the young
sculptor's own phrase, he had at any time rather build a monument than
write a note. But when a month had passed without news of him, he began
to be half anxious and half angry, and wrote him three lines, in the
care of a Continental banker, begging him at least to give some sign of
whether he was alive or dead. A week afterwards came an answer--brief,
and dated Baden-Baden. "I know I have been a great brute," Roderick
wrote, "not to have sent you a word before; but really I don't know what
has got into me. I have lately learned terribly well how to be idle. I
am afraid to think how long it is since I wrote to my mother or to Mary.
Heaven help them--poor, patient, trustful creatures! I don't know how to
tell you what I am doing. It seems all amusing enough while I do it, but
it would make a poor show in a narrative intended for your formidable
eyes. I found Baxter in Switzerland, or rather he found me, and he
grabbed me by the arm and brought me here. I was walking twenty miles a
day in the Alps, drinking milk in lonely chalets, sleeping as you sleep,
and thinking it was all very good fun; but Baxter told me it would never
do, that the Alps were 'd----d rot,' that Baden-Baden was the place, and
that if I knew what was good for me I would come along with him. It is a
wonderful place, certainly, though, thank the Lord, Baxter departed last
week, blaspheming horribly at trente et quarante. But you know all about
it and what one does--what one is liable to do. I have succumbed, in a
measure, to the liabilities, and I wish I had some one here to give me a
thundering good blowing up. Not you, dear friend; you would draw it too
mild; you have too much of the milk of human kindness. I have fits of
horrible homesickness for my studio, and I shall be devoutly grateful
when the summer is over and I can go back and swing a chisel. I feel as
if nothing but the chisel would satisfy me; as if I could rush in a rage
at a block of unshaped marble. There are a lot of the Roman people here,
English and American; I live in the midst of them and talk nonsense from
morning till night. There is also some one else; and to her I don't talk
sense, nor, thank heaven, mean what I say. I confess, I need a month's
work to recover my self-respect."

These lines brought Rowland no small perturbation; the more, that what
they seemed to point to surprised him. During the nine months of their
companionship Roderick had shown so little taste for