As he looked back on these full-flavored
weeks, he drew a long breath of satisfaction, almost of relief.
Roderick, thus far, had justified his confidence and flattered his
perspicacity; he was rapidly unfolding into an ideal brilliancy. He was
changed even more than he himself suspected; he had stepped, without
faltering, into his birthright, and was spending money, intellectually,
as lavishly as a young heir who has just won an obstructive lawsuit.
Roderick's glance and voice were the same, doubtless, as when they
enlivened the summer dusk on Cecilia's veranda, but in his person,
generally, there was an indefinable expression of experience rapidly
and easily assimilated. Rowland had been struck at the outset with the
instinctive quickness of his observation and his free appropriation of
whatever might serve his purpose. He had not been, for instance, half
an hour on English soil before he perceived that he was dressed like
a rustic, and he had immediately reformed his toilet with the most
unerring tact. His appetite for novelty was insatiable, and for
everything characteristically foreign, as it presented itself, he had an
extravagant greeting; but in half an hour the novelty had faded, he had
guessed the secret, he had plucked out the heart of the mystery and was
clamoring for a keener sensation.
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