RODERICK HUDSON
"Oh, oh!" cried Rowland.
"Listen, listen," said his friend with perfect gentleness. "I 'm not complaining of them; I 'm simply stating a fact. I 'm very sorry for them; I 'm greatly disappointed."
"Have you given them a fair trial?"
"Should n't you call it that? It seems to me I 've been sublime."
"You 've done very well. I 've been building great hopes on it."
"I've done too well—that's just what's the matter with me. After the first forty-eight hours my own hopes collapsed. But I determined to fight it out; to stand within the temple; to let the spirit of the Lord descend. Do you want to know the result? Another week of it and I shall begin to hate them. I shall want to poison them."
"Miserable boy!" Rowland groaned. "They're the most touching, most amiable of women."
"Very likely. But they mean no more to me than a piano means to a pig."
"I can say this," said Rowland in a moment. "I don't pretend to understand the state of your relations with Miss Garland."
Roderick shrugged his shoulders and let his hands drop at his sides. "She thinks all the world of me. She likes me as if I were good to eat. She 's saving me up, cannibal-fashion, as if I were a big feast. That 's the state of my relations." He smiled strangely.
"Have you broken off your engagement?"
"Broken it off? You can't break off a star in Orion. You can only," Roderick explained, "let it alone."
356
