‘She told me she was seventeen,’ said the young man, as if it made a great difference.
‘Well, only just!’ Mrs. Temperly replied, in the tone of graceful1, reasonable concession2.
‘Well, that’s a very good age for me. I’m very young.’
‘You are old enough to know better,’ the lady remarked, in her soft, pleasant voice, which always drew the sting from a reproach, and enabled you to swallow it as you would a cooked plum, without the stone. ‘Why, she hasn’t finished her education!’
‘That’s just what I mean,’ said her interlocutor. ‘It would finish it beautifully for her to marry me.’
‘Have you finished yours, my dear?’ Mrs. Temperly inquired. ‘The way you young people talk about marrying!’ she exclaimed, looking at the itinerant3 functionary4 with the long wand who touched into a flame the tall gas-lamp on the other side of the Fifth Avenue. The pair were standing5, in the recess6 of a window, in one of the big public rooms of an immense hotel, and the October day was turning to dusk.
‘Well, would you have us leave it to the old?’ Raymond asked. ‘That’s just what I think — she would be such a help to me,’ he continued. ‘I want to go back to Paris to study more. I have come home too soon. I don’t know half enough; they know more here than I thought. So it would be perfectly7 easy, and we should all be together.’
‘Well, my dear, when you do come back to Paris we will talk about it,’ said Mrs. Temperly, turning away from the window.
‘I should like it better, Cousin Maria, if you trusted me a little more,’ Raymond sighed, observing that she was not really giving her thoughts to what he said. She irritated him somehow; she was so full of her impending8 departure, of her arrangements, her last duties and memoranda9. She was not exactly important, any more than she was humble10; she was too conciliatory for the one and too positive for the other. But she bustled11 quietly and gave one the sense of being ‘up to’ everything; the successive steps of her enterprise were in advance perfectly clear to her, and he could see that her imagination (conventional as she was she had plenty of that faculty) had already taken up its abode12 on one of those fine premiers13 which she had never seen, but which by instinct she seemed to know all about, in the very best part of the quarter of the Champs Elysées. If she ruffled14 him envy had perhaps something to do with it: she was to set sail on the morrow for the city of his affection and he was to stop in New York, where the fact that he was but half pleased did not alter the fact that he had his studio on his hands and that it was a bad one (though perhaps as good as any use he should put it to), which no one would be in a hurry to relieve him of.
It was easy for him to talk to Mrs. Temperly in that airy way about going back, but he couldn’t go back unless the old gentleman gave him the means. He had already given him a great many things in the past, and with the others coming on (Marian’s marriage-outfit, within three months, had cost literally15 thousands), Raymond had not at present the face to ask for more. He must sell some pictures first, and to sell them he must first paint them. It was his misfortune that he saw what he wanted to do so much better than he could do it. But he must really try and please himself — an effort that appeared more possible now that the idea of following Dora across the ocean had become an incentive16. In spite of secret aspirations17 and even intentions, however, it was not encouraging to feel that he made really no impression at all on Cousin Maria. This certitude was so far from agreeable to him that he almost found it in him to drop the endearing title by which he had hitherto addressed her. It was only that, after all, her husband had been distantly related to his mother. It was not as a cousin that he was interested in Dora, but as something very much more intimate. I know not whether it occurred to him that Mrs. Temperly herself would never give his displeasure the benefit of dropping the affectionate form. She might shut her door to him altogether, but he would always be her kinsman18 and her dear. She was much addicted19 to these little embellishments of human intercourse20 — the friendly apostrophe and even the caressing21 hand — and there was something homely22 and cosy23, a rustic24, motherly bonhomie, in her use of them. She was as lavish25 of them as she was really careful in the selection of her friends.
She stood there with her hand in her pocket, as if she were feeling for something; her little plain, pleasant face was presented to him with a musing26 smile, and he vaguely27 wondered whether she were fumbling28 for a piece of money to buy him off from wishing to marry her daughter. Such an idea would be quite in keeping with the disguised levity29 with which she treated his state of mind. If her levity was wrapped up in the air of tender solicitude30 for everything that related to the feelings of her child, that only made her failure to appreciate his suit more deliberate. She struck him almost as impertinent (at the same time that he knew this was never her intention) as she looked up at him — her tiny proportions always made her throw back her head and set something dancing in her cap — and inquired whether he had noticed if she gave two keys, tied together by a blue ribbon, to Susan Winkle, when that faithful but flurried domestic met them in the lobby. She was thinking only of questions of luggage, and the fact that he wished to marry Dora was the smallest incident in their getting off.
‘I think you ask me that only to change the subject,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe that ever in your life you have been unconscious of what you have done with your keys.’
‘Not often, but you make me nervous,’ she answered, with her patient, honest smile.
‘Oh, Cousin Maria!’ the young man exclaimed, ambiguously, while Mrs. Temperly looked humanely31 at some totally uninteresting people who came straggling into the great hot, frescoed32, velvety33 drawing-room, where it was as easy to see you were in an hotel as it was to see that, if you were, you were in one of the very best. Mrs. Temperly, since her husband’s death, had passed much of her life at hotels, where she flattered herself that she preserved the tone of domestic life free from every taint34 and promoted the refined development of her children; but she selected them as well as she selected her friends. Somehow they became better from the very fact of her being there, and her children were smuggled35 in and out in the most extraordinary way; one never met them racing36 and whooping37, as one did hundreds of others, in the lobbies. Her frequentation of hotels, where she paid enormous bills, was part of her expensive but practical way of living, and also of her theory that, from one week to another, she was going to Europe for a series of years as soon as she had wound up certain complicated affairs which had devolved upon her at her husband’s death. If these affairs had dragged on it was owing to their inherent troublesomeness and implied no doubt of her capacity to bring them to a solution and to administer the very considerable fortune that Mr. Temperly had left. She used, in a superior, unprejudiced way, every convenience that the civilisation38 of her time offered her, and would have lived without hesitation39 in a lighthouse if this had contributed to her general scheme. She was now, in the interest of this scheme, preparing to use Europe, which she had not yet visited and with none of whose foreign tongues she was acquainted. This time she was certainly embarking40.
She took no notice of the discredit41 which her young friend appeared to throw on the idea that she had nerves, and betrayed no suspicion that he believed her to have them in about the same degree as a sound, productive Alderney cow. She only moved toward one of the numerous doors of the room, as if to remind him of all she had still to do before night. They passed together into the long, wide corridor of the hotel — a vista42 of soft carpet, numbered doors, wandering women and perpetual gaslight — and approached the staircase by which she must ascend43 again to her domestic duties. She counted over, serenely44, for his enlightenment, those that were still to be performed; but he could see that everything would be finished by nine o’clock — the time she had fixed45 in advance. The heavy luggage was then to go to the steamer; she herself was to be on board, with the children and the smaller things, at eleven o’clock the next morning. They had thirty pieces, but this was less than they had when they came from California five years before. She wouldn’t have done that again. It was true that at that time she had had Mr. Temperly to help: he had died, Raymond remembered, six months after the settlement in New York. But, on the other hand, she knew more now. It was one of Mrs. Temperly’s amiable46 qualities that she admitted herself so candidly47 to be still susceptible48 of development. She never professed49 to be in possession of all the knowledge requisite50 for her career; not only did she let her friends know that she was always learning, but she appealed to them to instruct her, in a manner which was in itself an example.
When Raymond said to her that he took for granted she would let him come down to the steamer for a last good-bye, she not only consented graciously but added that he was free to call again at the hotel in the evening, if he had nothing better to do. He must come between nine and ten; she expected several other friends — those who wished to see the last of them, yet didn’t care to come to the ship. Then he would see all of them — she meant all of themselves, Dora and Effie and Tishy, and even Mademoiselle Bourde. She spoke51 exactly as if he had never approached her on the subject of Dora and as if Tishy, who was ten years of age, and Mademoiselle Bourde, who was the French governess and forty, were objects of no less an interest to him. He felt what a long pull he should have ever to get round her, and the sting of this knowledge was in his consciousness that Dora was really in her mother’s hands. In Mrs. Temperly’s composition there was not a hint of the bully52; but none the less she held her children — she would hold them for ever. It was not simply by tenderness; but what it was by she knew best herself. Raymond appreciated the privilege of seeing Dora again that evening as well as on the morrow; yet he was so vexed53 with her mother that his vexation betrayed him into something that almost savoured of violence — a fact which I am ashamed to have to chronicle, as Mrs. Temperly’s own urbanity deprived such breaches54 of every excuse. It may perhaps serve partly as an excuse for Raymond Bestwick that he was in love, or at least that he thought he was. Before she parted from him at the foot of the staircase he said to her, ‘And of course, if things go as you like over there, Dora will marry some foreign prince.’
She gave no sign of resenting this speech, but she looked at him for the first time as if she were hesitating, as if it were not instantly clear to her what to say. It appeared to him, on his side, for a moment, that there was something strange in her hesitation, that abruptly55, by an inspiration, she was almost making up her mind to reply that Dora’s marriage to a prince was, considering Dora’s peculiarities56 (he knew that her mother deemed her peculiar57, and so did he, but that was precisely58 why he wished to marry her), so little probable that, after all, once such a union was out of the question, he might be no worse than another plain man. These, however, were not the words that fell from Mrs. Temperly’s lips. Her embarrassment59 vanished in her clear smile. ‘Do you know what Mr. Temperly used to say? He used to say that Dora was the pattern of an old maid — she would never make a choice.’
‘I hope — because that would have been too foolish — that he didn’t say she wouldn’t have a chance.’
‘Oh, a chance! what do you call by that fine name?’ Cousin Maria exclaimed, laughing, as she ascended60 the stair.
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收听单词发音
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1
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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functionary
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| n.官员；公职人员 | |
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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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6
recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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7
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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9
memoranda
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| n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式 | |
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10
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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11
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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12
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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premiers
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| n.总理，首相( premier的名词复数 )；首席官员， | |
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14
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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15
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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16
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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17
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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18
kinsman
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| n.男亲属 | |
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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21
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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22
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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23
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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24
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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25
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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26
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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27
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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28
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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29
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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30
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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31
humanely
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| adv.仁慈地；人道地；富人情地；慈悲地 | |
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32
frescoed
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| 壁画( fresco的名词复数 )； 温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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33
velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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34
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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36
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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37
whooping
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| 发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的 | |
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38
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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39
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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40
embarking
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| 乘船( embark的现在分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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41
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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42
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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43
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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44
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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45
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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46
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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47
candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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48
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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49
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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50
requisite
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| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
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51
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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52
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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53
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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54
breaches
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| 破坏( breach的名词复数 )； 破裂； 缺口； 违背 | |
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55
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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56
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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57
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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58
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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59
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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