“Let me resist, then,” said Rowland. “Go home as you are now? I can’t stand by and see it.”
It may have been true that Roderick had lost his sense of humor, but he scratched his head with a gesture that was almost comical in its effect. “You are a queer fellow! I should think I would disgust you horribly.”
“Stay another year,” Rowland simply said.
“Doing nothing?”
“You shall do something. I am responsible for your doing something.”
“To whom are you responsible?”
Rowland, before replying, glanced at Miss Garland, and his glance made her speak quickly. “Not to me!”
“I ‘m responsible to myself,” Rowland declared.
“My poor, dear fellow!” said Roderick.
“Oh, Mr. Mallet, are n’t you satisfied?” cried Mrs. Hudson, in the tone in which Niobe may have addressed the avenging archers, after she had seen her eldest-born fall. “It ‘s out of all nature keeping him here. When we ‘re in a poor way, surely our own dear native land is the place for us. Do leave us to ourselves, sir!”