arty, Rowland went into Roderick's studio and
found him sitting before an unfinished piece of work, with a hanging
head and a heavy eye. He could have fancied that the fatal hour foretold
by Gloriani had struck. Roderick rose with a sombre yawn and flung down
his tools. "It 's no use," he said, "I give it up!"

"What is it?"

"I have struck a shallow! I have been sailing bravely, but for the last
day or two my keel has been crunching the bottom."

"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. They would go north and travel. They would go to Switzerland, to
Germany, to Holland, to England. Roderick assented, his eye brightened,
and Rowland talked of a dozen things they might do. Roderick walked up
and down; he seemed to have something to say which he hesitated to bring
out. He hesitated so rarely that Rowland wondered, and at last asked him
what was on his mind. Roderick stopped before him, frowning a little.

"I have such unbounded faith in your good-will," he said, "that I
believe nothing I can say would offend you."

"Try it," said Rowland.

"Well, then, I think my journey will do me more good if I take it alone.
I need n't say I prefer your society to that of any man living. For the
last six months it has been everything to me. But I have a perpetual
feeling that you are expecting something of me, that you are measu