Oh, something designed from its conception for your very own,—something which could be labelled (by yourself, since Roddy would certainly refuse) ‘From the artist to Judith Earle,’ with the date: a token, a perpetual memorial of his friendship!...
‘Oh no,’ said Roddy, ‘I can’t.’ He threw down his pencil, instantly bored at the suggestion, smiled and presently wandered off.
The smile took the edge off the sting, but there was an old feeling, an oppression, as she watched him going away. It was no use trying to bring Roddy out of his labyrinthine seclusion with personal advances and pretensions to favouritism. Roddy had a power to wound far beyond his years; he seemed grown up sometimes in his crushingness.
Now and again he was very funny and invented dances on the lawn to make them laugh. His imitation of a Russian ballet-dancer was wonderful. Also he could walk on his hands or do backward somersaults into the water. This was very thrilling and made him highly respected.
Once he and Judith were the two hares in a paper chase. Roddy spied an old umbrella in the hedge and picked it up. It was tattered and gaunt and huge; and there was something friendly about it,—a disreputable reckless jollity. He carried it for a long time, swinging it round and round, and sometimes balancing it on his chin or spearing things with it. At the top of the hill they came to the pond covered with green stuff and a white starry froth of flowers. All around grew flags and forget-me-nots, and the hundred other rare enchanting trivialities of watery places.
‘Well, I don’t want this old umbrella,’ said Roddy. He considered the water. ‘Do you?’
‘No. Throw it away.’
He flung it. It alighted in the middle of the pond. It stuck—oh, horror!—upright, caught in something, and refused to sink.
‘Oh, Roddy!’
It stared at them across the waste of waters, stark, forlorn, reproachful. It said: ‘Why did you pick me up, encourage and befriend me when this is what you meant to do?’