did n't you guess it and spare me all this? Could n't you see I was idle, distracted, dissipated?""Dissipated, my dear son?" Mrs.Hudson repeated.
"That 's over for the present! But could n't you see--could n't Mary see--that I was in a damnably bad way?"
"I have no doubt Miss Garland saw," said Rowland.
"Mary has said nothing!" cried Mrs.Hudson.
"Oh, she 's a fine girl!" Rowland said.
"Have you done anything that will hurt poor Mary?"Mrs.Hudson asked.
"I have only been thinking night and day of another woman!"Mrs.Hudson dropped helplessly into her seat again.
"Oh dear, dear, had n't we better go home?""Not to get out of her way!" Roderick said."She has started on a career of her own, and she does n't care a straw for me.
My head was filled with her; I could think of nothing else;I would have sacrificed everything to her--you, Mary, Mallet, my work, my fortune, my future, my honor! I was in a fine state, eh?
I don't pretend to be giving you good news; but I 'm telling the simple, literal truth, so that you may know why I have gone to the dogs.
She pretended to care greatly for all this, and to be willing to make any sacrifice in return; she had a magnificent chance, for she was being forced into a mercenary marriage with a man she detested.
She led me to believe that she would give this up, and break short off, and keep herself free and sacred and pure for me.
This was a great honor, and you may believe that I valued it.
It turned my head, and I lived only to see my happiness come to pass.
She did everything to encourage me to hope it would; everything that her infernal coquetry and falsity could suggest.""Oh, I say, this is too much!" Rowland broke out.
"Do you defend her?" Roderick cried, with a renewal of his passion.
"Do you pretend to say that she gave me no hopes?"He had been speaking with growing bitterness, quite losing sight of his mother's pain and bewilderment in the passionate joy of publishing his wrongs.Since he was hurt, he must cry out;since he was in pain, he must scatter his pain abroad.
Of his never thinking of others, save as they spoke and moved from his cue, as it were, this extraordinary insensibility to the injurious effects of his eloquence was a capital example;the more so as the motive of his eloquence was never an appeal for sympathy or compassion, things to which he seemed perfectly indifferent and of which he could make no use.
The great and characteristic point with him was the perfect absoluteness of his own emotions and experience.He never saw himself as part of a whole; only as the clear-cut, sharp-edged, isolated individual, rejoicing or raging, as the case might be, but needing in any case absolutely to affirm himself.
All this, to Rowland, was ancient history, but his perception of it stirred within him afresh, at the sight of Roderick's sense of having been betrayed.That he, under the circumstances, should not in fairness be the first to lodge a complaint of betrayal was a point to which, at his leisure, Rowland was of course capable of rendering impartial justice;but Roderick's present desperation was so peremptory that it imposed itself on one's sympathies."Do you pretend to say,"he went on, "that she did n't lead me along to the very edge of fulfillment and stupefy me with all that she suffered me to believe, all that she sacredly promised? It amused her to do it, and she knew perfectly well what she really meant.
She never meant to be sincere; she never dreamed she could be.
She 's a ravenous flirt, and why a flirt is a flirt is more than Ican tell you.I can't understand playing with those matters;for me they 're serious, whether I take them up or lay them down.
I don't see what 's in your head, Rowland, to attempt to defend Miss Light; you were the first to cry out against her!
You told me she was dangerous, and I pooh-poohed you.
You were right; you 're always right.She 's as cold and false and heartless as she 's beautiful, and she has sold her heartless beauty to the highest bidder.
I hope he knows what he gets!"
"Oh, my son," cried Mrs.Hudson, plaintively, "how could you ever care for such a dreadful creature?""It would take long to tell you, dear mother!"Rowland's lately-deepened sympathy and compassion for Christina was still throbbing in his mind, and he felt that, in loyalty to it, he must say a word for her."You believed in her too much at first,"he declared, "and you believe in her too little now."Roderick looked at him with eyes almost lurid, beneath lowering brows.
"She is an angel, then, after all?--that 's what you want to prove!"he cried."That 's consoling for me, who have lost her!
