Roderick's quick appreciation of every form of artistic beauty reminded his companion of the flexible temperament of those Italian artists of the sixteenth century who were indifferently painters and sculptors, sonneteers and engravers.

At times when he saw how the young sculptor's day passed in a single sustained pulsation, while his own was broken into a dozen conscious devices for disposing of the hours, and intermingled with sighs, half suppressed, some of them, for conscience' sake, over what he failed of in action and missed in possession--he felt a pang of something akin to envy.

But Rowland had two substantial aids for giving patience the air of contentment: he was an inquisitive reader and a passionate rider.

He plunged into bulky German octavos on Italian history, and he spent long afternoons in the saddle, ranging over the grassy desolation of the Campagna.

As the season went on and the social groups began to constitute themselves, he found that he knew a great many people and that he had easy opportunity for knowing others.