Herminia's lip curled an almost imperceptible curl as she answered gravely, "I don't think you quite understand my plans in life, Mrs. Dewsbury. It isn't my present intention to GO IN for anybody."
But Mrs. Dewsbury shook her head. She knew the world she lived in. "Ah, I've heard a great many girls talk like that beforehand," she answered at once with her society glibness1; "but when the right man turned up, they soon forgot their protestations. It makes a lot of difference, dear, when a man really asks you!"
Herminia bent2 her head. "You misunderstand me," she replied. "I don't mean to say I will never fall in love. I expect to do that. I look forward to it frankly3,—it is a woman's place in life. I only mean to say, I don't think anything will ever induce me to marry,—that is to say, legally."
Mrs. Dewsbury gave a start of surprise and horror. She really didn't know what girls were coming to nowadays,—which, considering her first principles, was certainly natural. But if only she had seen the conscious flush with which Herminia received her visitor that afternoon, she would have been confirmed in her belief that Herminia, after all, in spite of her learning, was much like other girls. In which conclusion Mrs. Dewsbury would not in the end have been fully4 justified5.
When Alan arrived, Herminia sat at the window by the quaintly6 clipped box-tree, a volume of verse held half closed in her hand, though she was a great deal too honest and transparent7 to pretend she was reading it. She expected Alan to call, in accordance with his promise, for she had seen at Mrs. Dewsbury's how great an impression she produced upon him; and, having taught herself that it was every true woman's duty to avoid the affectations and self-deceptions which the rule of man has begotten8 in women, she didn't try to conceal9 from herself the fact that she on her side was by no means without interest in the question how soon he would pay her his promised visit. As he appeared at the rustic10 gate in the privet hedge, Herminia looked out, and changed color with pleasure when she saw him push it open.
"Oh, how nice of you to look me up so soon!" she cried, jumping from her seat (with just a glance at the glass) and strolling out bareheaded into the cottage garden. "Isn't this a charming place? Only look at our hollyhocks! Consider what an oasis11 after six months of London!"
She seemed even prettier than last night, in her simple white morning dress, a mere12 ordinary English gown, without affectation of any sort, yet touched with some faint reminiscence of a flowing Greek chiton. Its half-classical drapery exactly suited the severe regularity13 of her pensive14 features and her graceful15 figure. Alan thought as he looked at her he had never before seen anybody who appeared at all points so nearly to approach his ideal of womanhood. She was at once so high in type, so serene16, so tranquil17, and yet so purely18 womanly.
"Yes, it IS a lovely place," he answered, looking around at the clematis that drooped19 from the gable-ends. "I'm staying myself with the Watertons at the Park, but I'd rather have this pretty little rose-bowered garden than all their balustrades and Italian terraces. The cottagers have chosen the better part. What gillyflowers and what columbines! And here you look out so directly on the common. I love the gorse and the bracken, I love the stagnant20 pond, I love the very geese that tug21 hard at the silverweed, they make it all seem so deliciously English."
"Shall we walk to the ridge22?" Herminia asked with a sudden burst of suggestion. "It's too rare a day to waste a minute of it indoors. I was waiting till you came. We can talk all the freer for the fresh air on the hill-top."
Nothing could have suited Alan Merrick better, and he said so at once. Herminia disappeared for a moment to get her hat. Alan observed almost without observing it that she was gone but for a second. She asked none of that long interval23 that most women require for the simplest matter of toilet. She was back again almost instantly, bright and fresh and smiling, in the most modest of hats, set so artlessly on her head that it became her better than all art could have made it. Then they started for a long stroll across the breezy common, yellow in places with upright spikes24 of small summer furze, and pink with wild pea-blossom. Bees buzzed, broom crackled, the chirp25 of the field cricket rang shrill26 from the sand-banks. Herminia's light foot tripped over the spongy turf. By the top of the furthest ridge, looking down on North Holmwood church, they sat side by side for a while on the close short grass, brocaded with daisies, and gazed across at the cropped sward of Denbies and the long line of the North Downs stretching away towards Reigate. Tender grays and greens melted into one another on the larches27 hard by; Betchworth chalk-pit gleamed dreamy white in the middle distance. They had been talking earnestly all the way, like two old friends together; for they were both of them young, and they felt at once that nameless bond which often draws one closer to a new acquaintance at first sight than years of converse28. "How seriously you look at life," Alan cried at last, in answer to one of Herminias graver thoughts. "I wonder what makes you take it so much more earnestly than all other women?"
"It came to me all at once when I was about sixteen," Herminia answered with quiet composure, like one who remarks upon some objective fact of external nature. "It came to me in listening to a sermon of my father's,—which I always look upon as one more instance of the force of heredity. He was preaching on the text, 'The Truth shall make you Free,' and all that he said about it seemed to me strangely alive, to be heard from a pulpit. He said we ought to seek the Truth before all things, and never to rest till we felt sure we had found it. We should not suffer our souls to be beguiled29 into believing a falsehood merely because we wouldn't take the trouble to find out the Truth for ourselves by searching. We must dig for it; we must grope after it. And as he spoke30, I made up my mind, in a flash of resolution, to find out the Truth for myself about everything, and never to be deterred31 from seeking it, and embracing it, and ensuing it when found, by any convention or preconception. Then he went on to say how the Truth would make us Free, and I felt he was right. It would open our eyes, and emancipate32 us from social and moral slaveries. So I made up my mind, at the same time, that whenever I found the Truth I would not scruple33 to follow it to its logical conclusions, but would practise it in my life, and let it make me Free with perfect freedom. Then, in search of Truth, I got my father to send me to Girton; and when I had lighted on it there half by accident, and it had made me Free indeed, I went away from Girton again, because I saw if I stopped there I could never achieve and guard my freedom. From that day forth34 I have aimed at nothing but to know the Truth, and to act upon it freely; for, as Tennyson says,—
'To live by law
Acting35 the law we live by without fear,
And because right is right to follow right,
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.'"
She broke off suddenly, and looking up, let her eye rest for a second on the dark thread of clambering pines that crest36 the down just above Brockham. "This is dreadfully egotistical," she cried, with a sharp little start. "I ought to apologize for talking so much to you about my own feelings."
Alan gazed at her and smiled. "Why apologize," he asked, "for managing to be interesting? You, are not egotistical at all. What you are telling me is history,—the history of a soul, which is always the one thing on earth worth hearing. I take it as a compliment that you should hold me worthy37 to hear it. It is a proof of confidence. Besides," he went on, after a second's pause, "I am a man; you are a woman. Under those circumstances, what would otherwise be egotism becomes common and mutual38. When two people sympathize with one another, all they can say about themselves loses its personal tinge39 and merges40 into pure human and abstract interest."
Herminia brought back her eyes from infinity41 to his face. "That's true," she said frankly. "The magic link of sex that severs42 and unites us makes all the difference. And, indeed, I confess I wouldn't so have spoken of my inmost feelings to another woman."
点击收听单词发音
1 glibness | |
n.花言巧语;口若悬河 | |
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2 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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3 frankly | |
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说 | |
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4 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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5 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
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6 quaintly | |
adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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7 transparent | |
adj.明显的,无疑的;透明的 | |
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8 begotten | |
v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 );产生,引起 | |
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9 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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10 rustic | |
adj.乡村的,有乡村特色的;n.乡下人,乡巴佬 | |
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11 oasis | |
n.(沙漠中的)绿洲,宜人的地方 | |
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12 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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13 regularity | |
n.规律性,规则性;匀称,整齐 | |
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14 pensive | |
a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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15 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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16 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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17 tranquil | |
adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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18 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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19 drooped | |
弯曲或下垂,发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20 stagnant | |
adj.不流动的,停滞的,不景气的 | |
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21 tug | |
v.用力拖(或拉);苦干;n.拖;苦干;拖船 | |
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22 ridge | |
n.山脊;鼻梁;分水岭 | |
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23 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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24 spikes | |
n.穗( spike的名词复数 );跑鞋;(防滑)鞋钉;尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 );偷偷地给某人的饮料加入(更多)酒精( 或药物);把尖状物钉入;打乱某人的计划 | |
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25 chirp | |
v.(尤指鸟)唧唧喳喳的叫 | |
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26 shrill | |
adj.尖声的;刺耳的;v尖叫 | |
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27 larches | |
n.落叶松(木材)( larch的名词复数 ) | |
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28 converse | |
vi.谈话,谈天,闲聊;adv.相反的,相反 | |
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29 beguiled | |
v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 );使陶醉;使高兴;消磨(时间等) | |
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30 spoke | |
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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31 deterred | |
v.阻止,制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32 emancipate | |
v.解放,解除 | |
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33 scruple | |
n./v.顾忌,迟疑 | |
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34 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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35 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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36 crest | |
n.顶点;饰章;羽冠;vt.达到顶点;vi.形成浪尖 | |
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37 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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38 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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39 tinge | |
vt.(较淡)着色于,染色;使带有…气息;n.淡淡色彩,些微的气息 | |
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40 merges | |
(使)混合( merge的第三人称单数 ); 相融; 融入; 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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41 infinity | |
n.无限,无穷,大量 | |
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42 severs | |
v.切断,断绝( sever的第三人称单数 );断,裂 | |
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