point of making a clean breast of
it, of crying out, "Dearest friends, I abdicate: I can't help you!" But
he checked himself; he felt so impatient to have his three words with
Christina. He grasped his hat.

"I will see what it is!" he cried. And then he was glad he had not
abdicated, for as he turned away he glanced again at Mary and saw that,
though her eyes were full of trouble, they were not hard and accusing,
but charged with appealing friendship.

He went straight to Roderick's apartment, deeming this, at an early
hour, the safest place to seek him. He found him in his sitting-room,
which had been closely darkened to keep out the heat. The carpets and
rugs had been removed, the floor of speckled concrete was bare and
lightly sprinkled with water. Here and there, over it, certain strongly
perfumed flowers had been scattered. Roderick was lying on his divan in
a white dressing-gown, staring up at the frescoed ceiling. The room
was deliciously cool, and filled with the moist, sweet odor of the
circumjacent roses and violets. All this seemed highly fantastic, and
yet Rowland hardly felt surprised.

"Your mother was greatly alarmed at your note," he said, "and I came
to satisfy myself that, as I believed, you are not ill." Roderick lay
motionless, except that he slightly turned his head toward his friend.
He was smelling a large white rose, and he continued to present it to
his nose. In the darkness of the room he looked exceedingly pale, but
his handsome eyes had an extraordinary brilliancy. He let them rest for
some time on Rowland, lying there like a Buddhist in an intellectual
swoon, whose perception should be slowly ebbing back to temporal
matters. "Oh, I 'm not ill," he said at last. "I have never been
better."

"Your note, nevertheless, and your absence," Rowland said, "have very
naturally alarmed your mother. I advise you to go to her directly and
reassure her."

"Go to her? Going to her would be worse than staying away. Staying away
at present is a kindness." And he inhaled deeply his huge rose, looking
up over it at Rowland. "My presence, in fact, would be indecent."

"Indecent? Pray explain."

"Why, you see, as regards Mary Garland. I am divinely happy! Does n't
it strike you? You ought to agree with me. You wish me to spare her
feelings; I spare them by staying away. Last night I heard something"--

"I heard it, too," said Rowland with brevity. "And it 's in honor of
this piece of news that you ha