“Christina was forced to decide, then, that she could not afford not to be a princess?”

“She was reduced by humiliation.  She was assured that it was not for her to make conditions, but to thank her stars that there were none made for her.  If she persisted, she might find it coming to pass that there would be conditions, and the formal rupture—­the rupture that the world would hear of and pry into—­would then proceed from the prince and not from her.”

“That ’s all nonsense!” said Madame Grandoni, energetically.

“To us, yes; but not to the proudest girl in the world, deeply wounded in her pride, and not stopping to calculate probabilities, but muffling her shame, with an almost sensuous relief, in a splendor that stood within her grasp and asked no questions.  Is it not possible that the late Mr. Light had made an outbreak before witnesses who are still living?”

“Certainly her marriage now,” said Madame Grandoni, less analytically, “has the advantage that it takes her away from her—­parents!”

This lady’s farther comments upon the event are not immediately pertinent to our history; there were some other comments of which Rowland had a deeply oppressive foreboding.  He called, on the evening of the morrow upon Mrs. Hudson, and found Roderick with the two ladies.  Their companion had apparently but lately entered, and Rowland afterwards learned that it was his first appearance since the writing of the note which had so distressed his mother.  He had flung himself upon a sofa, where he sat with his chin upon his breast, staring before him with a sinister spark in his eye.  He fixed his gaze on Rowland, but gave him no greeting.  He had evidently been saying something to startle the women; Mrs. Hudson had gone and seated herself, timidly and imploringly, on the edge of the sofa, trying to take his hand.  Miss Garland was applying herself to some needlework with conscious intentness.

Mrs. Hudson gave Rowland, on his entrance, a touching look of gratitude.  “Oh, we have such blessed news!” she said.  “Roderick is ready to leave Rome.”

“It ’s not blessed news; it ’s most damnable news!” cried Roderick.

“Oh, but we are very glad, my son, and I am sure you will be when you get away.  You ’re looking most dreadfully thin; is n’t he, Mr. Mallet?  It ’s plain enough you need a change.  I ’m sure we will go wherever you like.  Where would you like to go?”

Roderick turned his head slowly and looked at her.  He had let her take his hand, which she pressed tenderly between her own.  He gazed at her for some time in silence.  “Poor mother!” he said at last, in a portentous tone.

“My own dear son!” murmured Mrs. Hudson in all the innocence of her trust.

“I don’t care a straw where you go!  I don’t care a straw for anything!”

“Oh, my dear boy, you must not say that before all of us here—­before Mary, before Mr. Mallet!”