“How d’ye do, Mamie? How d’ye do, Lady Wantridge?”
“How d’ye do again?” Lady Wantridge replied with an equanimity2 striking to her hostess. It was as if Scott’s own had been contagious3; it was almost indeed as if she had seen him before. Had she ever so seen him — before the previous day? While Miss Cutter put to herself this question her visitor at all events met the one she had previously4 uttered. “Ever ‘forgive’?” this personage echoed in a tone that made as little account as possible of the interruption. “Dear yes! The people I HAVE forgiven!” She laughed — perhaps a little nervously5; and she was now looking at Scott. The way she looked at him was precisely6 what had already had its effect for his sister. “The people I can!”
“Can you forgive me?” asked Scott Homer.
She took it so easily. “But — what?”
Mamie interposed; she turned directly to her brother. “Don’t try her. Leave it so.” She had had an inspiration, it was the most extraordinary thing in the world. “Don’t try HIM” — she had turned to their companion. She looked grave, sad, strange. “Leave it so.” Yes, it was a distinct inspiration, which she couldn’t have explained, but which had come, prompted by something she had caught — the extent of the recognition expressed — in Lady Wantridge’s face. It had come absolutely of a sudden, straight out of the opposition7 of the two figures before her — quite as if a concussion8 had struck a light. The light was helped by her quickened sense that her friend’s silence on the incident of the day before showed some sort of consciousness. She looked surprised. “Do you know my brother?”
“DO I know you?” Lady Wantridge asked of him.
“No, Lady Wantridge,” Scott pleasantly confessed, “not one little mite9!”
“Well then if you MUST go — ” and Mamie offered her a hand. “But I’ll go down with you. NOT YOU!” she launched at her brother, who immediately effaced10 himself. His way of doing so — and he had already done so, as for Lady Wantridge, in respect to their previous encounter — struck her even at the moment as an instinctive11 if slightly blind tribute to her possession of an idea; and as such, in its celerity, made her so admire him, and their common wit, that she on the spot more than forgave him his queerness. He was right. He could be as queer as he liked! The queerer the better! It was at the foot of the stairs, when she had got her guest down, that what she had assured Mrs. Medwin would come did indeed come. “DID you meet him here yesterday?”
“Dear yes. Isn’t he too funny?”
“Yes,” said Mamie gloomily. “He IS funny. But had you ever met him before?”
“Dear no!”
“Oh!” — and Mamie’s tone might have meant many things.
Lady Wantridge however, after all, easily overlooked it. “I only knew he was one of your odd Americans. That’s why, when I heard yesterday here that he was up there awaiting your return, I didn’t let that prevent me. I thought he might be. He certainly,” her ladyship laughed, “IS.”
“Yes, he’s very American,” Mamie went on in the same way.
“As you say, we ARE fond of you! Good-bye,” said Lady Wantridge.
But Mamie had not half done with her. She felt more and more — or she hoped at least — that she looked strange. She WAS, no doubt, if it came to that, strange. “Lady Wantridge,” she almost convulsively broke out, “I don’t know whether you’ll understand me, but I seem to feel that I must act with you — I don’t know what to call it! — responsibly. He IS my brother.”
“Surely — and why not?” Lady Wantridge stared. “He’s the image of you!”
“Thank you!” — and Mamie was stranger than ever.
“Oh he’s good-looking. He’s handsome, my dear. Oddly — but distinctly!” Her ladyship was for treating it much as a joke.
But Mamie, all sombre, would have none of this. She boldly gave him up. “I think he’s awful.”
“He is indeed — delightfully12. And where DO you get your ways of saying things? It isn’t anything — and the things aren’t anything. But it’s so droll13.”
“Don’t let yourself, all the same,” Mamie consistently pursued, “be carried away by it. The thing can’t be done — simply.”
Lady Wantridge wondered. “‘Done simply’?”
“Done at all.”
“But what can’t be?”
“Why, what you might think — from his pleasantness. What he spoke14 of your doing for him.”
Lady Wantridge recalled. “Forgiving him?”
“He asked you if you couldn’t. But you can’t. It’s too dreadful for me, as so near a relation, to have, loyally — loyally to YOU— to say it. But he’s impossible.”
It was so portentously15 produced that her ladyship had somehow to meet it. “What’s the matter with him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what’s the matter with YOU?” Lady Wantridge inquired.
“It’s because I WON’T know,” Mamie — not without dignity — explained.
“Then I won’t either.”
“Precisely. Don’t. It’s something,” Mamie pursued, with some inconsequence, “that — somewhere or other, at some time or other — he appears to have done. Something that has made a difference in his life.”
“‘Something’?” Lady Wantridge echoed again. “What kind of thing?”
Mamie looked up at the light above the door, through which the London sky was doubly dim. “I haven’t the least idea.”
“Then what kind of difference?”
Mamie’s gaze was still at the light. “The difference you see.”
Lady Wantridge, rather obligingly, seemed to ask herself what she saw. “But I don’t see any! It seems, at least,” she added, “such an amusing one! And he has such nice eyes.”
“Oh DEAR eyes!” Mamie conceded; but with too much sadness, for the moment, about the connexions of the subject, to say more.
It almost forced her companion after an instant to proceed. “Do you mean he can’t go home?”
She weighed her responsibility. “I only make out — more’s the pity! — that he doesn’t.”
“Is it then something too terrible —?”
She thought again. “I don’t know what — for men — IS too terrible.”
“Well then as you don’t know what ‘is’ for women either — good-bye!” her visitor laughed.
It practically wound up the interview; which, however, terminating thus on a considerable stir of the air, was to give Miss Cutter for several days the sense of being much blown about. The degree to which, to begin with, she had been drawn16 — or perhaps rather pushed — closer to Scott was marked in the brief colloquy17 that she on her friend’s departure had with him. He had immediately said it. “You’ll see if she doesn’t ask me down!”
“So soon?”
“Oh I’ve known them at places — at Cannes, at Pau, at Shanghai — do it sooner still. I always know when they will. You CAN’T make out they don’t love me!” He spoke almost plaintively18, as if he wished she could.
“Then I don’t see why it hasn’t done you more good.”
“Why Mamie,” he patiently reasoned, “what more good COULD it? As I tell you,” he explained, “it has just been my life.”
“Then why do you come to me for money?”
“Oh they don’t give me THAT!” Scott returned.
“So that it only means then, after all, that I, at the best, must keep you up?”
He fixed19 on her the nice eyes Lady Wantridge admired. “Do you mean to tell me that already — at this very moment — I’m not distinctly keeping you?”
She gave him back his look. “Wait till she HAS asked you, and then,” Mamie added, “decline.”
Scott, not too grossly, wondered. “As acting20 for YOU?”
Mamie’s next injunction was answer enough. “But BEFORE— yes — call.”
He took it in. “Call — but decline. Good!”
“The rest,” she said, “I leave to you.” And she left it in fact with such confidence that for a couple of days she was not only conscious of no need to give Mrs. Medwin another turn of the screw, but positively21 evaded22, in her fortitude23, the reappearance of that lady. It was not till the fourth day that she waited upon her, finding her, as she had expected, tense.
“Lady Wantridge WILL—?”
“Yes, though she says she won’t.”
“She says she won’t? O-oh!” Mrs. Medwin moaned.
“Sit tight all the same. I HAVE her!”
“But how?”
“Through Scott — whom she wants.”
“Your bad brother!” Mrs. Medwin stared. “What does she want of him?”
“To amuse them at Catchmore. Anything for that. And he WOULD. But he shan’t!” Mamie declared. “He shan’t go unless she comes. She must meet you first — you’re my condition.”
“O-o-oh!” Mrs. Medwin’s tone was a wonder of hope and fear. “But doesn’t he want to go?”
“He wants what I want. She draws the line at YOU. I draw the line at HIM.”
“But SHE— doesn’t she mind that he’s bad?”
It was so artless that Mamie laughed. “No — it doesn’t touch her. Besides, perhaps he isn’t. It isn’t as for you — people seem not to know. He has settled everything, at all events, by going to see her. It’s before her that he’s the thing she’ll have to have.”
“Have to?”
“For Sundays in the country. A feature — THE feature.”
“So she has asked him?”
“Yes — and he has declined.”
“For ME?” Mrs. Medwin panted.
“For me,” said Mamie on the door-step. “But I don’t leave him for long.” Her hansom had waited. “She’ll come.”
Lady Wantridge did come. She met in South Audley Street, on the fourteenth, at tea, the ladies whom Mamie had named to her, together with three or four others, and it was rather a master-stroke for Miss Cutter that if Mrs. Medwin was modestly present Scott Homer was as markedly not. This occasion, however, is a medal that would take rare casting, as would also, for that matter, even the minor24 light and shade, the lower relief, of the pecuniary25 transaction that Mrs. Medwin’s flushed gratitude26 scarce awaited the dispersal of the company munificently27 to complete. A new understanding indeed on the spot rebounded28 from it, the conception of which, in Mamie’s mind, had promptly29 bloomed. “He shan’t go now unless he takes you.” Then, as her fancy always moved quicker for her client than her client’s own — “Down with him to Catchmore! When he goes to amuse them YOU,” she serenely30 developed, “shall amuse them too.” Mrs. Medwin’s response was again rather oddly divided, but she was sufficiently31 intelligible32 when it came to meeting the hint that this latter provision would represent success to the tune33 of a separate fee. “Say,” Mamie had suggested, “the same.”
“Very well; the same.”
The knowledge that it was to be the same had perhaps something to do also with the obliging spirit in which Scott eventually went. It was all at the last rather hurried — a party rapidly got together for the Grand Duke, who was in England but for the hour, who had good-naturedly proposed himself, and who liked his parties small, intimate and funny. This one was of the smallest and was finally judged to conform neither too little nor too much to the other conditions — after a brief whirlwind of wires and counterwires, and an iterated waiting of hansoms at various doors — to include Mrs. Medwin. It was from Catchmore itself that, snatching, a moment — on the wondrous34 Sunday afternoon, this lady had the harmonious35 thought of sending the new cheque. She was in bliss36 enough, but her scribble37 none the less intimated that it was Scott who amused them most. He WAS the feature.
The End
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收听单词发音
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1
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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2
equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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3
contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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4
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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5
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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6
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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7
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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8
concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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9
mite
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| n.极小的东西；小铜币 | |
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10
effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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11
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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12
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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13
droll
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| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
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14
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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15
portentously
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16
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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17
colloquy
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| n.谈话，自由讨论 | |
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18
plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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19
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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20
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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21
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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22
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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23
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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24
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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25
pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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26
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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munificently
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28
rebounded
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| 弹回( rebound的过去式和过去分词 )； 反弹； 产生反作用； 未能奏效 | |
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29
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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30
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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31
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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32
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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33
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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34
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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35
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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36
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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37
scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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