Lord John took his time. “I think perhaps a little Mr. Crimble.”
“And who the deuce is a little Mr. Crimble?”
“A young man who was just with her — and whom she appears to have invited.”
“Where is he then?” Lord Theign demanded.
“Off there among the pictures — which he seems partly to have come for.”
“Oh!”— it made his lordship easier. “Then he’s all right — on such a day.”
His companion could none the less just wonder. “Hadn’t Lady Grace told you?”
“That he was coming? Not that I remember.” But Lord Theign, perceptibly preoccupied1, made nothing of this. “We’ve had other fish to fry, and you know the freedom I allow her.”
His friend had a vivid gesture. “My dear man, I only ask to profit by it!” With which there might well have been in Lord John’s face a light of comment on the pretension3 in such a quarter to allow freedom.
Yet it was a pretension that Lord Theign sustained — as to show himself far from all bourgeois4 narrowness. “She has her friends by the score — at this time of day.” There was clearly a claim here also — to know the time of day. “But in the matter of friends where, by the way, is your own — of whom I’ve but just heard?”
“Oh, off there among the pictures too; so they’ll have met and taken care of each other.” Accounting5 for this inquirer would be clearly the least of Lord John’s difficulties. “I mustn’t appear to Bender to have failed him; but I must at once let you know, before I join him, that, seizing my opportunity, I have just very definitely, in fact very pressingly, spoken to Lady Grace. It hasn’t been perhaps,” he continued, “quite the pick of a chance; but that seemed never to come, and if I’m not too fondly mistaken, at any rate, she listened to me without abhorrence6. Only I’ve led her to expect — for our case — that you’ll be so good, without loss of time, as to say the clinching7 word to her yourself.”
“Without loss, you mean, of — a — my daughter’s time?” Lord Theign, confessedly and amiably8 interested, had accepted these intimations — yet with the very blandness9 that was not accessible to hustling10 and was never forgetful of its standing11 privilege of criticism. He had come in from his public duty, a few minutes before, somewhat flushed and blown; but that had presently dropped — to the effect, we should have guessed, of his appearing to Lord John at least as cool as the occasion required. His appearance, we ourselves certainly should have felt, was in all respects charming — with the great note of it the beautiful restless, almost suspicious, challenge to you, on the part of deep and mixed things in him, his pride and his shyness, his conscience, his taste and his temper, to deny that he was admirably simple. Obviously, at this rate, he had a passion for simplicity13 — simplicity, above all, of relation with you, and would show you, with the last subtlety14 of displeasure, his impatience15 of your attempting anything more with himself. With such an ideal of decent ease he would, confound you, “sink” a hundred other attributes — or the recognition at least and the formulation of them — that you might abjectly16 have taken for granted in him: just to show you that in a beastly vulgar age you had, and small wonder, a beastly vulgar imagination. He sank thus, surely, in defiance17 of insistent18 vulgarity, half his consciousness of his advantages, flattering himself that mere19 facility and amiability20, a true effective, a positively21 ideal suppression of reference in any one to anything that might complicate22, alone floated above. This would be quite his religion, you might infer — to cause his hands to ignore in whatever contact any opportunity, however convenient, for an unfair pull. Which habit it was that must have produced in him a sort of ripe and radiant fairness; if it be allowed us, that is, to figure in so shining an air a nobleman of fifty-three, of an undecided rather than a certified23 frame or outline, of a head thinly though neatly24 covered and not measureably massive, of an almost trivial freshness, of a face marked but by a fine inwrought line or two and lighted by a merely charming expression. You might somehow have traced back the whole character so presented to an ideal privately25 invoked26 — that of his establishing in the formal garden of his suffered greatness such easy seats and short perspectives, such winding27 paths and natural-looking waters, as would mercifully break up the scale. You would perhaps indeed have reflected at the same time that the thought of so much mercy was almost more than anything else the thought of a great option and a great margin28 — in fine of fifty alternatives. Which remarks of ours, however, leave his lordship with his last immediate29 question on his hands.
“Well, yes — that, of course, in all propriety,” his companion has meanwhile replied to it. “But I was thinking a little, you understand, of the importance of our own time.”
Divinably Lord Theign put himself out less, as we may say, for the comparatively matter-of-course haunters of his garden than for interlopers even but slightly accredited30. He seemed thus not at all to strain to “understand” in this particular connection — it would be his familiarly amusing friend Lord John, clearly, who must do most of the work for him. “‘Our own’ in the sense of yours and mine?”
“Of yours and mine and Lady Imber’s, yes — and a good bit, last not least, in that of my watching and waiting mother’s.” This struck no prompt spark of apprehension31 from his listener, so that Lord John went on: “The last thing she did this morning was to remind me, with her fine old frankness, that she would like to learn without more delay where, on the whole question, she is, don’t you know? What she put to me”— the younger man felt his ground a little, but proceeded further —“what she put to me, with her rather grand way of looking all questions straight in the face, you see, was: Do we or don’t we, decidedly, take up practically her very handsome offer —‘very handsome’ being, I mean, what she calls it; though it strikes even me too, you know, as rather decent.”
Lord Theign at this point resigned himself to know. “Kitty has of course rubbed into me how decent she herself finds it. She hurls32 herself again on me — successfully! — for everything, and it suits her down to the ground. She pays her beastly debt — that is, I mean to say,” and he took himself up, though it was scarce more than perfunctory, “discharges her obligations — by her sister’s fair hand; not to mention a few other trifles for which I naturally provide.”
Lord John, a little unexpectedly to himself on the defensive33, was yet but briefly34 at a loss. “Of course we take into account, don’t we? not only the fact of my mother’s desire (intended, I assure you, to be most flattering) that Lady Grace shall enter our family with all honours, but her expressed readiness to facilitate the thing by an understanding over and above ——”
“Over and above Kitty’s release from her damnable payment?”— Lord Theign reached out to what his guest had left rather in the air. “Of course we take everything into account — or I shouldn’t, my dear fellow, be discussing with you at all a business one or two of whose aspects so little appeal to me: especially as there’s nothing, you easily conceive, that a daughter of mine can come in for by entering even your family, or any other (as a family) that she wouldn’t be quite as sure of by just staying in her own. The Duchess’s idea, at any rate, if I’ve followed you, is that if Grace does accept you she settles on you twelve thousand; with the condition —”
Lord John was already all there. “Definitely, yes, of your settling the equivalent on Lady Grace.”
“And what do you call the equivalent of twelve thousand?”
“Why, tacked35 on to a value so great and so charming as Lady Grace herself, I dare say such a sum as nine or ten would serve.”
“And where the mischief36, if you please, at this highly inconvenient37 time, am I to pick up nine or ten thousand?”
Lord John declined, with a smiling, a fairly irritating eye for his friend’s general resources, to consider that question seriously. “Surely you can have no difficulty whatever —!”
“Why not? — when you can see for yourself that I’ve had this year to let poor dear old Hill Street! Do you call it the moment for me to have liked to see myself all but cajoled into planking down even such a matter as the very much lower figure of Kitty’s horrid38 incubus39?”
“Ah, but the inducement and the quid pro2 quo,” Lord John brightly indicated, “are here much greater! In the case you speak of you will only have removed the incubus — which, I grant you, she must and you must feel as horrid. In this other you pacify40 Lady Imber and marry Lady Grace: marry her to a man who has set his heart on her and of whom she has just expressed — to himself — a very kind and very high opinion.”
“She has expressed a very high opinion of you?”— Lord Theign scarce glowed with credulity.
But the younger man held his ground. “She has told me she thoroughly41 likes me and that — though a fellow feels an ass12 repeating such things — she thinks me perfectly42 charming.”
“A tremendous creature, eh, all round? Then,” said Lord Theign, “what does she want more?”
“She very possibly wants nothing — but I’m to that beastly degree, you see,” his visitor patiently explained, “in the cleft43 stick of my fearfully positive mother’s wants. Those are her ‘terms,’ and I don’t mind saying that they’re most disagreeable to me — I quite hate ’em: there! Only I think it makes a jolly difference that I wouldn’t touch ’em with a long pole if my personal feeling — in respect to Lady Grace — wasn’t so immensely enlisted44.”
“I assure you I’d chuck ’em out of window, my boy, if I didn’t believe you’d be really good to her,” Lord Theign returned with the properest spirit.
It only encouraged his companion. “You will just tell her then, now and here, how good you honestly believe I shall be?”
This appeal required a moment — a longer look at him. “You truly hold that that friendly guarantee, backed by my parental45 weight, will do your job?”
“That’s the conviction I entertain.”
Lord Theign thought again. “Well, even if your conviction’s just, that still doesn’t tell me into which of my very empty pockets it will be of the least use for me to fumble46.”
“Oh,” Lord John laughed, “when a man has such a tremendous assortment47 of breeches —!” He pulled up, however, as, in his motion, his eye caught the great vista48 of the open rooms. “If it’s a question of pockets — and what’s in ’em-here precisely49 is my man!” This personage had come back from his tour of observation and was now, on the threshold of the hall, exhibited to Lord Theign as well. Lord John’s welcome was warm. “I’ve had awfully50 to fail you, Mr. Bender, but I was on the point of joining you. Let me, however, still better, introduce you to our host.”
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1
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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clinching
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| v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的现在分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
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amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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blandness
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| n.温柔，爽快 | |
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hustling
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| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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16
abjectly
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| 凄惨地； 绝望地； 糟透地； 悲惨地 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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certified
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| a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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27
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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hurls
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的第三人称单数 )；大声叫骂 | |
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33
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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35
tacked
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| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
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36
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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incubus
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| n.负担；恶梦 | |
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40
pacify
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| vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒)；抚慰 | |
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41
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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42
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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43
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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44
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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45
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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46
fumble
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| vi.笨拙地用手摸、弄、接等，摸索 | |
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47
assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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48
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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49
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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50
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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