Then suddenly, as if she had perceived Roderick for the first time, she gave him a charming nod, a radiant smile.In a moment he was at her side.She stopped, and he stood talking to her;she continued to look at Miss Garland.
"Why, Roderick knows her!" cried Mrs.Hudson, in an awe-struck whisper.
"I supposed she was some great princess.""She is--almost!" said Rowland."She is the most beautiful girl in Europe, and Roderick has made her bust.""Her bust? Dear, dear!" murmured Mrs.Hudson, vaguely shocked.
"What a strange bonnet!"
"She has very strange eyes," said Mary, and turned away.
The two ladies, with Rowland, began to descend toward the door of the church.
On their way they passed Mrs.Light, the Cavaliere, and the poodle, and Rowland informed his companions of the relation in which these personages stood to Roderick's young lady.
"Think of it, Mary!" said Mrs.Hudson."What splendid people he must know!
No wonder he found Northampton dull!"
"I like the poor little old gentleman," said Mary.
"Why do you call him poor?" Rowland asked, struck with the observation.
"He seems so!" she answered simply.
As they were reaching the door they were overtaken by Roderick, whose interview with Miss Light had perceptibly brightened his eye.
"So you are acquainted with princesses!" said his mother softly, as they passed into the portico.
"Miss Light is not a princess!" said Roderick, curtly.
"But Mr.Mallet says so," urged Mrs.Hudson, rather disappointed.
"I meant that she was going to be!" said Rowland.
"It 's by no means certain that she is even going to be!"Roderick answered.
"Ah," said Rowland, "I give it up!"
Roderick almost immediately demanded that his mother should sit to him, at his studio, for her portrait, and Rowland ventured to add another word of urgency.If Roderick's idea really held him, it was an immense pity that his inspiration should be wasted;inspiration, in these days, had become too precious a commodity.
It was arranged therefore that, for the present, during the mornings, Mrs.Hudson should place herself at her son's service.
This involved but little sacrifice, for the good lady's appetite for antiquities was diminutive and bird-like, the usual round of galleries and churches fatigued her, and she was glad to purchase immunity from sight-seeing by a regular afternoon drive.
It became natural in this way that, Miss Garland having her mornings free, Rowland should propose to be the younger lady's guide in whatever explorations she might be disposed to make.
She said she knew nothing about it, but she had a great curiosity, and would be glad to see anything that he would show her.Rowland could not find it in his heart to accuse Roderick of neglect of the young girl;for it was natural that the inspirations of a capricious man of genius, when they came, should be imperious; but of course he wondered how Miss Garland felt, as the young man's promised wife, on being thus expeditiously handed over to another man to be entertained.
However she felt, he was certain he would know little about it.
There had been, between them, none but indirect allusions to her engagement, and Rowland had no desire to discuss it more largely; for he had no quarrel with matters as they stood.
They wore the same delightful aspect through the lovely month of May, and the ineffable charm of Rome at that period seemed but the radiant sympathy of nature with his happy opportunity.
The weather was divine; each particular morning, as he walked from his lodging to Mrs.Hudson's modest inn, seemed to have a blessing upon it.
The elder lady had usually gone off to the studio, and he found Miss Garland sitting alone at the open window, turning the leaves of some book of artistic or antiquarian reference that he had given her.
She always had a smile, she was always eager, alert, responsive.
She might be grave by nature, she might be sad by circumstance, she might have secret doubts and pangs, but she was essentially young and strong and fresh and able to enjoy.Her enjoyment was not especially demonstrative, but it was curiously diligent.
Rowland felt that it was not amusement and sensation that she coveted, but knowledge--facts that she might noiselessly lay away, piece by piece, in the perfumed darkness of her serious mind, so that, under this head at least, she should not be a perfectly portionless bride.
She never merely pretended to understand; she let things go, in her modest fashion, at the moment, but she watched them on their way, over the crest of the hill, and when her fancy seemed not likely to be missed it went hurrying after them and ran breathless at their side, as it were, and begged them for the secret.
Rowland took an immense satisfaction in observing that she never mistook the second-best for the best, and that when she was in the presence of a masterpiece, she recognized the occasion as a mighty one.
She said many things which he thought very profound--that is, if they really had the fine intention he suspected.
This point he usually tried to ascertain; but he was obliged to proceed cautiously, for in her mistrustful shyness it seemed to her that cross-examination must necessarily be ironical.
She wished to know just where she was going--what she would gain or lose.
This was partly on account of a native intellectual purity, a temper of mind that had not lived with its door ajar, as one might say, upon the high-road of thought, for passing ideas to drop in and out at their pleasure; but had made much of a few long visits from guests cherished and honored--guests whose presence was a solemnity.
But it was even more because she was conscious of a sort of growing self-respect, a sense of devoting her life not to her own ends, but to those of another, whose life would be large and brilliant.