The Newcomes, and though he had listened in tranquil silence to the rest
of it, he found it hard not to say that all this had been, under
the circumstances, a very bad business. Roderick admitted it with
bitterness, and then told how much--measured simply financially--it had
cost him. His luck had changed; the tables had ceased to back him, and
he had found himself up to his knees in debt. Every penny had gone
of the solid sum which had seemed a large equivalent of those shining
statues in Rome. He had been an ass, but it was not irreparable; he
could make another statue in a couple of months.

Rowland frowned. "For heaven's sake," he said, "don't play such
dangerous games with your facility. If you have got facility, revere
it, respect it, adore it, treasure it--don't speculate on it." And he
wondered what his companion, up to his knees in debt, would have done
if there had been no good-natured Rowland Mallet to lend a helping hand.
But he did not formulate his curiosity audibly, and the contingency
seemed not to have presented itself to Roderick's imagination. The young
sculptor reverted to his late adventures again in the evening, and this
time talked of them more objectively, as the phrase is; more as if they
had been the adventures of another person. He related half a dozen droll
things that had happened to him, and, as if his responsibility had been
disengaged by all this free discussion, he laughed extravagantly at the
memory of them. Rowland sat perfectly grave, on principle. Then Roderick
began to talk of half a dozen statues that he had in his head, and
set forth his design, with his usual vividness. Suddenly, as it was
relevant, he declared that his Baden doings had not been altogether
fruitless, for that the lady who had reminded Rowland of Madame de
Cruchecassee was tremendously statuesque. Rowland at last said that it
all might pass if he felt that he was really the wiser for it. "By the
wiser," he added, "I mean the stronger in purpose, in will."