The young man bowed, as Mr. Morgan ended, in a manner indicating his acceptance of the apology, although he looked both amazed and amused. But the explanation had a very different effect upon the girl at his side. As she listened, her eyes had filled with tears, and her face had taken on a wonderfully tender, pitiful smile. When he ended speaking, she impulsively8 said, "I 'm so sorry we were not what you thought us! Why not pretend we are, to-night at least? We can pretend it, you know. The moonlight makes anything possible;" and then glancing at Miss Rood, she added, as if almost frightened, "Why, how much we look alike! I 'm not sure it isn't true, anyway."
This was, in fact, an unusually marked example of those casual resemblances between strangers which are sometimes seen. The hair of the one was indeed gray and that of the other dark, but the eyes were of the same color by night, and the features, except for the greater fullness of the younger face, were cast in the same mould, while figure and bearing were strikingly similar, although daylight would doubtless have revealed diversities, enough that moonlight refused to disclose.
The two women looked at each other with an expression almost of suspicion and fear, while the young man observed, "Your mistake was certainly excusable, sir."
"It will be the easier to pretend," said the girl, as with a half-serious, half-sportive imperiousness she laid her hand on Mr. Morgan's arm. "And now it is thirty years ago, and we are walking together." He involuntarily obeyed the slight pressure, and they walked slowly away, leaving the other two, after an embarrassed pause, to follow them.
For some time they walked in silence. He was deliberately9 abandoning himself to the illusion, supported as it was by the evidence of his senses, that he was wandering in some of the mysterious be-tween-worlds which he had so often dreamed of, with the love of his youth in her youth-time charm. Did he really believe it to be so? Belief is a term quite irrelevant10 to such a frame as his, in which the reflective and analytical11 powers are for a time purposely held in abeyance12. The circumstances of her introduction to him had dropped from his mind as irrelevant accidents, like the absurdities13 which occur in our sweetest and most solemn dreams without marring their general impression in our memories. Every glance he threw upon his companion, while on the one hand it shocked his illusion in that she seemed not likely to vanish away, on the other strengthened it with an indescribable thrill by the revelation of some fresh trait of face or figure, some new expression, that reproduced the Miss Rood of his youth. Not, indeed, that it is likely his companion was thus perfectly14 the double of that lady, although so much resembling her, but the common graces of maidenhood15 were in Mr. Morgan's mind the peculiar16 personal qualities of the only woman he had ever much known.
Of his own accord he would not have dared to risk breaking the charm by a word. But his companion—who, as is tolerably evident by this time, was Mabel French—had meanwhile formed a scheme quite worthy17 of her audacious temper. She had at once recognized both Mr. Morgan and Miss Rood, and had gone thus far from a mere1 romantic impulse, without definite intentions of any sort. But the idea now came into her head that she might take advantage of this extraordinary situation to try a match-making experiment, which instantly captivated her fancy. So she said, while ever so gently pressing his arm and looking up into his face with an arch smile (she was recognized as the best amateur actress in her set at home), "I wonder if the moon will be so mellow18 after we are married?"
His illusion was rudely disturbed by the shock of an articulate voice, softly and low as she spoke19, and he looked around with a startled expression that made her fear her r鬺e was ended. But she could not know that the eyes she turned to his were mirrors where he saw his dead youth. The two Miss Roods—the girl and the woman, the past and the present—were fused and become one in his mind. Their identity flashed upon him.
An artesian well sunk from the desert surface through the underlying20 strata21, the layers of ages, strikes some lake long ago covered over, and the water welling up converts the upper waste into a garden. Just so at her words and her look his heart suddenly filled, as if it came from afar, with the youthful passion he had felt toward Miss Bood, but which, he knew not exactly when or how, had been gradually overgrown with the dullness of familiarity and had lapsed22 into an indolent affectionate habit. The warm, voluptuous23 pulse of this new feeling—new, and yet instantly recognized as old—brought with it a flood of youthful associations, and commingled24 the far past with the present in a confusion more complete and more intoxicating25 than ever. He saw double again. "Married!" he murmured dreamily. "Yes, surely, we will be married."
And as he spoke, he looked at her with such a peculiar expression that she was a little frightened. It looked like a more serious business than she had counted on, and for a moment, if she could have cut and run, perhaps she would have done so. But she had a strain of the true histrionic artist about her, and with a little effort rose to the difficulty of the r鬺e. "Of course we will be married," she replied, with an air of innocent surprise. "You speak as if you had just thought of it."
He turned toward her as if he would sober his senses by staring at her, his pupils dilating26 and contracting in the instinctive27 effort to clear the mind by clearing the eyes.
But with a steady pressure on his arm she compelled him to walk on by her side. Then she said, in a soft, low voice, as if a little awed28 by what she were telling, while at the same time she nestled nearer his side, "I had such a sad dream last night, and your strange talk reminds me of it. It seemed as if we were old and white-haired and stooping, and went wandering about, still together, but not married, lonely and broken. And I woke up feeling you can't think how dreary29 and sad,— as if a bell had tolled30 in my ears as I slept; and the feeling was so strong that I put my fingers to my face to find if it was withered31; and when I could not tell certainly, I got up and lit my lamp and looked in the glass; and my face, thank God! was fresh and young; but I sat on my bed and cried to think of the poor old people I had left behind in my dream."
Mabel had so fallen into the spirit of her part that she was really crying as she ended. Her tears completed Mr. Morgan's mental confusion, and he absolutely did not know whom he was addressing or where he was himself, as he cried, "No, no, Mary! Don't cry! It shall not be; it shall never be."
Lightly withdrawing her hand from his arm, she glided32 like a sprite from his side, and was lost in the shadows, while her whispered words still sounded in his ear, "Good-by for thirty years!"
A moment after, three notes, clear as a bird's call, sounded from the direction whither she had vanished, and Miss Rood's companion, breaking off short a remark on the excessive dryness of the weather, bowed awkwardly and also disappeared among the shadows.
When Miss Rood laid her hand on Mr. Morgan's arm to recall him to the fact that they were now alone together, he turned quickly, and his eyes swept her from head to foot, and then rested on her face with an expression of intense curiosity and a wholly new interest, as if he were tracing out a suddenly suggested resemblance which overwhelmed him with emotion. And as he gazed, his eyes began to take fire from the faded features on which they had rested so many years in mere complacent33 friendliness34, and she instinctively35 averted36 her face.
Long intimacy37 had made her delicately sensitive to his moods, and when he drew her arm in his and turned to walk, although he had not uttered a word, she trembled with agitation38.
"Mary, we have had an extraordinary experience to-night," he said. The old dreaminess in his voice, as of one narcotized or in a trance, sometimes a little forced, as of one trying to dream, to which she had become accustomed, and of which in her heart of hearts she was very weary, was gone. In its place she recognized a resonance39 which still further confused her with a sense of altered relations. His polarity had changed: his electricity was no longer negative, but positive.
Her feminine instinct vaguely40 alarmed, she replied, "Yes, indeed, but it is getting late. Had n't we better go in?" What lent the unusual intonation41 of timidity to her voice? Certainly nothing that she could have explained.
"Not quite yet, Mary," he answered, turning his gaze once more fully7 upon her.
Her eyes dropped before his, and a moment after fluttered up to find an explanation for their behavior, only to fall again in blind panic. For, mingling42 unmistakably with the curiosity with which he was still studying her features, was a newborn expression of appropriation43 and passionate44 complacency. Her senses whirled in a bewilderment that had a suffocating45 sweetness about it. Though she now kept her eyes on the ground, she felt his constant sidewise glances, and, desperately46 seeking relief from the conscious silence that enveloped47 them like a vapor48 of intoxicating fumes49, she forced herself to utter the merest triviality she could summon to her lips: "See that house." The husky tones betrayed more agitation than the ruse50 concealed51.
He answered as irrelevantly52 as she had spoken, "Yes, indeed, so it is." That was their only attempt at conversation.
For a half hour—it might have been much more or much less—they walked in this way, thrilling with the new magnetism53 that at once attracted and estranged54 them with an extraordinary sense of strangeness in familiarity. At length they paused under the little porch of Miss Rood's cottage, where he commonly bade her good-evening after their walks. The timidity and vague alarms that had paralyzed her while they were walking disappeared as he was about to leave her, and she involuntarily returned his unusual pressure of her hand.
A long time after, behold55 her still encircled in his arms, not blushing, but pale and her eyes full of a soft, astonished glow! "Oh, Robert!" was all she had said after one first little gasp3.
They never met George or Mabel again. Mrs. Morgan learned subsequently that two young people from the city answering their description had been guests at the opposite house, and had left Plainfield the morning after the events hereinbefore set forth56, and drew her conclusions accordingly. But her husband preferred to cherish the secret belief that his theory that memories might become visible had proved true in one instance at least. least.
The End
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1
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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2
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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3
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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4
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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5
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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6
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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7
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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8
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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9
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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10
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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11
analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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12
abeyance
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| n.搁置，缓办，中止，产权未定 | |
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13
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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14
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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15
maidenhood
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| n. 处女性, 处女时代 | |
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16
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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17
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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18
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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19
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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20
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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21
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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22
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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23
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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24
commingled
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| v.混合，掺和，合并( commingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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26
dilating
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| v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的现在分词 ) | |
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27
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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28
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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30
tolled
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| 鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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31
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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32
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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33
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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34
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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35
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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36
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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37
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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38
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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39
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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40
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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41
intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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42
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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43
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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44
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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45
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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46
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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47
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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49
fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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50
ruse
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| n.诡计，计策；诡计 | |
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51
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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52
irrelevantly
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| adv.不恰当地，不合适地；不相关地 | |
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53
magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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54
estranged
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| adj.疏远的，分离的 | |
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55
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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56
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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