She spoke1 with frank sincerity2. Upon afterthought she added: “I don’t believe any woman could order a meal like that. You men always know so much about eating.” Mosscrop leant back in his chair, crossed his knees, and took a cigar from his pocket. His mind ran in pleasurable retrospect3 over the dishes—a fragrant4 omelette with mushrooms, a sole Marguerite, a delicate little steak that had been steeped in oil over night, a pulpy5 Italian cheese which he never got elsewhere than here. The tall-shouldered, urnshaped green bottle on the table still held a little Capri, and he poured it into her glass.
“Yes,” he assented6, “I find myself paying more attention to food as I get older. It is the badge of advancing years. It is a good little restaurant, isn’t it? I come here a great deal.”
“And that is how you are able to order such wonderful breakfasts for hungry young ladies. It comes of practice. Do they all enjoy it as much as I have?”
“You mustn’t ask things like that,” he remonstrated7, smilingly, as he lit a match. “I hope you don’t mind?—thanks.” He regarded her contemplatively through the dissolving haze8 of the first mouthful of smoke. They had the small upstairs dining-room to themselves, and she, from her seat by the window, let her glances wander from him to the street below, and back again, with a charming, child-like effect of being delighted with everything. The sight of her opposite him stirred new emotions in his being. He imported a gentle gravity into his smile, and dropped the jesting tone from his voice. “No—we must play that I have never breakfasted with anybody before—like this—either here or anywhere else. Let us both start fresh on our birthday. We wipe everything off the slate9, and make a clean beginning. First of all, you haven’t told me your name.”
“My name is Vestalia Peaussier.”
“Then you are not English? I could have sworn you were the most typically English girl I’d ever laid eyes on.”
“My father was a French gentleman—an officer, and a man of position. He died—killed in a duel—when I was very young. I do not remember him at all. My mother brought me away from France at once. She was dreadfully crushed, poor lady. She was the daughter of a very old Scottish house—it had been a runaway10 love match—and her people, my grandparents——”
“What part of Scotland? What was their name? I am a Scot myself, you know.”
Vestalia paused briefly11, and sipped12 at her wine. “I was going to say—my grandparents behaved so unfeelingly to my mother that she never permitted herself to mention their name. I do not know it myself. I gathered as a child from poor mother’s words that they were extremely wealthy and proud, and had a title in the family. It is not probable that I shall ever learn more. I should not wish to, either, for it was their hard cruelty which broke my mother’s heart. She died two years ago. Poor unhappy lady!”
Mosscrop nodded sympathetically. “And were you left without anything?”
“My mother’s private fortune had been diminished to almost nothing by bad investments and the treachery of others before her death. I had no one to advise me—I was all alone—and the lawyers and others probably robbed me cruelly. Only a few of her old family jewels were left to me—and one by one I had to part with these. Some of them, I daresay, were of great antiquity13 and priceless value, if I had only known, but I was forced to sell them for a song. There were wonderful signet-rings among them, all with the crest14 of the family—I suppose it must have been her family—and at first I thought of using it to trace them—but then my girlish pride——”
“What was the crest?” asked David. “Perhaps it wouldn’t be too late, now.”
Again Vestalia hesitated. Then she shook her head. “No; dear mamma’s wishes are sacred to me. I do not wish to learn what she thought it best to keep from me.”
“Well—and when the jewels were all sold?”
“Long before that I had begun to work for my living. I write a good hand naturally. I got employment as a copyist, but that did not last very long. I was ambitious, and I thought I might work my way into literature. But it is a very disheartening career, you know.”
Mosscrop had lifted his brows in some surprise. He nodded again, with a cursory15 “Ay!”
“The editors were not at all kind to me,” she went on. “I toiled16 like a slave, but I hardly ever got anything accepted, and then you had to wait months for your pay, and perhaps not get it at all. I should have starved long ago, if I hadn’t met an American woman at the Museum who was over here getting up pedigrees. Oh, not for herself. She made a regular business of it. Rich Americans paid her to hunt up their English ancestors, in genealogies17 and old records, and on tombstones and so on. I was her assistant for nearly a year, and things went fairly well with me. But three months ago she was taken ill and had to go home, and there I was stranded18 again. I tried to go on with some of the jobs she left unfinished, but the people had gone away, or hadn’t confidence in so young a person, and well—that’s all. My landlady19 turned me out at six o’clock this morning, and she has seized the few poor things I had left—and here I am.”
The young man lifted his glass, and clinked it against hers. “I am very glad that you are here,” he said; and they smiled wistfully into each other’s eyes as they finished the Capri.
“It is a heavenly little break in the clouds, anyway,” she went on, dreamily. “It isn’t like real life at all: it is the way things happen in fairy stories.”
“Quite so. Why shouldn’t we have a fairy story all by ourselves? It is every whit20 as easy as the stupid, humdrum21 other thing, and a million times nicer. Oh, I’m on the side of the fairies, myself.”
She looked out, in an absent fashion, at the windows across the way. The light began to fade from her countenance22, and the troubled lines returned. “Every day for a fortnight I have been answering advertisements,” she went on, pensively23; “some by letter, some in person. There were secretaries’ places, but you had to know shorthand, and the typewriter, and all that. Then somehow all the vacancies24 for shop-women got filled before I applied25, or else people with experience in the business were preferred to me. I even went in for the ‘lady-help’ thing—a kind of domestic servant, you know, only you get less pay and don’t wear a cap—but nobody would have me. My hair was too good and my boots were too bad. The lady of the house just stared at these two things, every place I applied at, and said she was afraid I wouldn’t answer.”
The picture she drew was painful to Moss-crop, and he made an effort to lighten it with levity26. “I confess I didn’t think very highly of your boots, myself,” he said, cheerily, “but I admire your hair immensely.”
“Oh, but you are a man!”
He chuckled27 amiably28 at the implication of her retort, and she laughed a little, too, in a reluctant way. “It occurs to me,” he ventured, pausing over his words, “that men seem to have played no part whatever in the story of your life.”
“No, absolutely none,” she answered, with prompt decision. “I have never before been beholden to a man for so much as a biscuit or a shoe-button. I don’t know that you will believe me when I tell you, but I’ve never even been alone in a room with a man before in my life.”
“Of course, I believe what you say. It is remarkably29 interesting, though. Come! First impressions are the very salt of life. I should dearly like to know what you think of the novel experience, as far as you’ve gone.”
She seemed to take him seriously. Placing her elbows on the table, and poising30 her chin between thumbs and forefingers31, she bestowed32 a frank scrutiny33 upon his face, as intent and dispassionate as the gaze which a professor of palmistry fastens upon the lines of the client’s hand.
“First of all,” she said, deliberately34, “I am not so afraid of you as I was.”
“Delightful!” he cried. “Then I did inspire terror at the outset. It has been the dream of my life to do that—if only just once. I feared I should never succeed. My dear lady, you have rescued me from my own contempt. My career is not a blank failure after all. We must have coffee and a liqueur after that!”
He pressed the bell at his side. She frowned a little at his merry exuberance35.
“I am not joking,” she complained. “You asked me to say just what I felt.”
He nodded his contrition36 as the waiter left the room.
“Yes, do,” he urged. “I will keep as still as a mouse.”
“I am not as afraid of you as I was,” she repeated, dogmatically. “But I think, even if I knew you ever so well, I should always be just the least weeny bit afraid. I can see that you are very kind—my Heavens! nobody else has ever been a hundredth part as kind to me as you are—but all the same—yes, there is a but if I can explain it to you—I get a feeling that you are being kind because it affords you yourself pleasure, rather than because it helps me. No—that is not quite what I mean either. It seems to me that a man will be much kinder than any woman knows how to be, so long as he feels that way; but when he doesn’t feel that way any more—well, then he’ll chuck the whole thing, and never give it another thought.”
“That is very intelligent,” said Mosscrop.
He had the appearance of turning it over in his mind, and liking37 it the more upon consideration. “Yes, that is soundly reasoned. I can well believe your mother was a Scots lass.”
Vestalia flushed, no doubt with pride.
“Well, then, hear me out,” she said, with a pleasant little assumption of newly-gained authority. “Now, I’ve hardly known a man to speak to—that is, a gentleman, as a friend, you know—if I’m justified38 in calling you so on such short acquaintance—or no, I mustn’t say that, must I? We are friends—but it’s a new experience, quite, to me. As you say, I have my first impression of what it is like to have a man for a friend.”
The waiter, pushing the door open with his foot, brought in a tray with white cups and silver pots, and wee tinted39 glasses, and a tall, shapeless bottle encased in a basket-work covering of straw.
“I ordered maraschino,” remarked Moss-crop, as the man poured the coffee. “If you prefer any other, why, of course——”
“Oh no; whatever you say is good, I take with my eyes shut.”
She sipped at the little glass he had filled for her, and then, with a movement of lips and tongue, mused40 upon the unaccustomed taste. An alert glance shot at him from her eyes.
“I hope——” she began to say, and stopped short.
“You hope what?”
“No; I won’t say what I was going to. It would have been a very ungrateful speech. Only, you must bear in mind that I hardly know one wine from another, and I am leaving myself absolutely in your hands. You will see to it, won’t you, that—that I don’t drink more than I ought.”
Mosscrop waved his hand in smiling reassurance41.
“But now for that famous first impression of yours.”
She narrowed her eyelids42 to look at him, and he found her glance invested with something like tenderness of expression. Her head was tilted43 a bit to one side, so that the light from the window fell full upon the face. It was a more beautiful face than he had thought, with exquisitely44 faint and shell-like gradations of colour upon the temples and below the ears, where the strange but lovely primrose45 hair began. A soft rose-tint had come into her cheeks, which had seemed pallid46 an hour before. The whole countenance was rounded and mellowed47 and beautified in his eyes, as he answered her lingering, approving gaze.
“My impression?” she spoke slowly, and with none of the assurance which had marked her earlier deliverance. “Well, you know, I don’t feel as if I knew men any more than I did before. I only know one man—a very, very little. I don’t believe that other men are at all like him, or else we should hear about it. The world would be full of it. No one would talk of anything else. But the man I do know—that is, a little—well, I’d rather know him than all the women that ever were born, even if I had to be afraid of him all the while into the bargain.”
Mosscrop laughed.
“We did well to label it in advance as a first impression. It is the judgment48 of a babe just opening its eyes. My dear child, I’m afraid this isn’t your birthday, after all. You’re clearly not a year old yet.”
“You always joke, but I’m in sober earnest.” She indeed spoke almost solemnly, and with an impressive fervour in her voice. “You do impress me just like that. I wish you’d believe that I’m saying exactly what I feel. Mind, I expressly said, I don’t suppose for a minute that other men are like you.”
“No, you’re right there,” he broke in. Her manner, even more than the speech, affected49 him curiously50. He drained his liqueur at a gulp51, stared out of the window, fidgetted on his chair, finally rose to his feet.
“You’re right there!” he reiterated52, biting his cigar and thrusting his hands deep in his pockets. She would have risen also, but he signed to her to sit still. “Other men are not like me, and they can thank God that they’re not. They know enough to keep sober; I don’t. They are of some intelligent use in the world; I’m not. They lead cleanly and decent lives, they control themselves, they make names for themselves, they do things which are of some benefit at least to somebody. Ah-h! You hit the nail on the head. They are different from, me!”
She gazed up at him, dumb with sheer surprise. He took a few aimless steps up and down, halted to scowl53 out of the window at the signs opposite, and then flung himself into the chair again. Sprawling54 his elbows on the table, he bent55 forward and fastened upon her a look of such startled intensity56 that she trembled under it and drew back.
“Why, do you know, you foolish little girl,” he began, in a hoarse57, declamatory voice, “that a few minutes before you came along, there on the bridge, I was going to throw myself into the river, because I wasn’t fit to live. Do you realize that I had sat in judgment upon myself, and condemned58 myself to death—death, mind you!—because I was an utterly59 hopeless creature, a waste product, a drunkard, a sterile60 fool and loafer, a veritable human swine? That is the truth! Do you know where I spent last night—where I woke up, sick with disgust for myself, this morning? No, you don’t; and there’s no need that I should tell you.”
“I don’t care!” The girl’s lips propelled the words forth61 with extraordinary swiftness, but the eyes with which she regarded her companion, and the rest of her face, grown pale once more, remained unmoved.
“No, you don’t care!” he groaned62 out a long sigh, and went on with waning64 vigour65. “But I care! It is something to one that I am what I am; that I have wasted my life, that I have done nothing, and worse than nothing, with my chances, that I——”
“You misunderstand me,” Vestalia interposed, with a perturbed66 simulation of calm. “What I meant was that whatever happened last—that is, at any time before this morning—makes no difference whatever in my—my liking for you.” Her eyes brightened at the thought of something. “It was you yourself who said we would wipe the slate clean, and begin all over again quite fresh. Don’t you remember? And we were to have our own fairy story, all to ourselves. You do remember, don’t you?”
He still breathed heavily, but the gloom upon his face began to abate67 as he looked at her. He moved one of his hands forward on the table to the neighbourhood of hers, and stroked the cloth gently as if it were her hand he touched. A weary smile, born in his eyes, strengthened and spread to soften68 his whole countenance.
“Yes, I remember everything,” he mused, with a kind of forlorn gladness in his tone. It seemed an invitation to silence, and they sat without words for a little.
With a constrained69 air of having convinced herself by argument that it was the right thing to do, Vestalia all at once lifted her hand, and laid it lightly on his. He fancied that it trembled a little. His own certainly shook, though he pressed it firmly upon the table.
“Now the bad spirits have all gone,” he said; “it is fairyland again.”
“Ah, we must keep it so,” she answered, and pressed his hand softly before she withdrew her own. The black mood had fled from him as swiftly as it came. Vestalia’s eyes beamed at the sight of his restored good-humour with himself, and she nodded gay approbation70.
“I fancy we’ve about exhausted71 the delights of this place,” he remarked, after a brief silence filled for both of them with a pleasantly sufficient sense of friendship at its ease. “I’ll pay the bill, and we’ll toddle72.”
She glanced about her. “I shall always remember this dear little stuffy73 old room. I almost hate to leave it at all. I want to fix in my mind just how it looks.”
“Oh, we’ll come often again,” he remarked, lightly. Then it occurred to him that this assurance contained perhaps an element of rashness. “Have you got anything special to do to-day?” he asked, with awkward abruptness74.
The question puzzled and troubled her. “I was going to celebrate my birthday,” she murmured, with a wistful, flickering75 smile ready to fade into depression.
“Of course you are; that’s all settled,” he responded, making up by the heartiness76 of his tone for the forgetful stupidity of his query77. “What I meant was—what were you thinking of doing before—before you knew you had a birthday on hand?”
Vestalia examined the bottom of her coffee-cup, and poked78 at it with the spoon. “Me? Oh, I had several things to do,” she made reply, hesitatingly. “I had to find something to eat, and contrive79 how to earn some money, and hunt up a new lodging80, and see how I was going to feed myself to-morrow, and—and other small matters of that sort.”
His comment was prefaced with a kind, sad little laugh.
“You must go to the old place, and get your things,” he said. “How much do you owe?”
“I’d rather not go back at all.” She ventured to look up at him now. “I don’t want ever to lay eyes on that old hag again.”
“But your things. If I sent a commissionaire, would she give them up?—on payment of the bill, of course.”
“They’re not worth a bus-fare—they’re really not. You see,” she went on with her reluctant confidences, “I had to pawn81 everything. These clothes I have on are every rag I have left.”
Mosserop, regarding her with a sympathetic gaze, recalled very clearly the gown she used to wear at the Museum. It was a queer colour—a sort of rusty82 greenish-blue; it was of common stuff, and made without a waist, in some outlandish Grosvenor Gallery fashion novel to his eye. The practical side of him stumbled at this memory. “But if you had to pawn things,” he said, “I should have thought these silks you have on would have gone first. That frock you used to wear at the Museum, for instance—you could only have raised a few pence on that—whereas these things—I’m afraid, my young friend, that you haven’t a good business head.”
“Oh, better than you think,” she retorted, with downcast eyes. Her further words cost her a visible effort. “I thought it all out, and I saw that my only chance was to hang on to these clothes. If people didn’t happen to look at my boots, I was all right. Men don’t notice such things much—you yourself didn’t at first. And my skirt would hide them, more or less.”
He looked at her averted83 face, slowly assimilating the meaning of what she said. Then he hastily turned his chair sidewise, rang the bell for the waiter, lit a fresh cigar, and blew out the match with a sigh which deepened into an audible groan63.
“What else could I do?” she faltered84, with a flushing cheek, and a tear-dimmed stare out of the window. “Nothing but throw myself into the river. And that I won’t do. They have no right to insist upon my doing that. If I was old and horrid85, it wouldn’t matter so much. But I’m young, and I want to live. That’s all I ask—just the chance to live. And that I won’t let them rob me of, if I can help it.”
The waiter, counting out the change, embraced the couple in a series of calm, sidelong glances. He expressed polite thanks for the shilling pushed aside toward him, and closed the door behind him when he left the room with an emphasized firmness of touch.
Mosscrop rose. “Come, child,” he said, briskly. “Cheer up! Look up at me—let’s sec a smile on your face. A little brighter, please—that’s more like it. How we have wiped the slate clean! We begin absolutely fresh. Dry your eyes, and we’ll make a start. We’ve got those celebrated86 birthdays of ours to look after—and it’s high time we set about it.”
She stood up, and smilingly obeyed him by dabbing87 the napkin against her nose and brows. She moved across to the mirror above the mantel, and smiled again at what she saw. Then she looked down at her boots, and her face took on a radiance, which it kept, as she descended88 close behind him the narrow stairway.
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1
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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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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pulpy
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| 果肉状的，多汁的，柔软的； 烂糊； 稀烂 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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12
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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cursory
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| adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的 | |
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toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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genealogies
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| n.系谱，家系，宗谱( genealogy的名词复数 ) | |
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stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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vacancies
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| n.空房间( vacancy的名词复数 )；空虚；空白；空缺 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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poising
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| 使平衡( poise的现在分词 )； 保持（某种姿势）； 抓紧； 使稳定 | |
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forefingers
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| n.食指( forefinger的名词复数 ) | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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contrition
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| n.悔罪，痛悔 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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40
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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41
reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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42
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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43
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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44
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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mellowed
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| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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toddle
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| v.（如小孩）蹒跚学步 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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heartiness
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| 诚实，热心 | |
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query
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| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
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poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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pawn
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| n.典当，抵押，小人物，走卒；v.典当，抵押 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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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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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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dabbing
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| 石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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