XVII
How it occurred that Roderick had failed to be at Leghorn at the moment of his mother's arrival was never to be clearly set forth; for he undertook at no moment any elaborate explanation of his fault. He never indulged in professions (touching personal conduct) as to the future, or in remorse as to the past; and as he would have asked no praise if he had travelled night and day to embrace Mrs. Hudson as she set foot on shore, he made (in Rowland's presence at least) no apology for having left her to come in search of him. It was to be said that, thanks to an unprecedented fine season, the voyage of the two ladies had been surprisingly rapid, and that, according to common probabilities, if Roderick had left Rome on the morrow (as he declared that he had intended) he would still have had a day or two of waiting at Leghorn. Rowland's silent inference was that Christina Light had beguiled him into letting the time slip, and it was accompanied with a tacit enquiry as to the degree of her direct malice. Her interesting friend had told her, presumably, that his mother and his cousin were about to arrive; and it was pertinent to remember hereupon that she was a person of wayward motions. Rowland possessed himself more easily meanwhile of the recent history of the two troubled pilgrims. Mary
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