“I have had a great blow,” said Roderick.  “I was a great ass, but it does n’t make the blow any easier to bear.”

“Mr. Mallet, tell me what Roderick means!” said Mrs. Hudson, who had found her voice, in a tone more peremptory than Rowland had ever heard her use.

“He ought to have told you before,” said Roderick.  “Really, Rowland, if you will allow me to say so, you ought!  You could have given a much better account of all this than I myself; better, especially, in that it would have been more lenient to me.  You ought to have let them down gently; it would have saved them a great deal of pain.  But you always want to keep things so smooth!  Allow me to say that it ’s very weak of you.”

“I hereby renounce such weakness!” said Rowland.

“Oh, what is it, sir; what is it?” groaned Mrs. Hudson, insistently.

“It ’s what Roderick says:  he ’s a failure!”

Mary Garland, on hearing this declaration, gave Rowland a single glance and then rose, laid down her work, and walked rapidly out of the room.  Mrs. Hudson tossed her head and timidly bristled.  “This from you, Mr. Mallet!” she said with an injured air which Rowland found harrowing.

But Roderick, most characteristically, did not in the least resent his friend’s assertion; he sent him, on the contrary, one of those large, clear looks of his, which seemed to express a stoical pleasure in Rowland’s frankness, and which set his companion, then and there, wondering again, as he had so often done before, at the extraordinary contradictions of his temperament.  “My dear mother,” Roderick said, “if you had had eyes that were not blinded by this sad maternal vanity, you would have seen all this for yourself; you would have seen that I ’m anything but prosperous.”

“Is it anything about money?” cried Mrs. Hudson.  “Oh, do write to Mr. Striker!”

“Money?” said Roderick.  “I have n’t a cent of money; I ’m bankrupt!”

“Oh, Mr. Mallet, how could you let him?” asked Mrs. Hudson, terribly.

“Everything I have is at his service,” said Rowland, feeling ill.

“Of course Mr. Mallet will help you, my son!” cried the poor lady, eagerly.

“Oh, leave Mr. Mallet alone!” said Roderick.  “I have squeezed him dry; it ’s not my fault, at least, if I have n’t!”

“Roderick, what have you done with all your money?” his mother demanded.

“Thrown it away!  It was no such great amount.  I have done nothing this winter.”

“You have done nothing?”

“I have done no work!  Why in the world did n’t you guess it and spare me all this?  Could n’t you see I was idle, distracted, dissipated?”

“Dissipated, my dear son?” Mrs. Hudson repeated.

“That ’s over for the present!  But could n’t you see—­could n’t Mary see—­that I was in a damnably bad way?”

“I have no doubt Miss Garland saw,” said Rowland.

“Mary has said nothing!” cried Mrs. Hudson.