He had laughed and talked and braved it
out in self-defense; but when he reflected that he was really meddling
with the simple stillness of this little New England home, and that he
had ventured to disturb so much living security in the interest of a
far-away, fantastic hypothesis, he paused, amazed at his temerity. It
was true, as Cecilia had said, that for an unofficious man it was a
singular position. There stirred in his mind an odd feeling of annoyance
with Roderick for having thus peremptorily enlisted his sympathies. As
he looked up and down the long vista, and saw the clear white houses
glancing here and there in the broken moonshine, he could almost have
believed that the happiest lot for any man was to make the most of life
in some such tranquil spot as that. Here were kindness, comfort, safety,
the warning voice of duty, the perfect hush of temptation. And as
Rowland looked along the arch of silvered shadow and out into the lucid
air of the American night, which seemed so doubly vast, somehow, and
strange and nocturnal, he felt like declaring that here was beauty
too--beauty sufficient for an artist not to starve upon it.
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