Mrs. Hudson gazed at them vaguely, and Rowland said, “Remember it yourself!” “They are horribly good!” said Roderick. Rowland solemnly shrugged his shoulders; it seemed to him that he had nothing more to say. But as the others were going, a last light pulsation of the sense of undischarged duty led him to address to Roderick a few words of parting advice. “You ‘ll find the Villa Pandolfini very delightful, very comfortable,” he said. “You ought to be very contented there. Whether you work or whether you loaf, it ‘s a place for an artist to be happy in. I hope you will work.” “I hope I may!” said Roderick with a magnificent smile. “When we meet again, have something to show me.” “When we meet again? Where the deuce are you going?” Roderick demanded. “Oh, I hardly know; over the Alps.” “Over the Alps! You ‘re going to leave me?” Roderick cried. Rowland had most distinctly meant to leave him, but his resolution immediately wavered. He glanced at Mrs. Hudson and saw that her eyebrows were lifted and her lips parted in soft irony. She seemed to accuse him of a craven shirking of trouble, to demand of him to repair his cruel havoc in her life by a solemn renewal of zeal. But Roderick’s expectations were the oddest! Such as they were, Rowland asked himself why he should n’t make a bargain with them. “You desire me to go with you?” he asked. “If you don’t go, I won’t--that ‘s all! How in the world shall I get through the summer without you?” “How will you get through it with me? That ‘s the question.” “I don’t pretend to say; the future is a dead blank. But without you it ‘s not a blank--it ‘s certain damnation!” “Mercy, mercy!” murmured Mrs. Hudson. Rowland made an effort to stand firm, and for a moment succeeded. “If I go with you, will you try to work?” Roderick, up to this moment, had been looking as unperturbed as if the deep agitation of the day before were a thing of the remote past. But at these words his face changed formidably; he flushed and scowled, and all his passion returned. “Try to work!” he cried. “Try--try! work--work! In God’s name don’t talk that way, or you ‘ll drive me mad! Do you suppose I ‘m trying not to work? Do you suppose I stand rotting here for the fun of it? Don’t you suppose I would try to work for myself before I tried for you?” “Mr. Mallet,” cried Mrs. Hudson, piteously, “will you leave me alone with this?”