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James, Henry, 1843-1916

"Roderick Hudson"

"What am I to do
now?" he went on. "I have n't an idea. I think of subjects, but they
remain mere lifeless names. They are mere words--they are not images.
What am I to do?"
Rowland was a trifle annoyed. "Be a man," he was on the point of saying,
"and don't, for heaven's sake, talk in that confoundedly querulous
voice." But before he had uttered the words, there rang through the
studio a loud, peremptory ring at the outer door.
Roderick broke into a laugh. "Talk of the devil," he said, "and you see
his horns! If that 's not a customer, it ought to be."
The door of the studio was promptly flung open, and a lady advanced to
the threshold--an imposing, voluminous person, who quite filled up the
doorway. Rowland immediately felt that he had seen her before, but he
recognized her only when she moved forward and disclosed an attendant in
the person of a little bright-eyed, elderly gentleman, with a bristling
white moustache. Then he remembered that just a year before he and his
companion had seen in the Ludovisi gardens a wonderfully beautiful girl,
strolling in the train of this conspicuous couple.


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