Her sentiments upon the table-d’hote system and upon foreign household habits generally were remarkable, and, if we had space for it, would repay analysis; and the idea of reclaiming a lost soul to the Puritanic canons of cookery quite lightened the burden of her depression.  While Rowland set forth his case Roderick was slowly walking round the magnificent Adam, with his hands in his pockets.  Rowland waited for him to manifest an interest in their discussion, but the statue seemed to fascinate him and he remained calmly heedless.  Rowland was a practical man; he possessed conspicuously what is called the sense of detail.  He entered into Mrs. Hudson’s position minutely, and told her exactly why it seemed good that she should remove immediately to the Florentine villa.  She received his advice with great frigidity, looking hard at the floor and sighing, like a person well on her guard against an insidious optimism.  But she had nothing better to propose, and Rowland received her permission to write to his friend that he had let the rooms.

Roderick assented to this decision without either sighs or smiles.  “A Florentine villa is a good thing!” he said.  “I am at your service.”

“I ’m sure I hope you ’ll get better there,” moaned his mother, gathering her shawl together.

Roderick laid one hand on her arm and with the other pointed to Rowland’s statues.  “Better or worse, remember this:  I did those things!” he said.

Mrs. Hudson gazed at them vaguely, and Rowland said, “Remember it yourself!”

“They are horribly good!” said Roderick.

Rowland solemnly shrugged his shoulders; it seemed to him that he had nothing more to say.  But as the others were going, a last light pulsation of the sense of undischarged duty led him to address to Roderick a few words of parting advice.  “You ’ll find the Villa Pandolfini very delightful, very comfortable,” he said.  “You ought to be very contented there.  Whether you work or whether you loaf, it ’s a place for an artist to be happy in.  I hope you will work.”

“I hope I may!” said Roderick with a magnificent smile.

“When we meet again, have something to show me.”

“When we meet again?  Where the deuce are you going?” Roderick demanded.

“Oh, I hardly know; over the Alps.”

“Over the Alps!  You ’re going to leave me?” Roderick cried.

Rowland had most distinctly meant to leave him, but his resolution immediately wavered.  He glanced at Mrs. Hudson and saw that her eyebrows were lifted and her lips parted in soft irony.  She seemed to accuse him of a craven shirking of trouble, to demand of him to repair his cruel havoc in her life by a solemn renewal of zeal.  But Roderick’s expectations were the oddest!  Such as they were, Rowland asked himself why he should n’t make a bargain with them.  “You desire me to go with you?” he asked.

“If you don’t go, I won’t—­that ’s all!  How in the world shall I get through the summer without you?”