“What sort of a temper is it?”

“One to be trusted, on the whole.  It is quick, but it is generous.  I have known it to breathe flame and fury at ten o’clock in the evening, and soft, sweet music early on the morrow.  It ’s a very entertaining temper to observe.  I, fortunately, can do so dispassionately, for I ’m the only person in the place he has not quarreled with.”

“Has he then no society?  Who is Miss Garland, whom you asked about?”

“A young girl staying with his mother, a sort of far-away cousin; a good plain girl, but not a person to delight a sculptor’s eye.  Roderick has a goodly share of the old Southern arrogance; he has the aristocratic temperament.  He will have nothing to do with the small towns-people; he says they ’re ‘ignoble.’  He cannot endure his mother’s friends—­the old ladies and the ministers and the tea-party people; they bore him to death.  So he comes and lounges here and rails at everything and every one.”

This graceful young scoffer reappeared a couple of evenings later, and confirmed the friendly feeling he had provoked on Rowland’s part.  He was in an easier mood than before, he chattered less extravagantly, and asked Rowland a number of rather naif questions about the condition of the fine arts in New York and Boston.  Cecilia, when he had gone, said that this was the wholesome effect of Rowland’s praise of his statuette.  Roderick was acutely sensitive, and Rowland’s tranquil commendation had stilled his restless pulses.  He was ruminating the full-flavored verdict of culture.  Rowland felt an irresistible kindness for him, a mingled sense of his personal charm and his artistic capacity.  He had an indefinable attraction—­the something divine of unspotted, exuberant, confident youth.  The next day was Sunday, and Rowland proposed that they should take a long walk and that Roderick should show him the country.  The young man assented gleefully, and in the morning, as Rowland at the garden gate was giving his hostess Godspeed on her way to church, he came striding along the grassy margin of the road and out-whistling the music of the church bells.  It was one of those lovely days of August when you feel the complete exuberance of summer just warned and checked by autumn.  “Remember the day, and take care you rob no orchards,” said Cecilia, as they separated.

The young men walked away at a steady pace, over hill and dale, through woods and fields, and at last found themselves on a grassy elevation studded with mossy rocks and red cedars.  Just beneath them, in a great shining curve, flowed the goodly Connecticut.  They flung themselves on the grass and tossed stones into the river; they talked like old friends.  Rowland lit a cigar, and Roderick refused one with a grimace of extravagant disgust.  He thought them vile things; he did n’t see how decent people could tolerate them.  Rowland was amused, and wondered what it was that made this ill-mannered speech seem perfectly inoffensive on Roderick’s