When I do well, the merit 's mine; if I do ill, the fault 's mine! The idea that I make you nervous is detestable.

Dedicate your nerves to some better cause, and believe that if Miss Garland and I have a quarrel, we shall settle it between ourselves." Rowland had found himself wondering, shortly before, whether possibly his brilliant young friend was without a conscience; now it dimly occurred to him that he was without a heart.

Rowland, as we have already intimated, was a man with a moral passion, and no small part of it had gone forth into his relations with Roderick.

There had been, from the first, no protestations of friendship on either side, but Rowland had implicitly offered everything that belongs to friendship, and Roderick had, apparently, as deliberately accepted it.

Rowland, indeed, had taken an exquisite satisfaction in his companion's deep, inexpressive assent to his interest in him.