It had shaken him, as yet, but with a half good-humored wantonness; but, henceforth, possibly, it meant to handle him more roughly.

These were not times, therefore, for a friend to have a short patience.
"When you err, you say, the fault 's your own," he said at last.

"It is because your faults are your own that I care about them." Rowland's voice, when he spoke with feeling, had an extraordinary amenity.

Roderick sat staring a moment longer at the floor, then he sprang up and laid his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder.
"You are the best man in the world," he said, "and I am a vile brute.
Only," he added in a moment, "you don't understand me!" And he looked at him with eyes of such radiant lucidity that one might have said (and Rowland did almost say so, himself) that it was the fault of one's own grossness if one failed to read to the bottom of that beautiful soul.
Rowland smiled sadly.

"What is it now?
Explain." "Oh, I can't explain!" cried Roderick impatiently, returning to his work.