RODERICK HUDSON
called a great scare; he believed very poignantly, for the time, in Beelzebub and felt an irresistible need to subscribe to any institution that might engage to keep him at a distance.
The next day he returned to Rome and the day after that went in search of Roderick. He found him on the Pincian with his back turned to the crowd and his eyes to the beauty of the sunset. "I went to Florence," he said, "and I thought of going further; but I came back on purpose to give you another piece of advice. You decline decidedly to leave Rome?"
"Oh, my boy, rather!"
"The only chance I then see of a revival of your sense of responsibility to — to those various sacred things you 've forgotten is in sending for your mother to join you here."
Roderick stared. "For my mother?"
"For your mother—and for Miss Garland."
Roderick still stared; and then, slowly and faintly, his face flushed. "For Mary Garland—for my mother?" he repeated. "Send for them?"
"Answer me now a question," Rowland simply pursued, "which I 've long forborne, out of delicacy, to ask you. Your engagement still holds?"
"'Holds'?" Roderick glared. "Holds what?"
"Well, some residuum of what it originally did. If you were to see your intended you would perhaps be able to judge."
Roderick thought. "Do you mean by that that if you see her you may be better able to squash me?"
Rowland winced at this—he flushed; but he bore up. "I should in the light of that speech, even if I
318
