“Your energy, my dear lady, is not the least of many attributes.”
Lady Cantourne looked up from her writing-desk with her brightest smile. Sir John Meredith was standing1 by the open window, leaning against the jamb thereof with a grace that had lost its youthful repose2. He was looking out, across a sloping lawn, over the Solent, and for that purpose he had caused himself to be clad in a suit of blue serge. He looked the veteran yachtsman to perfection—he could look anything in its season—but he did his yachting from the shore—by preference from the drawing-room window.
“And 'the times' fills its house from roof to cellar with people who behave as if they were in a hotel. Some of them—say number five on the first floor, number eleven on the second, or some of the atticated relatives—announce at breakfast that they will not be home to lunch. Another says he cannot possibly return to dinner at half-past seven, and so on. 'The times' expects a great deal for its money, and does not even allow one to keep the small change of civility.”
“I admit,” she answered, “that the reaction is rather strong; reactions are always stronger than they intend to be. In our early days the formalities were made too much of; now they are—”
“Made into a social hash,” he suggested, when she paused for a word, “where the prevailing5 flavour is the common onion of commerce! Now, I'll wager6 any sum that that is an invitation to some one you do not care a screw about.”
“It is. But, Sir John, the hash must be kept moving; cold hash is not palatable7. I will tell you at once, I am inviting8 young Semoor to fill the vacancy9 caused by Mr. Oscard's departure.”
“Ah! Mr. Oscard proposes depriving us of his—society.”
“He leaves to-morrow. He only came to say good-bye.”
“He moves on—to some other hostelry?”
“No! He is going to—”
“Africa!” she added sharply, never taking her bright eyes from his face.
She saw the twitching12 of the aged13 lips before his hand got there to hide them. She saw his eyes fall before her steady gaze, and she pitied him while she admired his uncompromising pride.
“Indeed!” he said. “I have reason to believe,” he added, turning to the window again, “that there is a great future before that country; all the intellect of Great Britain seems to be converging14 in its direction.”
Since his departure Jack15's name had never been mentioned, even between these two whose friendship dated back a generation. Once or twice Sir John had made a subtle passing reference to him, such as perhaps no other woman but Lady Cantourne could have understood; but Africa was, so to speak, blotted16 out of Sir John Meredith's map of the world. It was there that he kept his skeleton—the son who had been his greatest pride and his deepest humiliation—his highest hope in life—almost the only failure of his career.
He stood there by the window, looking out with that well-bred interest in details of sport and pastime which was part of his creed17. He braved it out even before the woman who had been a better friend to him than his dead wife. Not even to her would he confess that any event of existence could reach him through the impenetrable mask he wore before the world. Not even she must know that aught in his life could breathe of failure or disappointment. As it is given to the best of women to want to take their sorrows to another, so the strongest men instinctively18 deny their desire for sympathy.
Lady Cantourne, pretending to select another sheet of note-paper, glanced at him with a pathetic little smile. Although they had never been anything to each other, these two people had passed through many of the trials to which humanity is heir almost side by side. But neither had ever broken down. Each acted as a sort of mental tonic19 on the other. They had tacitly agreed, years before, to laugh at most things. She saw, more distinctly than any, the singular emptiness of his clothes, as if the man was shrinking, and she knew that the emptiness was of the heart.
Sir John Meredith had taught his son that Self and Self alone reigns20 in the world. He had taught him that the thing called Love, with a capital L, is nearly all Self, and that it finally dies in the arms of Self. He had told him that a father's love, or a son's, or a mother's, is merely a matter of convenience, and vanishes when Self asserts itself.
Upon this principle they were both acting21 now, with a strikingly suggestive similarity of method. Neither was willing to admit to the world in general, and to the other in particular, that a cynical22 theory could possibly be erroneous.
“I am sorry that our young friend is going to leave us,” said Sir John, taking up and unfolding the morning paper. “He is honest and candid23, if he is nothing else.”
This meant that Guy Oscard's admiration24 for Millicent Chyne had never been concealed25 for a moment, and Lady Cantourne knew it.
“He interests me,” went on the old aristocrat26, studying the newspaper; and his hearer knew the inner significance of the remark.
At times she was secretly ashamed of her niece, but that esprit de corps27 which binds28 women together prompted her always to defend Millicent. The only defence at the moment was silence, and an assumed density29 which did not deceive Sir John—even she could not do that.
In the meantime Miss Millicent Chyne was walking on the sea-wall at the end of the garden with Guy Oscard. One of the necessary acquirements of a modern educational outfit30 is the power of looking perfectly31 at home in a score of different costumes during the year, and, needless to say, Miss Chyne was finished in this art. The manner in which she wore her sailor-hat, her blue serge, and her neat brown shoes conveyed to the onlooker32, and especially the male of that species (we cannot in conscience call them observers), the impression that she was a yachtswoman born and bred. Her delicate complexion33 was enhanced by the faintest suspicion of sunburn and a few exceedingly becoming freckles34. There was a freedom in her movements which had not been observable in London drawing-rooms. This was Diana-like and in perfect keeping with the dainty sailor outfit; moreover, nine men out of ten would fail to attribute the difference to sundry35 cunning strings36 within the London skirt.
“It is sad,” Millicent was saying, “to think that we shall have no more chances of sailing. The wind has quite dropped, that horrid37 tide is running, and—this is your last day.”
She ended with a little laugh, knowing full well that there was little sentiment in the big man by her side.
“Really,” she went on, “I think I should be able to manage a boat in time, don't you think so? Please encourage me. I am sure I have tried to learn.”
But he remained persistently38 grave. She did not like that gravity; she had met it before in the course of her experiments. One of the grievances39 harboured by Miss Millicent Chyne against the opposite sex was that they could not settle down into a harmless, honest flirtation40. Of course, this could be nothing but a flirtation of the lightest and most evanescent description. She was engaged to Jack Meredith—poor Jack, who was working for her, ever so hard, somewhere near the Equator—and if Guy Oscard did not know this he had only himself to blame. There were plenty of people ready to tell him. He had only to ask.
Millicent Chyne, like Guy, was hampered41 at the outset of life by theories upon it. Experience, the fashionable novel, and modern cynicism had taught her to expect little from human nature—a dangerous lesson, for it eases responsibility, and responsibility is the Ten Commandments rolled into a compact whole, suitable for the pocket.
She expected of no man—not even of Jack—that perfect faithfulness in every word and thought which is read of in books. And it is one of the theories of the day that what one does not expect one is not called upon to give. Jack, she reflected, was too much a man of the world to expect her to sit and mope alone. She was apparently42 incapable43 of seeing the difference between that pastime and sitting on the sea-wall behind a large flowering currant-tree with a man who did not pretend to hide the fact that he was in love with her. Some women are thus.
“I do not know if you have learnt much,” he answered. “But I have.”
“What have you learnt?” she asked in a low voice, half-fascinated by the danger into which she knew that she was running.
“That I love you,” he answered, standing squarely in front of her, and announcing the fact with a deliberate honesty which was rather startling. “I was not sure of it before, so I stayed away from you for three weeks; but now I know for certain.”
“Oh, you mustn't say that!”
She rose hastily and turned away from him. There was in her heart a sudden feeling of regret. It was the feeling that the keenest sportsman sometimes has when some majestic44 monarch45 of the forest falls before his merciless rifle—a sudden passing desire that it might be undone46.
“Why not?” he asked. He was desperately47 in earnest, and that which made him a good sportsman—an unmatched big-game hunter, calm and self-possessed in any strait—gave him a strange deliberation now, which Millicent Chyne could not understand. “Why not?”
“I do not know—because you mustn't.”
And in her heart she wanted him to say it again.
“I am not ashamed of it,” he said, “and I do not see why I should not say it to you—or to any one else, so far as that goes.”
“No, never!” she cried, really frightened. “To me it does not matter so much. But to no one else—no, never! Aunt Marian must not know it—nor Sir John.”
“I cannot see that it is any business of Sir John's. Of course, Lady Cantourne would have liked you to marry a title; but if you cared for me she would be ready to listen to reason.”
In which judgment48 of the good lady he was no doubt right—especially if reason spoke49 with the voice of three thousand pounds per annum.
“Do you care for me?” he asked, coming a little closer.
There was a whole world of gratified vanity and ungratified curiosity for her in the presence of this strong man at her elbow. It was one of the supreme50 triumphs of her life, because he was different from the rest. He was for her what his first tiger had been for him. The danger that he might come still nearer had for her a sense of keen pleasure. She was thoroughly51 enjoying herself, and the nearest approach that men can experience to the joy that was hers is the joy of battle.
“I cannot answer that—not now.”
And the little half-shrinking glance over her shoulder was a low-minded, unmaidenly invitation. But he was in earnest, and he was, above all, a gentleman. He stood his ground a yard away from her.
“Then when,” he asked—“when will you answer me?”
She stood with her back turned towards him, looking out over the smooth waters of the Solent, where one or two yachts and a heavy black schooner52 were creeping up on the tide before the morning breeze. She drummed reflectively with her fingers on the low stone wall. Beneath them a few gulls53 whirled and screamed over a shoal of little fish. One of the birds had a singular cry, as if it were laughing to itself.
“You said just now,” Millicent answered at length, “that you were not sure yourself—not at first—and therefore you cannot expect me to know all at once.”
“You would know at once,” he argued gravely, “if it was going to be no. If you do not say no now, I can only think that it may be yes some day. And”—he came closer—he took the hand that hung at her side—conveniently near—“and I don't want you to say no now. Don't say no! I will wait as long as you like for yes. Millicent, I would rather go on waiting, and thinking that it is going to be yes, even if it is no after all.”
She said nothing, but she left her hand in his.
“May I go on thinking that it will be yes until I come back?”
“I cannot prevent your thinking, can I?” she whispered, with a tender look in her eyes.
“And may I write to you?”
She shook her head.
“Well—I—I—Now and then,” he pleaded. “Not often. Just to remind you of my existence.”
She gave a little laugh, which he liked exceedingly, and remembered afterwards.
“If you like,” she answered.
At this moment Lady Cantourne's voice was heard in the distance, calling them.
“There!” exclaimed Millicent. “We must go at once. And no one—no one, mind—must know of this.”
“No one shall know of it,” he answered.
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1
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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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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blotting
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| 吸墨水纸 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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7
palatable
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| adj.可口的，美味的；惬意的 | |
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8
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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converging
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| adj.收敛[缩]的，会聚的，趋同的v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的现在分词 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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15
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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16
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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17
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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21
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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28
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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29
density
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| n.密集，密度，浓度 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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31
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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34
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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35
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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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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38
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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40
flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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41
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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43
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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44
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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45
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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46
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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47
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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48
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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49
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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50
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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51
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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52
schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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53
gulls
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| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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