dissipation that
Rowland had come to think of it as a canceled danger, and it greatly
perplexed him to learn that his friend had apparently proved so pliant
to opportunity. But Roderick's allusions were ambiguous, and it was
possible they might simply mean that he was out of patience with a
frivolous way of life and fretting wholesomely over his absent work.
It was a very good thing, certainly, that idleness should prove, on
experiment, to sit heavily on his conscience. Nevertheless, the letter
needed, to Rowland's mind, a key: the key arrived a week later. "In
common charity," Roderick wrote, "lend me a hundred pounds! I have
gambled away my last franc--I have made a mountain of debts. Send me the
money first; lecture me afterwards!" Rowland sent the money by return of
mail; then he proceeded, not to lecture, but to think. He hung his head;
he was acutely disappointed. He had no right to be, he assured himself;
but so it was. Roderick was young, impulsive, unpracticed in stoicism;
it was a hundred to one that he was to pay the usual vulgar tribute
to folly. But his friend had regarded it as securely gained to his own
belief in virtue that he was not as other foolish youths are, and that
he would have been capable of looking at folly in the face and passing
on his way. Rowland for a while felt a sore sense of wrath. What right
had a man who was engaged to that fine girl in Northampton to behave
as if his consciousness were a common blank, to be overlaid with coarse
sensations? Yes, distinctly, he was disappointed. He had accompanied his
missive with an urgent recommendation to leave Baden-Baden immediately,
and an offer to meet Roderick at any point he would name. The answer
came promptly; it ran as follows: "Send me another fifty pounds! I have
been back to the tables. I will leave as soon as the money comes, and
meet you at Geneva. There I will tell you everything."

There is an ancient terrace at Geneva, planted with trees and studded
with benches, overlooked by gravely aristocratic old dwellings and
overlooking the distant Alps. A great many generations have made it a
lounging-place, a great many friends and lovers strolled there, a great
many confidential talks and momentous interviews gone forward. Here, one
morning, sitting on one of the battered green benches, Roderick, as he
had promised, told his friend everything. He had arrived late the
night before; he looked tired, and yet flushed and excited. He made no