"Of course. Of course. It's the reason for the whole thing. It's the reason why, when a young man like you sees a young woman like me—I mean like the lady [Pg 169] you thought I was—in an over-stimulating and tempestuous1 place like this, instead of taking off his silly hat to her, he should jam it well down over his silly ears and—quit!"
"You keep on saying 'what I thought you were.' I can't think how I could, or why I did."
"I know why," she replied serenely2. "You fancied I had more decorations in my back hair than a respectable woman can well carry."
She meditated3.
"I thought I could afford a rose or two. But it seems I couldn't."
"You? You can afford anything—anything. All the same——"
"Well, if I can afford to sit with you, out here, at a quarter past ten, on this old heathenish piazza4, I suppose I can."
"All the same——" he insisted.
She meditated again.
"All the same, if it wasn't those roses, I can't think what it was."
"Dear lady, it wasn't the roses. You are so deadly innocent I think I ought to tell you what it was."
"Do," she said.
"It was, really, it was seeing you here, walking by yourself. It's so jolly late, you know."
She drew herself up. "An American woman can walk anywhere, at any time."
"Oh, yes, of course, of course. But for ordinary people, and in Latin countries, it's considered—well, a trifle singular."
She smiled.
"You puzzle me," he said. "Just now you seemed perfectly5 aware of it. And yet——"
"And yet?" she raised her eyebrows6. [Pg 170]
"And yet, well—here you are, you know."
"Here I am, and here I've got to stay, it seems. Well—before that?"
"Before that?"
"Before this?" She tapped her foot, impatient at the slow movement of his thought. "Up there in the hotel?"
"Oh, in the hotel. I suppose it was seeing you with——"
It was positively7 terrible, the look with which she faced him now. But his idea was that he had got to help her (hadn't she helped him?), and he was going through with it. It was permissible8; it was even imperative9, seeing the lengths, the depths, rather, of intimacy10 that they had gone to.
"Those two," he said. "They don't seem exactly your sort."
"You mean," said she, "they are not exactly yours."
She felt the shudder11 of his unspoken "Heaven forbid!"
"I suppose," she continued, "if a European man sees any woman alone in a hotel with two men whom he can't size up right away as her blood relations, he's apt to think things. Well, for all you know, Mr. Tarbuck might be my uncle and Mr. Bingham-Booker my half-brother."
"But they aren't."
"No. As far as blood goes, they aren't any more to me than Adam. You have me there."
There was a long pause which Thesiger, for the life of him, could not fill.
"Well," she reverted13, "Mr. Whoever-you-are, I don't know that I owe you an explanation——"
"You don't owe me anything."
"All the same I'm going to give you one, so that [Pg 171] next time you'll think twice before you make any more of your venerable European mistakes. It isn't every woman who'd know how to turn them to your advantage. Perhaps you've seen what's wrong with Mr. Bingham-Booker?"
He intimated that it was not practicable not to see. "If I may say so, that makes it all the more unfitting——"
"That's all you know about it, Mr.——"
"Thesiger," he supplied.
"Mr. Thesiger. That boy had to be taken care of. He was killing14 himself with drink before we came away. He'd had a shock to his nerves, that's what brought it on. He was ordered to Europe as his one chance. Somebody had to go with him, somebody he'd mind, and there wasn't anybody he did mind but me. I've known him since he was a little thing in knickerbockers, that high. So we fixed15 it that I was to go out and look after Binky, and Binky's mother—he's her only son—was coming out too, to look after me. We cared for appearances as much as you do. Well, the day before we sailed her married daughter was taken sick, in the inconsiderate way that married daughters have, and she couldn't go. And, do you know, there wasn't a woman that could take her place. They were afraid, every one of them, because they knew." She lowered her voice to utter it. "It makes him mad."
"My dear lady, it was a job for a trained nurse."
"Trained nurse? They couldn't afford one. And we didn't want a uniform hanging around and rubbing it into the poor boy and everybody else that he was an incurable16 dipsomaniac."
"But you—you?"
"It was my job. You don't suppose I was going back on them?" [Pg 172]
She faced him with it, and as he looked at her he took the measure of her magnificence, her brilliant bravery.
"Going back on him? Poor Binky, he was so good and dear—except for that. You never saw anything so cute. Up to all sorts of monkey-shines and beautiful surprises. And then"—she smiled with a tender irony—"he gave us this surprise." From her face you could not have gathered how far from beautiful his last had been. "I was going to see that boy through if I had to go with him alone. I said to myself there are always people around who'll think things, whatever you do, but it doesn't matter what people who don't matter think. And then—Mr. Tarbuck wouldn't let me go alone. He said I'd have to have a man with me. A strong man. He'd known me—never mind how long—so it was all right. I don't know what I'd have done without Mr. Tarbuck."
She paused on him.
"That man, whom you don't think fit for me to have around, is—well—he's the finest man I've ever known or want to know. He does the dearest things."
She paused again, remembering them. And Thesiger, though her admiration17 of Tarbuck was obscurely hateful to him, owned that, fine as she was, she was at her finest as she praised him.
"Why," she went on, "just because Binky couldn't afford a good room he gave him his. He said the view of the sea would set him up better than anything, and the garage was all the view he wanted, because he's just crazy on motors. And he's been like that all through. Never thought of himself once."
"Oh, didn't he?" said Thesiger.
"Not once. Do you know, Mr. Tarbuck is a very big man. He runs one of the biggest businesses in the [Pg 173] States; and at twenty-four hours' notice he left his big business to take care of itself, and came right away on this trip to take care of me."
"Is he taking care of you now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well—if he can leave you—here——?"
"Why, he's here somewhere, looking for Mr. Bingham-Booker. He's routing about in those queer saloons and places."
"And you?"
"I'm keeping my eye on the Casino. It's my fault he got away. You can't always tell when it's best to give him his head and when it isn't. I ought to have let him have that whiskey and soda18. Do you see either of them?"
He looked round. "I think," he said, "I see Mr. Tarbuck."
She followed his gaze. Not five yards from them, planted on the pavement as if he grew there, was Mr. Tarbuck. His large back was turned to them with an expression at once ostentatious and discreet19. Thesiger had the idea that it had been there for some considerable time, probably ever since his own appearance. Mr. Tarbuck's back said plainly that, though Mr. Tarbuck neither looked nor listened, that he would scorn the action, yet he was there, at his friend's service if she wanted him.
"I'm afraid," said Roma Lennox, "he hasn't found him."
"He doesn't seem to be looking."
(He didn't.)
"Oh, I fancy," said she, "he's just squinting20 round."
"Can I do anything?"
"Why, yes, you could sit here and watch the Casino while I go and speak to Mr. Tarbuck." [Pg 174]
She went and spoke12 to him. Thesiger saw how affectionately the large man bent21 his head to her.
She returned to Thesiger, and Mr. Tarbuck (whom she had evidently released from sentry-go) stalked across the Place toward the American Bar.
"He is not in the Casino," she said.
"Have you tried the American Bar?"
"Of course; we've tried all of them."
"I say, I want to help you. Can't I?"
She shook her head.
"If I stayed on in the hotel, could I be of any use?"
"You're not going to stay."
"Why shouldn't I? I've nothing else to do."
"Oh, haven't you? What you have to do is to take that one-forty-four train to Nice, to-morrow afternoon."
"It's no good," he muttered gloomily. "I'm done for. You've made me see that plain enough."
"All I made you see was why she turned you down. And now that you do see——"
"What difference does it make, my seeing it?"
"Why, all the difference. Do you think I'd have taken all this trouble if it wasn't for that—to have you go right away and make it up with her?"
"And with you—can I ever make it up?"
"Don't you worry."
She rose. "I suppose appearances were against me; but——"
She held him for a moment with her eyes that measured him; then, as if she had done all that she wanted with him, she gave him back to himself, the finer for her handling.
"It wasn't for appearances you really cared."
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1
tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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2
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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3
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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4
piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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5
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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6
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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7
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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8
permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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9
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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10
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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11
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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12
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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13
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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14
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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15
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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16
incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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17
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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18
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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19
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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20
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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21
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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