RODERICK HUDSON
all the 'saving clauses,' in her sweet, fresh per son."
"No woman who cares," his friend lucidly returned, "is ever more of a moralist than she is of a partisan. If she becomes that, it 's a sign she has ceased to care. I don't know whether I ever mentioned it," Rowland went on, "but I made out to my satisfaction all sorts of fine free things in Miss Garland. There 's nothing at all scanted about her but her experience; everything else is large. My conviction of her is that she 's very intelligent, but that she has never had a chance to prove it. Some day or other I 'm sure she 'll be right about everything."
"Right about everything!" Roderick cried in derision; "what a horrible description of one's future bride! I don't ask you to be a better Catholic than the Pope. I shall be content if she's right about my interests—for 'everything,' sometimes, may happen to be hostile to them. But I agree with you about her turn for grim devotion. It 's exactly what I built on, and, changed as I am, I 'm not changed about her. What becomes of all our emotions, our impressions," he pursued after a long pause, "all the material of thought that life pours into us at such a rate during such a memorable three months as these? There are twenty moments a week—a day, for that matter, some days—that seem supreme, twenty impressions that seem ultimate, that appear to form an intellectual era. But others come treading on their heels and sweeping them along, and they all melt like water into water
87
