That question too, at the queer touch of association, played up for Mark even under so much proof that the state of his own soul was being with the lapse20 of every instant registered. Phil Bloodgood had brought about the state of his soul — there was accordingly that amount of connection; only it became further remarkable21 that from the moment his companion had sounded him, and sounded him, he knew, down to the last truth of things, his disposition22, his necessity to talk, the desire that had in the morning broken the spell of his confinement23, the impulse that had thrown him so defeatedly into Mrs. Folliott’s arms and into Florence Ash’s, these forces seemed to feel their impatience24 ebb25 and their discretion26 suddenly grow. His companion was talking again, but just then, incongruously, made his need to communicate lose itself. It was as if his personal case had already been touched by some tender hand — and that, after all, was the modest limit of its greed. “I know now why you came back — did Lottie mention how I had wondered? But sit down, sit down — only let me, nervous beast as I am, take it standing27! — and believe me when I tell you that I’ve now ceased to wonder. My dear chap, I have it! It can’t but have been for poor Phil Blood-good. He sticks out of you, the brute28 — as how, with what he has done to you, shouldn’t he? There was a man to see me yesterday — Tim Slater, whom I don’t think you know, but who’s ‘on’ everything within about two minutes of its happening (I never saw such a fellow!) and who confirmed my supposition, all my own, however, mind you, at first, that you’re one of the sufferers. So how the devil can you not feel knocked? Why should you look as if you were having the time of your life? What a hog29 to have played it on you, on you, of all his friends!” So Newton Winch continued, and so the air between the two men might have been, for a momentary30 watcher — which is indeed what I can but invite the reader to become — that of a nervously31 displayed, but all considerate, as well as most acute, curiosity on the one side, and that on the other, after a little, of an eventually fascinated acceptance of so much free and in especial of so much right attention. “Do you mind my asking you? Because if you do I won’t press; but as a man whose own responsibilities, some of ’em at least, don’t differ much, I gather, from some of his, one would like to know how he was ever allowed to get to the point —! But I do plough you up?”
Mark sat back in his chair, moved but holding himself, his elbows squared on each arm, his hands a bit convulsively interlocked across him — very much in fact as he had appeared an hour ago in the old tapestry32 berg?¨re; but as his rigour was all then that of the grinding effort to profess33 and to give, so it was considerably now for the fear of too hysterically34 gushing35. Somehow too — since his wound was to that extent open — he winced36 at hearing the author of it branded. He hadn’t so much minded the epithets37 Mrs. Folliott had applied38, for they were to the appropriator of her securities. As the appropriator of his own he didn’t so much want to brand him as — just more “amusingly” even, if one would. — to make out, perhaps, with intelligent help, how such a man, in such a relation, could come to tread such a path: which was exactly the interesting light that Winch’s curiosity and sympathy were there to assist him to. He pleaded at any rate immediately his advertising39 no grievance40. “I feel sore, I admit, and it’s a horrid41 sort of thing to have had happen; but when you call him a brute and a hog I rather squirm, for brutes42 and hogs43 never live, I guess, in the sort of hell in which he now must be.”
Newton Winch, before the fireplace, his hands deep in his pockets, where his guest could see his long fingers beat a tattoo44 on his thighs45, Newton Winch dangled46 and swung himself, and threw back his head and laughed. “Well, I must say you take it amazingly! — all the more that to see you again this way is to feel that if, all along, there was a man whose delicacy47 and confidence and general attitude might have marked him for a particular consideration, you’d have been the man.” And they were more directly face to face again; with Newton smiling and smiling so appreciatively; making our friend in fact almost ask himself when before a man had ever grinned from ear to ear to the effect of its so becoming him. What he replied, however, was that Newton described in those flattering terms a client temptingly fatuous48; after which, and the exchange of another protest or two in the interest of justice and decency49, and another plea or two in that of the still finer contention50 that even the basest misdeeds had always somewhere or other, could one get at it, their propitiatory51 side, our hero found himself on his feet again, under the influence of a sudden failure of everything but horror — a horror determined52 by some turn of their talk and indeed by the very fact of the freedom of it. It was as if a far-borne sound of the hue53 and cry, a vision of his old friend hunted and at bay, had suddenly broken in — this other friend’s, this irresistibly54 intelligent other companion’s, practically vivid projection55 of that making the worst ugliness real. “Oh, it’s just making my wry56 face to somebody, and your letting me and caring and wanting to know: that,” Mark said, “is what does me good; not any other hideous57 question. I mean I don’t take any interest in my case — what one wonders about, you see, is what can be done for him. I mean, that is” — for he floundered a little, not knowing at last quite what he did mean, a great rush of mere58 memories, a great humming sound as of thick, thick echoes, rising now to an assault that he met with his face indeed contorted. If he didn’t take care he should howl; so he more or less successfully took care — yet with his host vividly59 watching him while he shook the danger temporarily off. “I don’t mind — though it’s rather that; my having felt this morning, after three dismal60 dumb bad days, that one’s friends perhaps would be thinking of one. All I’m conscious of now — I give you my word — is that I’d like to see him.”
“You’d like to see him?”
“Oh, I don’t say,” Mark ruefully smiled, “that I should like him to see me —!”
Newton Winch, from where he stood — and they were together now, on the great hearth-rug that was a triumph of modern orientalism — put out one of the noted fine hands and, with an expressive61 headshake, laid it on his shoulder. “Don’t wish him that, Monteith — don’t wish him that!”
“Well, but,” — and Mark raised his eyebrows62 still higher — “he’d see I bear up; pretty well!”
“God forbid he should see, my dear fellow!” Newton cried as for the pang63 of it.
Mark had for his idea, at any rate, the oddest sense of an exaltation that grew by this use of frankness. “I’d go to him. Hanged if I wouldn’t — anywhere!”
His companion’s hand still rested on him. “You’d go to him?”
Mark stood up to it — though trying to sink solemnity as pretentious64. “I’d go like a shot.” And then he added: “And it’s probably what — when we’ve turned round — I shall do.”
“When ‘we’ have turned round?”
“Well” — he was a trifle disconcerted at the tone — “I say that because you’ll have helped me.”
“Oh, I do nothing but want to help you!” Winch replied — which made it right again; especially as our friend still felt himself reassuringly65 and sustainingly grasped. But Winch went on: “You would go to him — in kindness?”
“Well — to understand.”
“To understand how he could swindle you?”
“Well,” Mark kept on, “to try and make out with him how, after such things —!” But he stopped; he couldn’t name them.
It was as if his companion knew. “Such things as you’ve done for him of course — such services as you’ve rendered him.”
“Ah, from far back. If I could tell you,” our friend vainly wailed66 — “if I could tell you!”
Newton Winch patted his shoulder. “Tell me — tell me!”
“The sort of relation, I mean; ever so many things of a kind —!” Again, however, he pulled up; he felt the tremor67 of his voice.
“Tell me, tell me,” Winch repeated with the same movement.
The tone in it now made their eyes meet again, and with this presentation of the altered face Mark measured as not before, for some reason, the extent of the recent ravage68. “You must have been ill indeed.”
“Pretty bad. But I’m better. And you do me good” — with which the light of convalescence69 came back.
“I don’t awfully70 bore you?”
Winch shook his head. “You keep me up — and you see how no one else comes near me.”
Mark’s eyes made out that he was better — though it wasn’t yet that nothing was the matter with him. If there was ever a man with whom there was still something the matter —! Yet one couldn’t insist on that, and meanwhile he clearly did want company. “Then there we are. I myself had no one to go to.”
“You save my life,” Newton renewedly grinned.
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1
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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labial
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| adj.唇的；唇音的；n.唇音，风琴管 | |
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7
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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10
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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11
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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12
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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14
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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15
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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17
nostril
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| n.鼻孔 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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21
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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22
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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23
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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24
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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26
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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27
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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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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hog
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| n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占 | |
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30
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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31
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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32
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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33
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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34
hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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35
gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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36
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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38
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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40
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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41
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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42
brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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43
hogs
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| n.（尤指喂肥供食用的）猪( hog的名词复数 )；（供食用的）阉公猪；彻底地做某事；自私的或贪婪的人 | |
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44
tattoo
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| n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于 | |
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45
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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46
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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47
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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48
fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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49
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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50
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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51
propitiatory
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| adj.劝解的；抚慰的；谋求好感的；哄人息怒的 | |
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52
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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53
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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54
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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55
projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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56
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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57
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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58
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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60
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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61
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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62
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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63
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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64
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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65
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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66
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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68
ravage
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| vt.使...荒废，破坏...；n.破坏，掠夺，荒废 | |
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69
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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70
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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