t we 'll wake up to find our work done
because we 've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is
devilish hard to do! If your young protajay finds things easy and has
a good time and says he likes the life, it 's a sign that--as I may
say--you had better step round to the office and look at the books. That
's all I desire to remark. No offense intended. I hope you 'll have a
first-rate time."

Rowland could honestly reply that this seemed pregnant sense, and he
offered Mr. Striker a friendly hand-shake as the latter withdrew. But
Mr. Striker's rather grim view of matters cast a momentary shadow on his
companions, and Mrs. Hudson seemed to feel that it necessitated between
them some little friendly agreement not to be overawed.

Rowland sat for some time longer, partly because he wished to please the
two women and partly because he was strangely pleased himself. There
was something touching in their unworldly fears and diffident hopes,
something almost terrible in the way poor little Mrs. Hudson seemed
to flutter and quiver with intense maternal passion. She put forth one
timid conversational venture after another, and asked Rowland a number
of questions about himself, his age, his family, his occupations, his
tastes, his religious opinions. Rowland had an odd feeling at last that
she had begun to consider him very exemplary, and that she might
make, later, some perturbing discovery. He tried, therefore, to invent
something that would prepare her to find him fallible. But he could
think of nothing. It only seemed to him that Miss Garland secretly
mistrusted him, and that he must leave her to render him the service,
after he had gone, of making him the object of a little firm derogation.
Mrs. Hudson talked with low-voiced eagerness about her son.

"He 's very lovable, sir, I assure you. When you come to know him you
'll find him very lovable. He 's a little spoiled, of course; he has
always done with me as he pleased; but he 's a good boy, I 'm sure he 's
a good boy. And every one thinks him very attractive: I 'm sure he 'd be
noticed, anywhere. Don't you think he 's very handsome, sir? He features
his poor father. I had another--perhaps you 've been told. He was
killed." And the poor little lady bravely smiled, for fear of doing
worse. "He was a very fine boy, but very different from Roderick.
Roderick is a little strange; he has never been an easy boy. Sometimes
I feel like the goose--was n't it a goose,