Nevitt hadn’t three thousand pounds in the world to pay. The little he possessed8 beyond his salary was locked up, here and there, in speculative9 undertakings10, where he couldn’t touch it except at long notice. It was a crushing blow. He had need of steadying. Some men would have flown in such a plight11 to brandy. Montague Nevitt flew, instead, to the consolations12 of music.
For some minutes, indeed, he paced his room up and down in solemn silence. Then his eye fell by accident on the violin case in the corner. Ah, that would do! That beloved violin would inspire him with ideas; was it suicide or fraud? or some honest way out: be it this plan or that the violin would help him. Screwing up the strings13 for a minute with those deft14, long, double-jointed fingers of his, he took the bow in his right hand, and, still pacing the room with great strides, like a wild beast in its cage, began to discourse15 low passionate16 music to himself from one of those serpentine17 pieces of Miss Ewes’s of Leamington.
As he played and played, his whole soul in his fingers, a plan began to frame itself, vaguely18, dimly at first, then more and more definitely by slow degrees—shape, form, and features—as it grew and developed. A beautiful chord, that last! Oh, how subtle, how beautiful! It seemed to curl and glide19 on like a serpent through the grass, leaving strange trails behind as of a flowing signature; a flowing signature with bold twirls and flourishes—twirls and flourishes—twirls and flourishes—twirls, twirls, twirls and flourishes; the signature to a cheque; to a cheque for money; three thousand pounds at Drummond, Coutts and Barclay’s.
It ran through his head, keeping time with the bars. Four thousand pounds; five thousand; six thousand.
The longer he played the clearer and sharper the plan stood out. He saw his way now as clear as daylight. And his way too, to make a deal more in the end by it.
“Pay self or bearer six thousand pounds! Six thousand pounds; signed, Cyril Waring!”
For hours he paced up and down there, playing long and low. Oh, music, how he loved it; it seemed to set everything straight all at once in his head. With bow in hand and violin at rest, he surpassed himself that evening in ingenuity20 of fingering. He trembled to think of his own cleverness and skill. What a miracle of device! What a triumph of cunning! Not an element was overlooked. It was safe as houses. He could go to bed now, and drop off like a child; having arranged before he went to make Guy Waring his cat’s paw, and turn this sad stroke of ill-luck in the end to his own ultimate greater and wider advantage.
And he was quite right too. He did sleep as he expected. Next morning he woke in a very good humour, and proceeded at once to Guy Waring’s rooms the moment after breakfast.
He found Guy, as he expected, in a tumult21 of excitement, having only just that moment received by post the final call for the Rio Negro capital.
When other men are excited the wise man takes care to be perfectly22 calm. Montague Nevitt was calm under this crushing blow. He pointed23 out blandly24 that everything would yet go well. All was not lost. They had other irons in the fire. And even the Rio Negros themselves were not an absolute failure. The diamonds, the diamonds themselves, he insisted, were still there, and the sapphires25 also. They studded the soil, they were to be had for the picking. Every bit of their money would come back to them in the end. It was a question of meeting an immediate7 emergency only.
“But I haven’t three thousand pounds in the world to meet it with,” Guy exclaimed in despair. “I shall be ruined, of course. I don’t mind about that; but I never shall be able to make good my liabilities!”
Nevitt lighted a cigarette with a philosophical26 smile. The hotter Guy waxed, the faster did he cool down.
“Neither have I, my dear boy,” he said, in his most careless voice, puffing27 out rings of smoke in the interval28 between his clauses; “but I don’t, therefore, go mad. I don’t tear my hair over it; though, to be sure, I’m a deal worse off than you. My position’s at stake. If Drummonds were to hear of it—sack—sack instanter. As to making yourself responsible for what you don’t possess, that’s simply speculation. Everybody on the Stock Exchange always does it. If they didn’t there’d be no such thing as enterprise at all. You can’t make a fortune by risking a ha’penny.”
“But what am I to do?” Guy cried wildly. “However am I to raise three thousand pounds? I should be ashamed to let Cyril know I’d defaulted like this. If I can’t find the money I shall go mad or kill myself.”
Montague Nevitt played him gently, as an experienced angler plays a plunging30 trout31, before proceeding32 to land him. At last, after offering Guy much sympathetic advice, and suggesting several intentionally33 feeble schemes, only to quash them instantly, he observed with a certain apologetic air of unobtrusive friendliness34, “Well, if the worst comes to the worst, you’ve one thing to fall back upon: There’s that six-thousand, of course, coming in by-and-by from the unknown benefactor35.”
Guy flung himself down in his easy-chair, with a look of utter despondency upon his handsome face. “But I promised Cyril,” he exclaimed, with a groan36, “I’d never touch that. If I were to spend it I don’t know how I could ever face Cyril.”
“I was told yesterday,” Nevitt answered, with a bitter little smile, “and by a lady, too, many times over, that circumstances alter cases, till I began to believe it. When you promised Cyril you weren’t face to face with a financial crisis. If you were to use the money temporarily—mind, I say only temporarily; for to my certain knowledge Rio Negros will pull through all right in the end—if you were to use it temporarily in such an emergency as this, no blame of any sort could possibly attach to you. The unknown benefactor won’t mind whether your money’s at your banker’s, or employed for the time being in paying your debts. Your creditors37 will. If I were you, therefore, I’d use it up in paying them.”
“You would?” Guy inquired, glancing across at him, with a faint gleam of hope in his eye.
Nevitt fixed38 him at once with his strange cold stare, He had caught his man now. He could play upon him as readily as he could play his violin.
“Why, certainly I would,” he answered, with confidence, striking the new chord full. “Cyril himself would do the same in your place, I’ll bet you. And the proof that he would is simply this—you yourself will do it. Depend upon it, if you can do anything, under given circumstances, Cyril would do it too, in the same set of conditions. And if ever Cyril feels inclined to criticise39 what you’ve done, you can answer him back, ‘I know your heart as you know mine. In my place, I know you’d have acted as I did.’”
“Cyril and I are not absolutely identical,” Guy answered slowly, his eyes still fixed on Montague Nevitt’s. “Sometimes I feel he does things I wouldn’t do.”
“He has more initiative than you,” Nevitt answered, as if carelessly, though with deep design in his heart. “He acts where you debate. You’re often afraid to take a serious step. Cyril never hesitates. You draw back and falter40; Cyril goes straight ahead. But all the more reason, accordingly, that Cyril should admit the lightness of whatever you do, for if you do anything—anything in the nature of a definite step, I mean—why, far more readily, then, would Cyril, in like case, have done it.”
“You think he has more initiative?” Guy asked, with a somewhat nettled41 air. He hated to be thought less individual than Cyril.
“Of course he has, my dear boy,” Nevitt answered, smiling. “He’d use the money at once, without a second’s hesitation42.”
“But I haven’t got the money to use,” Guy continued, after a short pause.
“Cyril has, though,” Nevitt responded, with a significant nod.
Guy perused43 his boots, and made no immediate answer. Nevitt wanted none just then; he waited some seconds, humming all the while an appropriate tune29. Then he caught Guy’s eye again, and fixed him a second time.
“It’s a pity we don’t know Cyril’s address in Belgium,” he said, in a musing44 tone. “We might telegraph across for leave to use his money meanwhile. Remember, I’m just as deeply compromised as you, or even more so. It’s a pity we should both be ruined, with six thousand pounds standing45 at this very moment to Cyril’s account at the London and West Country. But it can’t be helped. There’s no time to lose. The money must be paid in sharp by this evening.”
“By this evening!” Guy exclaimed, starting up excitedly.
Nevitt nodded assent46. “Yes, by this evening, of course,” he answered unperturbed, “or we become ipso facto defaulters and bankrupts.”
That was a lie to be sure; but it served his purpose. Guy was a child at business, and believed whatever nonsense Nevitt chose to foist47 upon him.
The journalist rose and paced the room twice or thrice with a frantic48 air of unspeakable misery49.
“I shall lose my place at our bank, no doubt,” Nevitt went on, in a resigned tone. “But that doesn’t much matter. Though a temporary loan—I could pay every penny in six weeks if I’d time—a temporary loan would set things all straight again.”
“I wish to heaven Cyril was here,” Guy exclaimed, in piteous tones.
“He is, practically, when you’re here,” Nevitt answered, with a knowing smile. “You can act as his deputy.”
“How do you mean?” Guy asked, turning round upon him open-mouthed.
Nevitt paused, and smiled sweetly.
“This is his cheque-book, I think,” he replied, in the oblique50 retort, picking it up and looking at it. He tore out a cheque, as if pensively51 and by accident.
“That’s a precious odd thing,” he went on, “that you showed me the other day, don’t you know, about your signature and Cyril’s being so absolutely identical.”
Guy gazed at him in horror. “Oh, don’t talk about that!” he cried, running his hand through his hair. “If I were even to entertain such an idea for a moment, my self-respect would be gone for ever.”
“Exactly so,” Nevitt put in, with a satirical smile. “I said so just now. You’ve no initiative. Cyril wouldn’t be afraid. Knowing the interests at stake, he’d take a firm stand and act off-hand on his own discretion52.”
“Do you think so?” Guy faltered53, in a hesitating voice.
Nevitt held him with his eye.
“Do I think so?” he echoed, “do I think so? I know it. Look here, Guy, you and Cyril are practically one. If Cyril were here we’d ask him at once to lend us the money. If we knew where Cyril was we’d telegraph across and get his leave like a bird. But as he isn’t here, and as we don’t know where he is, we must show some initiative; we must act for once on our own responsibility, exactly as Cyril would. It’s only for six weeks. At the end of that time the unknown benefactor stumps54 up your share. You needn’t even tell Cyril, if you don’t like, of this little transaction. See! here’s his cheque. You fill it in and sign it. Nobody can tell the signature isn’t Cyril’s. You take the money and release us both. In six weeks’ time you get your own share of the unnatural55 parent’s bribe56. You pay it in to his credit, and not a living soul on earth but ourselves need ever be one penny the wiser.”
Guy tried to look away, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t. Nevitt held him fixed with his penetrating57 gaze. Guy moved uneasily. He felt as if he had a stiff neck, so hard was it to turn. Nevitt took a pen, and dipped it quick in the ink.
“Just as an experiment,” he said firmly, yet in a coaxing58 voice, “sit down and sign. Let me see what it looks like. There. Write it just here. Write ‘Cyril Waring.’”
Guy sat down as in a maze59, and took the pen from his hand like an obedient schoolboy. For a second the pen trembled in his vacillating fingers; then he wrote on the cheque, in a free and flowing hand, where the signature ought to be, his brother’s name. He wrote it without stopping.
“Capital! Capital!” Nevitt cried in delight, looking over his shoulder. “It’s a splendid facsimile! Now date and amount if you please. Six thousand pounds. It’s your own natural hand after all. Ah, capital, capital!”
As he spoke60, Guy framed the fatal words like one dreaming or entranced, on the slip of paper before him. “Pay Self or Bearer Six Thousand Pounds (L6,000), Cyril Waring.”
Nevitt looked at it critically. “That’ll do all right,” he said, with his eye still fixed in between whiles on Guy’s bloodless face. “Now the only one thing you have still left to do is, to take it to the bank and get it cashed instanter.”
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收听单词发音
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1
charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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2
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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13
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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16
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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17
serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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25
sapphires
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| n.蓝宝石，钢玉宝石( sapphire的名词复数 )；蔚蓝色 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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27
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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30
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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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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creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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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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criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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40
falter
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| vi.(嗓音)颤抖，结巴地说；犹豫；蹒跚 | |
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41
nettled
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| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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42
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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43
perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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44
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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45
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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46
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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47
foist
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| vt.把…强塞给，骗卖给 | |
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48
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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49
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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50
oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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51
pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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52
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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53
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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54
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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55
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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56
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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57
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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58
coaxing
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱；“锻炼”效应 | |
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59
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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60
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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