"
"Has it been hanging fire all this time? Explode! I promise not to stop
my ears."
"It relates to my friend Hudson." And Rowland paused. She was looking at
him expectantly; her face gave no sign. "I am rather disturbed in mind
about him. He seems to me at times to be in an unpromising way." He
paused again, but Christina said nothing. "The case is simply this,"
he went on. "It was by my advice he renounced his career at home and
embraced his present one. I made him burn his ships. I brought him to
Rome, I launched him in the world, and I stand surety, in a measure,
to--to his mother, for his prosperity. It is not such smooth sailing as
it might be, and I am inclined to put up prayers for fair winds. If he
is to succeed, he must work--quietly, devotedly. It is not news to you,
I imagine, that Hudson is a great admirer of yours."
Christina remained silent; she turned away her eyes with an air, not
of confusion, but of deep deliberation. Surprising frankness had, as a
general thing, struck Rowland as the key-note of her character, but she
had more than once given him a suggestion of an unfathomable power
of calculation, and her silence now had something which it is hardly
extravagant to call portentous.
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