Even average people, when obsessed1 by the grand passion--which is a far rarer passion among Anglo-Saxons than Anglo-Saxon novelists would have us believe--cannot be judged by average standards. Such are as surely bound to the wheels of terror as to the wheels of courage. In such, strength and weakness, misery2 and ecstasy3, love's heaven and love's hell, mingle4 as wax and honey in the comb. For the grand passion is the sublime5 exaggerator of human emotion, the indefinable complex of the soul.
So, to Aliette, returning from her interview with Julia, it seemed as though London's self had altered its countenance6, as though every face encountered on her homeward way spoke7 of her own newly-regained happiness. Her momentary8 change of feeling toward Ronnie had been trivial; an undercurrent of misunderstanding rather than an overt9 quarrel. Yet the relief of knowing it over was tremendous.
She found him huddled10 in the armchair before the gas-fire; Ponto, surreptitiously introduced into Powolney Mansions11, couched at his feet. He rose as she entered; and the great dog, wagging a delighted stern, rose with him. In a flash of new insight, she saw how alike they were: the big man and the big dog--devoted both, both asking only kindness. And whimsically she thought: "I've been unkind to both of them. I ought to have gone to see Ponto when he was ill. I ought never to have let myself drift away, even in thought, from Ronnie."
As always, Ponto nuzzled his great head against her knee; Ronnie, as always, kissed her. But that night, as never since Chilworth nights, Aliette answered Ronnie's kisses, giving him all her confidence, all her tenderness.
"Quarrels, darling?" he whispered back. "We couldn't really quarrel--you and I."
And after that, for many a day, their rose-bubble of enchantment--the frail13 yet impermeable14 magic of the grand passion--reblew itself about those twain, isolating15 them from their fellows, making even Powolney Mansions a paradise.
For many a day neither spiritual nor material troubles clouded the bright mirror of their joint16 happiness. Scarcely conscious of the discomforts18 in which they lived; utterly19 unconscious of the nascent20 hostility21--a hostility based on some rumor22 which had arisen none knew whence and was tending none knew whither--among their fellow-boarders; careless alike of financial difficulties, of outlawry23, and of ostracism24, they went their way among their uncaring kind.
The high courts were closed; and so far, despite the promises of John Cartwright, neither county nor police courts afforded Ronnie a single brief. Wherefore he and Aliette made holiday together, with London for their playground. Wandering, Ponto at heel, her streets and her parks, her squares and her terraces, they knew the keen radium of London's morning, her smoke-gray half-lights, the red-gold radiance of her dimmed sunsets, the first out-twinkle of her street-lamps, faintly green against a faintly violet sky, her high evening arcs, and the long lit saffron parallels of her mysterious nights.
And one day, wandering casually25 beside London's river, wandering, to be exact, through Fulham and over Putney Bridge, they knew that, by sheerest accident, they had found them a home.
To a Lady Hermione or a Lady Cynthia, Embankment House, a great red building-block which overlooks the Thames, would have been the last word in discomfort17. Except for the automatic lift (into which Ronnie, Aliette, Ponto, and the uniformed porter who showed them over, squeezed only as asparagus into a tin), and the gas-cooker left in the tiny top-floor kitchen by an absconding26 tenant27, no luxuries whatsoever28 ameliorated the bareness of Flat 27, Block B. It was, in fact, hardly more than the model working-man's tenement29 of its original builder's dream. But since it possessed30 five tolerable rooms, the possibility of installing a geyser bath, and, above all things, its own front door, they decided31 instantaneously on its acquirement, seeking out the secretary of the house and paying the requisite32 deposit of a quarter's rent that very afternoon.
So excited were both at the prospect33 of domestic privacy, so engrossed34 with their plans for expending35 Julia's Christmas present to best advantage, that two incidents which--at any other time--would have been of immense importance, passed almost unnoticed. The first of these incidents was Rear-Admiral Billy's written confession36 of failure, and the second--"the scandal of Powolney Mansions." For the rumor which had arisen none knew whence, the rumor that "Mrs. Cavendish wasn't really Mrs. Cavendish at all, but the wife of a well-known society man who refused to divorce her," at last blew so strongly that Monsieur (who before the war would have called himself Herr) Mayer, proprietor37 of the Mansions, felt himself finally obliged to take notice of it.
"Of course, I ask you no questions, Mr. Cavendish," said Monsieur Mayer, seated undistinguished at the dusty desk in his private office. "Of course I ask you and your wife no questions. Your private affairs are your private affairs. But in a boarding-house it is not always possible to keep one's private affairs private; and there has been talk, much talk. That Miss Greenwell, she who have No. 26, and pay less than any one in the house, she gossip all the time. She gossip about you and Mrs. Cavendish. For my part," he waved a deprecatory hand, "I know it is only gossip. I make no suggestion. To me, so long as you pay your bill at the end of the week, it is all right."
To which Ronnie, in his most cautious legal manner, retorted:
"If Miss Greenwell or any of your other guests wish to make imputations against myself or my wife, I shall be glad if they will make them to me personally"--and promptly38 gave a fortnight's notice.
"Dash the fellow's impertinence." he laughed to Aliette, when he reported the interview. "There's no law in England to stop you from calling yourself Mrs. Cavendish." But Aliette, looking up from the wall-paper pattern-book she was studying, did not laugh; because intuitively she knew the power behind Miss Greenwell's throne.
"Hector's doing," she thought. "Somehow or other he must have put the tale about." And in that moment, for the first time, she began to despise her legal owner.
There was neither fear nor hate in her despising; only disdain39 and a crystallization of courage. That Hector should try to hurt her man financially seemed unsporting enough; but this latest secret effort to drive them shelterless into the streets of London put him, in her eyes, definitely beyond the pale.
All the same, for the last fortnight of their stay, "Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish" more than ever eschewed40 the public apartments and "congenial society" of Powolney Mansions.
2
Meanwhile, for the only character in our story who was not directly concerned with the feud41 of the Bruntons and the Cavendishes--to wit, Betty Masterman--the average metropolitan42 life went on. Betty Masterman, however, treating her self-invited guest with that lavish43 hospitality which provides bed and board without asking even companionship in exchange, lunching out, dining out, dancing and theatering, visiting and being visited by a horde44 of acquaintances, knew a good deal more about the progress of the feud than she confided45 to Mollie, and vastly more than Mollie confided to her.
Betty knew, for instance, that Hector Brunton, had it not been for the now full-blown scandal of his wife's desertion, would have been offered his knighthood; that Julia Cavendish, for the identical reason, had not been made a dame46 of the British Empire; that Dot Fancourt who, it was rumored47, had been captured in betrothal48 by a middle-aged49 spinster of markedly reactionary50 views, never tired of lamenting51 "dear Julia's mistaken devotion to her son"; and that Sir Peter Wilberforce, whose baronetcy had been duly announced in the New Year's honors, was more than anxious that his son should get married.
To the grass-widow, it must be confessed, the feud itself seemed as petty as its ramifications52 ludicrous. Her own affair--the affair of the known husband who wrote every month from Toowoomba, Queensland, and the unknown lover who wrote almost every day from Queen's Gate, London--had always been one of those semi-public secrets which leave no speck53 upon the escutcheon. Aliette's method, therefor, appeared in her estimation foolish--though not quite so unnecessarily foolish as the scruples54 which prevented Mollie Fullerford from accepting the obvious heart and equally obvious hand of her Jimmy.
"Sorry, dear," Betty used to say, "but I can't see it. Either you're in love with the man or you're not. If you are in love with him, why on earth don't you marry him? He's got plenty of money; you've got a little money; and until you're tired of one another it ought to be ideal."
"You needn't be so beastly cynical," Mollie, ignorant of Queen's Gate, used to protest. "Just because your own marriage wasn't a success, there's no reason why mine shouldn't be. But I'm not going to marry Jimmy until he's arranged things between Alie and her husband."
"Suppose he can't arrange them, my dear?"
"Of course he can arrange them if he really wants to. He's a lawyer."
"You absolutely refuse to marry him until he does?"
"Absolutely."
Despite which repeated assurance, Mollie Fullerford knew that her decision weakened daily. It was all very well to pretend to Jimmy when he called, as he constantly did call, that there could be no hope for him until her wishes had been carried out; all very well, for the moment, to be reluctant in hand-clasps, grudging55 with kisses. But "that sort of thing" couldn't go on. It wasn't--Aliette's phrase--"dignified."
And besides--she felt herself growing far too fond of Jimmy for half-love. She wanted Jimmy; wanted him very badly; wanted him worse than she had ever wanted anything in her life. In point of fact--it had come to that now--she couldn't "jolly well live without Jimmy"; and would undoubtedly56 have yielded to Jimmy's persistence57 before the spring, had it not been for Eva Martin's interference.
That resolute58 lady of the cold blue eyes, the fading gold hair, and the hard unpleasant hands came to London early in January with the avowed59 intention of "putting matters straight once and for all." With Aliette, invited to luncheon60 at the Ladies' Army and Navy Club (irreverently known as "Arms and Necks" to junior subalterns), she failed completely, Ronnie's "wife" refusing, tight-lipped, even to discuss the situation. But with Mollie the sisterly machinations attained61, in some slight degree, their trouble-making objective.
"You see, my dear," said the colonel's lady, "you're such a child that one really oughtn't to take you into one's confidence at all. But unfortunately this sort of thing can't be glossed62 over. In a way, I need hardly tell you, I'm very sorry for poor Alie. When I compare my own Harold with her Hector, I realize Hector's inferiority. All the same,"--this last with both elbows firmly on the tea-table--"the only course to be pursued, believe me, is for Aliette to return to her husband."
"But that would be perfectly63 beastly," retorted Mollie, the mild antagonism64 she had always felt for Eva turning to intensest dislike.
"Beastly or not," decided the colonel's lady, with some asperity65, "it's the only thing to be done." And she added, with that bitter-sweetness which made Colonel Harold Martin look back upon the western front during the great war as the only peaceful place he had ever known: "Let me remind you, dear child, that there isn't only Alie to be considered. There are your own chances. You'll want to be getting married one of these days, and naturally, no man in a good position----"
The sentence trailed off into a silence as suggestive as the atmosphere Eva left behind her when she trailed out of Betty Masterman's flat; so strengthening the girl's weakened decision that Jimmy Wilberforce, who dropped in half an hour later to plead his own and his baronet father's cause, found himself confronted with a white face, a pair of haggard eyes, and the tense ultimatum66, "Jimmy, I'll marry you the day Hector sets Alie free, but not a day before."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
obsessed
|
|
| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
mingle
|
|
| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
sublime
|
|
| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
countenance
|
|
| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
momentary
|
|
| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
overt
|
|
| adj.公开的，明显的，公然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
huddled
|
|
| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
mansions
|
|
| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
drowsily
|
|
| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
frail
|
|
| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
impermeable
|
|
| adj.不能透过的，不渗透的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
isolating
|
|
| adj.孤立的，绝缘的v.使隔离( isolate的现在分词 )；将…剔出（以便看清和单独处理）；使（某物质、细胞等）分离；使离析 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
joint
|
|
| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
discomfort
|
|
| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
discomforts
|
|
| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
nascent
|
|
| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
hostility
|
|
| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
rumor
|
|
| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
outlawry
|
|
| 宣布非法，非法化，放逐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
24
ostracism
|
|
| n.放逐；排斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
casually
|
|
| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
absconding
|
|
| v.（尤指逃避逮捕）潜逃，逃跑( abscond的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
tenant
|
|
| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
whatsoever
|
|
| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
tenement
|
|
| n.公寓；房屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
requisite
|
|
| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
engrossed
|
|
| adj.全神贯注的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
expending
|
|
| v.花费( expend的现在分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
confession
|
|
| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
proprietor
|
|
| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
disdain
|
|
| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
eschewed
|
|
| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
feud
|
|
| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
metropolitan
|
|
| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
lavish
|
|
| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
horde
|
|
| n.群众，一大群 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
confided
|
|
| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
dame
|
|
| n.女士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
rumored
|
|
| adj.传说的，谣传的v.传闻( rumor的过去式和过去分词 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
betrothal
|
|
| n. 婚约, 订婚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
middle-aged
|
|
| adj.中年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
reactionary
|
|
| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
lamenting
|
|
| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
ramifications
|
|
| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
speck
|
|
| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
scruples
|
|
| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
grudging
|
|
| adj.勉强的，吝啬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
undoubtedly
|
|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
persistence
|
|
| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
resolute
|
|
| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
avowed
|
|
| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
luncheon
|
|
| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
glossed
|
|
| v.注解( gloss的过去式和过去分词 )；掩饰（错误）；粉饰；把…搪塞过去 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
antagonism
|
|
| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
asperity
|
|
| n.粗鲁，艰苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
ultimatum
|
|
| n.最后通牒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |