'It seems to you very strange, I suppose,' said Rowland, 'that there should be any trouble in such a world as this.'
'I used to think,' she answered, 'that if any trouble came to me I would bear it like a stoic. But that was at home, where things don't speak to us of enjoyment as they do here. Here it is such a mixture; one does n't know what to choose, what to believe. Beauty stands there—beauty such as this night and this place, and all this sad, strange summer, have been so full of—and it penetrates to one's soul and lodges there, and keeps saying that man was not made to suffer, but to enjoy. This place has undermined my stoicism, but—shall I tell you? I feel as if I were saying something sinful—I love it!'
'If it is sinful, I absolve you,' said Rowland, 'in so far as I have power. We are made, I suppose, both to suffer and to enjoy. As you say, it 's a mixture. Just now and here, it seems a peculiarly strange one. But we must take things in turn.'
His words had a singular aptness, for he had hardly uttered them when Roderick came out from the house, evidently in his darkest mood. He stood for a moment gazing hard at the view.
'It 's a very beautiful night, my son,' said his mother, going to him timidly, and touching his arm.
He passed his hand through his hair and let it stay there, clasping his thick locks. 'Beautiful?' he cried; 'of course it 's beautiful! Everything is beautiful; everything is insolent, defiant, atrocious with beauty. Nothing is ugly but me—me and my poor dead brain!'
'Oh, my dearest son,' pleaded poor Mrs. Hudson, 'don't you feel any better?'
Roderick made no immediate answer; but at last he spoke in a different voice. 'I came expressly to tell you that you need n't trouble yourselves any longer to wait for something to turn up. Nothing will turn up! It 's all over! I said when I came here I would give it a chance. I have given it a chance. Have n't I, eh? Have n't I, Rowland? It 's no use; the thing 's a failure! Do with me now what you please. I recommend you to set me up there at the end of the garden and shoot me.'
'I feel strongly inclined,' said Rowland gravely, 'to go and get my revolver.'
'Oh, mercy on us, what language!' cried Mrs. Hudson.
'Why not?' Roderick went on. 'This would be a lovely night for it, and I should be a lucky fellow to be buried in this garden. But bury me alive, if you prefer. Take me back to Northampton.'
'Roderick, will you really come?' cried his mother.
'Oh yes, I 'll go! I might as well be there as anywhere—reverting to idiocy and living upon alms. I can do nothing with all this; perhaps I should really like Northampton. If I 'm to vegetate for the rest of my days, I can do it there better than here.'
'Oh, come home, come home,' Mrs. Hudson said, 'and we shall all be safe and quiet and happy. My dearest son, come home with your poor mother!'
'Let us go, then, and go quickly!'
Mrs. Hudson flung herself upon his neck for gratitude. 'We 'll go to-morrow!' she cried. 'The Lord is very good to me!'
Mary Garland said nothing to this; but she looked at Rowland, and her eyes seemed to contain a kind of alarmed appeal. Rowland noted it with exultation, but even without it he would have broken into an eager protest.
'Are you serious, Roderick?' he demanded.
'Serious? of course not! How can a man with a crack in his brain be serious? how can a muddlehead reason? But I 'm not jesting, either; I can no more make jokes than utter oracles!'
'Are you willing to go home?'
'Willing? God forbid! I am simply amenable to force; if my mother chooses to take me, I won't resist. I can't! I have come to that!'
'Let me resist, then,' said Rowland. 'Go home as you are now? I can't stand by and see it.'
It may have been true that Roderick had lost his sense of humor, but he scratched his head with a gesture that was almost comical in its effect. 'You are a queer fellow! I should think I would disgust you horribly.'
'Stay another year,' Rowland simply said.
'Doing nothing?'
'You shall do something. I am responsible for your doing something.'
'To whom are you responsible?'
Rowland, before replying, glanced at Miss Garland, and his glance made her speak quickly. 'Not to me!'
'I 'm responsible to myself,' Rowland declared.
'My poor, dear fellow!' said Roderick.
'Oh, Mr. Mallet, are n't you satisfied?' cried Mrs. Hudson, in the tone in which Niobe may have addressed the avenging archers, after she had seen her eldest-born fall. 'It 's out of all nature keeping him here. When we 're in a poor way, surely our own dear native land is the place for us. Do leave us to ourselves, sir!'
This just failed of being a dismissal in form, and Rowland bowed his head to it. Roderick was silent for some moments; then, suddenly, he covered his face with his two hands. 'Take me at least out of this terrible Italy,' he cried, 'where everything mocks and reproaches and torments and eludes me! Take me out of this land of impossible beauty and put me in the midst of ugliness. Set me down where nature is coarse and flat, and men and manners are vulgar. There must be something awfully ugly in Germany. Pack me off there!'
Rowland answered that if he wished to leave Italy the thing might be arranged; he would think it over and submit a proposal on the morrow. He suggested to Mrs. Hudson, in consequence, that she should spend the autumn in Switzerland, where she would find a fine tonic climate, plenty of fresh milk, and several pensions at three francs
