RODERICK HUDSON
in the light of his art, to hand over his passions to his genius to be dealt with, and to find that he could live largely enough, even quite riotously enough, without exceeding the circle of pure delights. Rowland took high satisfaction in this positive law, as he saw it, of his companion's spirit, the instinct of investing every gain of sense or soul in the enterprise of planned production. Production indeed was not always working at a clay model, but the form it sometimes took was none the less a safe one. He wrote frequent long letters to Mary Garland; when Rowland went with him to post them he thought wistfully of the fortune of the large loosely-written missives, which cost Roderick unconscionable sums in postage. He received punctual answers of a more frugal shape, written in a clear and delicate hand, on paper vexatiously thin. If Rowland was present when they came he turned away and thought of other things or tried to think. These were the only moments when his sympathy halted, and they were brief. For the rest he let the days go by unprotestingly, and enjoyed Roderick's serene efflorescence as he would have done a beautiful summer sunrise. Rome for the past month had been perfection. The annual descent of the Goths had not yet begun, and sunny leisure seemed to brood over the city. Roderick had taken out a note-book and was roughly sketching a memento of the great Juno. Suddenly there was a noise on the gravel, and the young men, looking up, saw three persons advancing. One was a woman of middle age, with a rather
93
