good-humor, and his kindly jollity seemed the pledge of a brilliant
future. He had forgiven his old enemies and forgotten his old
grievances, and seemed every way reconciled to a world in which he was
going to count as an active force. He was inexhaustibly loquacious and
fantastic, and as Cecilia said, he had suddenly become so good that
it was only to be feared he was going to start not for Europe but for
heaven. He took long walks with Rowland, who felt more and more the
fascination of what he would have called his giftedness. Rowland
returned several times to Mrs. Hudson's, and found the two ladies doing
their best to be happy in their companion's happiness. Miss Garland, he
thought, was succeeding better than her demeanor on his first visit had
promised. He tried to have some especial talk with her, but her extreme
reserve forced him to content himself with such response to his rather
urgent overtures as might be extracted from a keenly attentive smile.
It must be confessed, however, that if the response was vague, the
satisfaction was great, and that Rowland, after his second visit, kept
seeing a lurking reflection of this smile in the most unexpected places.
It seemed strange that she should please him so well at so slender
a cost, but please him she did, prodigiously, and his pleasure had
a quality altogether new to him. It made him restless, and a trifle
melancholy; he walked about absently, wondering and wishing. He
wondered, among other things, why fate should have condemned him to
make the acquaintance of a girl whom he would make a sacrifice to know
better, just as he was leaving the country for years. It seemed to him
that he was turning his back on a chance of happiness--happiness of a
sort of which the slenderest germ should be cultivated. He asked himself
whether, feeling as he did, if he had only himself to please, he would
give up his journey and--wait. He had Roderick to please now, for whom
disappointment would be cruel; but he said to himself that certainly, if
there were no Roderick in the case, the ship should sail without him.