rch of Cecilia. She
was sitting at work at a shady window, and welcomed him to a low
chintz-covered chair. He sat some time, thoughtfully snipping tape with
her scissors; he expected criticism and he was preparing a rejoinder. At
last he told her of Roderick's decision and of his own influence in
it. Cecilia, besides an extreme surprise, exhibited a certain fine
displeasure at his not having asked her advice.

"What would you have said, if I had?" he demanded.

"I would have said in the first place, 'Oh for pity's sake don't carry
off the person in all Northampton who amuses me most!' I would have said
in the second place, 'Nonsense! the boy is doing very well. Let well
alone!'"

"That in the first five minutes. What would you have said later?"

"That for a man who is generally averse to meddling, you were suddenly
rather officious."

Rowland's countenance fell. He frowned in silence. Cecilia looked at him
askance; gradually the spark of irritation faded from her eye.

"Excuse my sharpness," she resumed at last. "But I am literally in
despair at losing Roderick Hudson. His visits in the evening, for the
past year, have kept me alive. They have given a silver tip to leaden
days. I don't say he is of a more useful metal than other people, but he
is of a different one. Of course, however, that I shall miss him sadly
is not a reason for his not going to seek his fortune. Men must work and
women must weep!"

"Decidedly not!" said Rowland, with a good deal of emphasis. He had
suspected from the first hour of his stay that Cecilia had treated
herself to a private social luxury; he had then discovered that she
found it in Hudson's lounging visits and boyish chatter, and he had felt
himself wondering at last whether, judiciously viewed, her gain in the
matter was not the young man's loss. It was evident that Cecilia was not
judicious, and that her good sense, habitually rigid under the demands
of domestic economy, indulged itself with a certain agreeable laxity on
this particular point. She liked her young friend just as he was; she
humored him, flattered him, laughed at him, caressed him--did
everything but advise him. It was a flirtation without the benefits of
a flirtation. She was too old to let him fall in love with her, which
might have done him good; and her inclination was to keep him young, so
that the nonsense he talked might never transgress a certain line. It
was quite conceivable that poor Cecilia should rel