"Because, though I saw her but for a moment yesterday, she struck me as
a very intelligent person, and I am sure she has opinions."
The smile on Roderick's mobile face passed rapidly into a frown. "Oh,
she thinks what I think!" he answered.
Before the two young men separated Rowland attempted to give as
harmonious a shape as possible to his companion's scheme. "I have
launched you, as I may say," he said, "and I feel as if I ought to see
you into port. I am older than you and know the world better, and
it seems well that we should voyage a while together. It 's on my
conscience that I ought to take you to Rome, walk you through the
Vatican, and then lock you up with a heap of clay. I sail on the fifth
of September; can you make your preparations to start with me?"
Roderick assented to all this with an air of candid confidence in
his friend's wisdom that outshone the virtue of pledges. "I have no
preparations to make," he said with a smile, raising his arms and
letting them fall, as if to indicate his unencumbered condition. "What I
am to take with me I carry here!" and he tapped his forehead.
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