“I shall marry no one just now.”
“Roderick,” said Rowland, “has great hopes.”
“Does he know of my rupture with the prince?”
“He is making a great holiday of it.”
Christina pulled her poodle towards her and began to smooth his silky fleece. “I like him very much,” she repeated; “much more than I used to. Since you told me all that about him at Saint Cecilia’s, I have felt a great friendship for him. There ‘s something very fine about him; he ‘s not afraid of anything. He is not afraid of failure; he is not afraid of ruin or death.”
“Poor fellow!” said Rowland, bitterly; “he is fatally picturesque.”
“Picturesque, yes; that ‘s what he is. I am very sorry for him.”
“Your mother told me just now that you had said that you did n’t care a straw for him.”
“Very likely! I meant as a lover. One does n’t want a lover one pities, and one does n’t want—of all things in the world—a picturesque husband! I should like Mr. Hudson as something else. I wish he were my brother, so that he could never talk to me of marriage. Then I could adore him. I would nurse him, I would wait on him and save him all disagreeable rubs and shocks. I am much stronger than he, and I would stand between him and the world. Indeed, with Mr. Hudson for my brother, I should be willing to live and die an old maid!”
“Have you ever told him all this?”