RODERICK HUDSON
was the fact that, speaking without irony, he was not remarkable for his divination of the convenience of others. Breakfast at the inn was early, and Roderick had not then reappeared. Rowland admitted with this that he was worrying. Neither Mrs. Hudson nor her companion had left their apartment; Rowland had a mental vision of the two women sitting there face to face and listening; he had no desire to see them in fact. There were a couple of men who hung about the inn as guides for going up the Titlis; Rowland sent each of them forth in a different direction to ask for news wherever news might be gathered. Then he called Sam Singleton, whose peregrinations had made him a prime rambler and whose zeal and sympathy were now unbounded, and the two started together to ascertain what they might. By the time they had lost sight of the inn they were obliged to confess that decidedly their friend had had time to come back.
Ours, poor man, wandered about for several hours, but found only the sunny stillness of the mountain sides. Before long he had parted company with Singleton, who, to his suggestion that separation would extend their search, assented with fixed eyes that reflected his own dire obsession. The day was magnificent, the sun everywhere; the storm had lashed the lower slopes into a deeper flush of autumnal colour and the snow-peaks reared themselves above the near horizon in shining blocks and sharp incisions. He made his way to several far-perched huts, but most of them were empty and some of them closed. He thumped at their low foul doors with
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