RODERICK HUDSON
and I frankly confess that I was tormented, that I was moved to envy, call it, if you like, to jealousy, by something I found in her. There came to me there in five minutes the sense of her character. C'est bien beau, you know, a character like that, and I got it full in the face. It made me say to myself 'She in my place would never marry Gennaro—no, no, no, never!' I could n't help coming back to it, and I thought of it so often that I found a kind of inspiration in it. I hated the idea of being worse than she—of doing something that she would n't do. I might be bad by nature, but I need n't be by reflexion. The end of it all was that I found it impossible not to tell the Prince that I was his very humble servant, but that decidedly I could n't take him for mine."
"Are you sure it was only of Miss Garland's character that you were jealous," Rowland asked, "and not of her affection for her cousin?"
"Sure is a good deal to say. Still, I think I may do so. There are two reasons; one at least I can tell you. Her affection has not a shadow's weight with Mr. Hudson! Why then should one resent it?"
"And what 's the other reason?"
"Excuse me; that's my own affair."
Rowland felt himself puzzled, baffled, charmed, inspired. "I 've promised your mother," he presently went on, "to do my best on behalf of the Prince."
She shook her head sadly. "The Prince needs nothing you can say for him. He 's a magnificent parti. I know it perfectly."
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