y, "I am not so bad as you
think," she said.

"It is not a question of badness; it is a question of whether
circumstances don't make the thing an extreme improbability."

"Worse and worse. I can be bullied, then, or bribed!"

"You are not so candid," said Rowland, "as you pretend to be. My feeling
is this. Hudson, as I understand him, does not need, as an artist, the
stimulus of strong emotion, of passion. He's better without it; he's
emotional and passionate enough when he 's left to himself. The sooner
passion is at rest, therefore, the sooner he will settle down to work,
and the fewer emotions he has that are mere emotions and nothing more,
the better for him. If you cared for him enough to marry him, I should
have nothing to say; I would never venture to interfere. But I strongly
suspect you don't, and therefore I would suggest, most respectfully,
that you should let him alone."

"And if I let him alone, as you say, all will be well with him for ever
more?"

"Not immediately and not absolutely, but things will be easier. He will
be better able to concentrate himself."

"What is he doing now? Wherein does he dissatisfy you?"

"I can hardly say. He 's like a watch that 's running down. He is moody,
desultory, idle, irregular, fantastic."

"Heavens, what a list! And it 's all poor me?"

"No, not all. But you are a part of it, and I turn to you because you
are a more tangible, sensible, responsible cause than the others."

Christina raised her hand to her eyes, and bent her head thoughtfully.
Rowland was puzzled to measure the effect of his venture; she rather
surprised him by her gentleness. At last, without moving, "If I were to
marry him," she asked, "what would have become of his fiancee?"

"I am bound to suppose that she would be extremely unhappy."

Christina said nothing more, and Rowland, to let her make her
reflections, left his place and strolled away. Poor Assunta, sitting
patiently on a stone bench, and unprovided, on this occasion, with
military consolation, gave him a bright, frank smile, which might have
been construed as an expression of regret for herself, and of sympathy
for her mistress. Rowland presently seated himself again near Christina.

"What do you think," she asked, looking at him, "of your friend's
infidelity?"

"I don't like it."

"Was he very much in love with her?"

"He asked her to marry him. You may judge."

"Is she rich?"

"No, she is poor."

"Is she very much i