Chapter 13

CHAPTER XIII. Switzerland

On the homeward walk, that evening, Roderick preserved a silence which
Rowland allowed to make him uneasy. Early on the morrow Roderick,
saying nothing of his intentions, started off on a walk; Rowland saw
him striding with light steps along the rugged path to Engelberg. He was
absent all day and he gave no account of himself on his return. He said
he was deadly tired, and he went to bed early. When he had left the room
Miss Garland drew near to Rowland.

"I wish to ask you a question," she said. "What happened to Roderick
yesterday at Engelberg?"

"You have discovered that something happened?" Rowland answered.

"I am sure of it. Was it something painful?"

"I don't know how, at the present moment, he judges it. He met the
Princess Casamassima."

"Thank you!" said Miss Garland, simply, and turned away.

The conversation had been brief, but, like many small things, it
furnished Rowland with food for reflection. When one is looking for
symptoms one easily finds them. This was the first time Mary Garland had
asked Rowland a question which it was in Roderick's power to answer,
the first time she had frankly betrayed Roderick's reticence. Rowland
ventured to think it marked an era.

The next morning was sultry, and the air, usually so fresh at those
altitudes, was oppressively heavy. Rowland lounged on the grass a while,
near Singleton, who was at work under his white umbrella, within view of
the house; and then in quest of coolness he wandered away to the rocky
ridge whence you looked across at the Jungfrau. To-day, however, the
white summits were invisible; their heads were muffled in sullen clouds
and the valleys beneath them curtained in dun-colored mist. Rowland had
a book in his pocket, and he took it out and opened it. But his page
remained unturned; his own thoughts were more importunate. His interview
with Christina Light had made a great impression upon him, and he was
haunted with the memory of her almost blameless bitterness, and of all
that was tragic and fatal in her latest transformation. These things
were immensely appealing, and Rowland thought with infinite impatience
of Roderick's having again encountered them. It required little
imagination to apprehend that the young sculptor's condition had
also appealed to Christina. His consummate indifference, his supreme
defiance, would make him a magnificent trophy, and Christina had
announced with sufficient distinctness that she had said good-by to
scruples. It was her fancy at present to treat the world as a garden of
pleasure, and if, hitherto, she had played with Roderick's passion on
its stem, there was little doubt that now