But if one believed in you, as I have done, one paid a tax upon it." Roderick leaned his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands together, and crossed them, shadewise, over his eyes.

In this attitude, for a moment, he sat looking coldly at his friend.

"So I have made you very uncomfortable ?" he went on.
"Extremely so." "I have been eager, grasping, obstinate, vain, ungrateful, indifferent, cruel ?" "I have accused you, mentally, of all these things, with the exception of vanity." "You have often hated me ?" "Never.

I should have parted company with you before coming to that." "But you have wanted to part company, to bid me go my way and be hanged!" "Repeatedly.

Then I have had patience and forgiven you." "Forgiven me, eh?
Suffering all the while ?" "Yes, you may call it suffering." "Why did you never tell me all this before ?" "Because my affection was always stronger than my resentment; because I preferred to err on the side of kindness; because I had, myself, in a measure, launched you in the world and thrown you into temptations; and because nothing short of your unwarrantable aggression just now could have made me say these painful things." Roderick picked up a blade of long grass and began to bite it; Rowland was puzzled by his expression and manner.