"
"A difficult place?" Rowland asked, with a sympathetic inflection,
looking vaguely at the roughly modeled figure.
"Oh, it 's not the poor clay!" Roderick answered. "The difficult place
is here!" And he struck a blow on his heart. "I don't know what 's the
matter with me. Nothing comes; all of a sudden I hate things. My old
things look ugly; everything looks stupid."
Rowland was perplexed. He was in the situation of a man who has been
riding a blood horse at an even, elastic gallop, and of a sudden feels
him stumble and balk. As yet, he reflected, he had seen nothing but the
sunshine of genius; he had forgotten that it has its storms. Of course
it had! And he felt a flood of comradeship rise in his heart which would
float them both safely through the worst weather. "Why, you 're tired!"
he said. "Of course you 're tired. You have a right to be!"
"Do you think I have a right to be?" Roderick asked, looking at him.
"Unquestionably, after all you have done."
"Well, then, right or wrong, I am tired. I certainly have done a fair
winter's work. I want a change."
Rowland declared that it was certainly high time they should be leaving
Rome.
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