"Why did you never tell me all this before?""Because my affection was always stronger than my resentment;because I preferred to err on the side of kindness;because I had, myself, in a measure, launched you in the world and thrown you into temptations; and because nothing short of your unwarrantable aggression just now could have made me say these painful things."Roderick picked up a blade of long grass and began to bite it;Rowland was puzzled by his expression and manner.
They seemed strangely cynical; there was something revolting in his deepening calmness."I must have been hideous,"Roderick presently resumed.
"I am not talking for your entertainment," said Rowland.
"Of course not.For my edification!" As Roderick said these words there was not a ray of warmth in his brilliant eye.
"I have spoken for my own relief," Rowland went on, "and so that you need never again go so utterly astray as you have done this morning.""It has been a terrible mistake, then?" What his tone expressed was not willful mockery, but a kind of persistent irresponsibility which Rowland found equally exasperating.
He answered nothing.
"And all this time," Roderick continued, "you have been in love?
Tell me the woman."
Rowland felt an immense desire to give him a visible, palpable pang.
"Her name is Mary Garland," he said.
Apparently he succeeded.The surprise was great;Roderick colored as he had never done."Mary Garland?
Heaven forgive us!"
Rowland observed the "us;" Roderick threw himself back on the turf.
The latter lay for some time staring at the sky.At last he sprang to his feet, and Rowland rose also, rejoicing keenly, it must be confessed, in his companion's confusion.
"For how long has this been?" Roderick demanded.
"Since I first knew her."
"Two years! And you have never told her?""Never."
"You have told no one?"
"You are the first person."
"Why have you been silent?"
"Because of your engagement."
"But you have done your best to keep that up.""That 's another matter!"
"It 's very strange!" said Roderick, presently."It 's like something in a novel.""We need n't expatiate on it," said Rowland."All I wished to do was to rebut your charge that I am an abnormal being."But still Roderick pondered."All these months, while I was going on!
I wish you had mentioned it."
"I acted as was necessary, and that 's the end of it.""You have a very high opinion of her?"
"The highest."
"I remember now your occasionally expressing it and my being struck with it.But I never dreamed you were in love with her.
It 's a pity she does n't care for you!"
Rowland had made his point and he had no wish to prolong the conversation;but he had a desire to hear more of this, and he remained silent.
"You hope, I suppose, that some day she may?""I should n't have offered to say so; but since you ask me, I do.""I don't believe it.She idolizes me, and if she never were to see me again she would idolize my memory."This might be profound insight, and it might be profound fatuity.
Rowland turned away; he could not trust himself to speak.
"My indifference, my neglect of her, must have seemed to you horrible.
Altogether, I must have appeared simply hideous.""Do you really care," Rowland asked, "what you appeared?""Certainly.I have been damnably stupid.Is n't an artist supposed to be a man of perceptions? I am hugely disgusted.""Well, you understand now, and we can start afresh.""And yet," said Roderick, "though you have suffered, in a degree, I don't believe you have suffered so much as some other men would have done.""Very likely not.In such matters quantitative analysis is difficult."Roderick picked up his stick and stood looking at the ground.
"Nevertheless, I must have seemed hideous," he repeated--"hideous."He turned away, scowling, and Rowland offered no contradiction.
They were both silent for some time, and at last Roderick gave a heavy sigh and began to walk away."Where are you going?"Rowland then asked.
"Oh, I don't care! To walk; you have given me something to think of."This seemed a salutary impulse, and yet Rowland felt a nameless perplexity.
"To have been so stupid damns me more than anything!" Roderick went on.
"Certainly, I can shut up shop now."
Rowland felt in no smiling humor, and yet, in spite of himself, he could almost have smiled at the very consistency of the fellow.
It was egotism still: aesthetic disgust at the graceless contour of his conduct, but never a hint of simple sorrow for the pain he had given.
Rowland let him go, and for some moments stood watching him.
Suddenly Mallet became conscious of a singular and most illogical impulse--a desire to stop him, to have another word with him--not to lose sight of him.He called him and Roderick turned.
"I should like to go with you," said Rowland.
"I am fit only to be alone.I am damned!""You had better not think of it at all," Rowland cried, "than think in that way.""There is only one way.I have been hideous!" And he broke off and marched away with his long, elastic step, swinging his stick.
Rowland watched him and at the end of a moment called to him.
Roderick stopped and looked at him in silence, and then abruptly turned, and disappeared below the crest of a hill.
Rowland passed the remainder of the day uncomfortably.He was half irritated, half depressed; he had an insufferable feeling of having been placed in the wrong, in spite of his excellent cause.Roderick did not come home to dinner; but of this, with his passion for brooding away the hours on far-off mountain sides, he had almost made a habit.
Mrs.Hudson appeared at the noonday repast with a face which showed that Roderick's demand for money had unsealed the fountains of her distress.
Little Singleton consumed an enormous and well-earned dinner.
Miss Garland, Rowland observed, had not contributed her scanty assistance to her kinsman's pursuit of the Princess Casamassima without an effort.
The effort was visible in her pale face and her silence; she looked so ill that when they left the table Rowland felt almost bound to remark upon it.
