had to fly.
Already, after their high tragedy and their rosy4 romance, the little things of existence were asserting their importance. That afternoon Sheila had an engagement that
she could not get out of, and a dinner afterward5. She had booked these dates without dreaming of what was to happen.
It was not till late in the evening that Sheila could steal away to Winfield, who stole across the lawn to her piazza6 by appointment.
The scene was perfectly7 set. An appropriate moon was in her place. The breeze was exquisitely8 aromatic9. Winfield was in summer costume of dinner-suit and straw hat.
Sheila was in a light evening gown with no hat.
They cast hasty glances about, against witnesses, and then he flung his arms around her, and she flung hers around him. He crushed her as fiercely as he dared, and she
She was happy beyond endurance. She was in love and her beloved loved her.
All the Sheilas there were in her soul agreed for once that she was happy to the final degree, contented11 beyond belief, imparadised on earth. The Sheilas voted
unanimously that love was life; love was the greatest thing in the world; that woman’s place was with her lover, that a woman’s forum12 was the home; and that any
career outside the walls was a plaything to be put away and forgotten like a hobby-horse outgrown13.
As for her stage career—pouf! into the attic14 with it where her little tin house and the tiny tin kitchen and her knitted bear and the glueless dolls reposed15. She was
going to have a real house and real children and real life.
While she was consigning16 her ambitions to the old trunk up-stairs, Winfield was refurbishing his ambitions. He was going to do work enough for two, be ambitious for
both and make Sheila the proudest wife of the busiest husband in the husband business.
But these great resolutions were mainly roaring in the back parlors17 of their brains. On the piazzas18 of their lips were words of lovers’ nonsense. There is no use
quoting them. They would sound silly even to those who have used them themselves.
They sounded worse than that to Roger and Polly, who heard them all.
Roger and Polly had come home from dancing half an hour before, and had dropped into chairs in the living-room. The moon on the sea was dazzling. They watched it
through the screens that strained the larger mosquitoes, then they put out the lights because the view was better and because enough mosquitoes were already in the
house.
The conversation of the surf had made all the necessary language and Roger and Polly sat in the tacit comfort of long-married couples. They had heard Sheila brought
home by a young man whom she dismissed with brevity. Before they found energy to call to her, another young man had hurried across the grass. To their intense
Polly and Roger were aghast, but they dared not speak. They did not even know who the man was. Sheila called him by no name to identify him, though she called him by
any number of names of intense saccharinity.
At length Roger’s voice came through the gloom, as gentle as a shaft22 of moonlight made audible: “Oh, Sheila.”
“Ye-yes, dodther.” She had tried to say “Daddy” and “father” at the same time.
Roger’s voice went on in its drawing-roomest drawl: “I know that it is very bad play-writing to have anybody overhear anybody, but your mother and I got home first,
and your dialogue is—well, really, a little of it goes a great way, and we’d like to know the name of your leading man.”
Winfield and Sheila both wished that they had drowned that morning. But there was no escape from making their entrance into the living-room, where Roger turned on the
lights. All eyes blinked, rather with confusion than the electric display.
The elder Kembles had met Winfield before, but had not suspected him as a son-in-law-to-be. Sheila explained the situation and laid heavy stress on how Winfield had
rescued her from drowning. She rather gave the impression that she had fallen off a liner two days out and that he had jumped overboard and carried her to safety
single-handed.
Winfield tried to disclaim24 the glory, but he managed to gulp25 up a proposal in phrases he had read somewhere.
“I came to ask you for your daughter’s hand.”
“It looked to me as if you had both of them around your neck,” Roger sighed. Then he cleared his throat and said: “What do you say, Polly? Do we give our consent?—
not that it makes any difference.”
Polly sighed. “Sheila’s happiness is the only thing to consider.”
“Ah, Sheila’s happiness!” Roger groaned26. “That’s a large order. I suppose she has told you, Mr. Wyndham, that she is an actress—or is trying to be?”
“Oh yes, sir,” Winfield answered, feeling like a butler asking for a position. “I fell in love with her on the stage.”
“Ah, so you are an actor, too.”
“Oh no, sir! I’m a manufacturer, or I expect to be.”
“And is your factory one that can be carried around with you, or does Sheila intend—”
“Oh, { I’m } going to leave the stage.”
{she’s}
“Hum!” said Roger. “When?”
“Right away, I hope,” said Winfield.
“I’m off the stage now,” said Sheila. “I’ll just not go back.”
“I see,” said Roger, while Polly stared from her idolized child to the terrifying stranger, and wrung27 her hands before the appalling28 explosion of this dynamite29 in
the quiet evening.
“Well, mummsy,” Sheila cried, taking her mother in her arms, “why don’t you say something?”
“I—I don’t know what to say,” Polly whimpered.
Roger’s uneasy eyes were attracted by the living-room table, where there was a comfortable clutter30 of novels and magazines. A copy of The Munsey was lying there; it
was open, face down. Roger picked it up and offered the open book to Sheila.
She and Winfield looked down at a full-page portrait of Sheila.
“Had you seen this, Mr.—Mr.—Wingate, is it? It’s a forecast of the coming season and it says—it says—” He produced his eye-glasses and read:
“?‘The most interesting announcement among the Reben plans is the statement that Sheila Kemble is to be promoted to stellar honors in a new play written especially
for her. While we deplore31 the custom of rushing half-baked young beauties into the electric letters, an exception must be made in the case of this rising young artist.
She has not only revealed extraordinary accomplishments32 and won for herself a great following of admirers throughout the country, but she has also enjoyed a double
heritage in the gifts of her distinguished33 forebears, who are no less personages than’—et cetera, et cetera.”
Sheila and Winfield stared at the page from which Sheila’s public image beamed quizzically at herself and at the youth who aspired34 to rob her “great following” of
their darling.
“What about that?” said Roger.
Winfield looked so pitiful to Sheila that she cried, “Well, my ‘great following’ will have to follow somebody else, for I belong to Bret now.”
“I see,” said Roger. “And when does the rising young star—er—set? When does the marriage take place?”
“Whenever Bret wants me,” said Sheila, and she added “Ooh!” for he squeezed her fingers with merciless gratitude35.
“Oh, Sheila! Sheila!” said Polly, clutching at her other hand as if she would hold her little girl back from crossing the stile of womanhood.
Roger hummed several times in the greatest possible befuddlement36. At length he said:
“And what do your parents say, Mr. Winston?—or are they—er—living?”
“Yes, sir, both of them, thank you. They don’t know anything about it yet, sir.”
“And do you think they will be pleased?”
“When they know Sheila they can’t help loving her.”
“It has happened, I believe,” said Roger, “that parents have not altogether echoed their children’s enthusiasms. And there are still a few people who would not
consider a popular actress an ideal daughter-in-law.”
“Oh, they won’t make any trouble!” said Winfield. “They ought to be proud of—of an alliance with such—er—distinguished forebears as you.” He tried to include
Roger smiled at the bungled38 compliment and answered, “Well, the Montagues and the Capulets were both prominent families, but that didn’t help Romeo and Juliet much.
”
“So I judge, but have you an income of your own?”
“No, but— Well, I can take care of Sheila, I guess!” He was angry now.
Roger rather liked him for his bluster41, but he said, “In any case there is no especial hurry, I presume.”
To the young lovers there seemed to be the most enormous necessity of haste to forsake42 the world and build their own nest in their own tree.
Roger was silent and Polly was silent. Winfield felt called upon to speak. At last he managed to extort43 a few words from his embarrassment44:
“Anyway, I can count on your consent, can I?”
“Our consent!” laughed Roger. “What have we to say? We’re only the parents of a young American princess. If Sheila says yes, your next trouble is your own parents,
for you are only an American man.”
“Anyway, you won’t oppose us?” Winfield urged.
“My boy, I would no more oppose Sheila than I would oppose the Twentieth Century Limited in full flight.”
Roger put his arm about his daughter, who was nearly taller than he was. “My child,” he said, “I think you are the finest woman in the world except your own mother.
And if it would make you happy and keep you happy I’d cut off my right arm.” Then he kissed her, and his eyes were more like a sorrowful boy’s than a father’s.
There was a lull46 in the conversation and he escaped with the words: “Mother, it’s time for the old folks to go to bed. The young people have a lot to talk over and
we’re in the way. Good night, Mr. Win—my boy, and good luck to you—though God alone knows good luck when He sees it.”
When the veterans had climbed the stairs to the shelf on which younger romance had put them, Bret and Sheila resumed that interrupted embrace, but deliberately47 and
solemnly. It was a serious matter, this getting married and all.
The next morning brought a flood of sunlight on an infinitely48 cheerful ocean and the two lovers’ thoughts flew to each other from their remote windows like carrier-
pigeons.
Sheila was perturbed49, and as she watched Winfield approach she thought that his very motor seemed to be a trifle sullen50. Then she ran down to the piazza to meet him.
She carried a letter in her left hand. She waved him welcome with the other.
As he ran up the walk he took from his pocket a telegram. They vanished into the house to exchange appropriate salutes51, but Pennock was there as housemaid, and she was
giving orders to Roger’s valet, who doubled as the butler in summer-time.
So they returned to the porch embraceless. This began the morning wrong. Then Winfield handed Sheila his telegram, a long night letter from his father, saying that his
health was bad and he might have to take a rest. He added, vigorously:
“You’ve fooled away time enough. Get back on the job; learn your business and attend to it.”
Winfield shook his head dolefully. “Isn’t that rotten?”
“Mate it with this,” said Sheila, and handed him her letter.
Dear Sheila Kemble,—Better run in town and see me to-morrow. I’ve got a great play for you from France. Rehearsals53 begin immediately. Trusting your rest has filled
Yours faithfully,
Hy. Reben.
This threw Winfield into a panic. “But you promised me—”
“Yes, dear,” she cooed, “and I’ve already written the answer. How’s this?” She gave him the answer she had worked over for an hour, trying to make it as
business-like as possible:
Letter received regret state owing change plans shall not return stage this season best wishes.
Sheila Kemble.
Even this did not allay55 Winfield’s alarm. “Why do you say ‘this season’?” he demanded. “Are you only marrying me for one season?”
“For all eternity,” she cried, “but I wanted to let poor old Reben down easy.”
Sheila found that Reben was not so easily let down as stirred up. An answer to the telegram arrived a few hours later, just in time to spoil the day:
You gave me word of honor as gentleman you would keep your contract better look it over again you will report for rehearsal52 Monday ten a.m. Odeon Theater.
Reben.
Winfield stormed at Reben’s language as much as at the situation:
“How dares he use such a tone to you? Are you his servant or are you my wife?”
“I’m neither, honey,” Sheila said, very meekly56. “I’m just the darned old public’s little white slave.”
“But you don’t belong to the public. You belong to me.”
“But I gave him my word first, honey,” Sheila pleaded. “If it were just an ordinary contract, I could break it, but we shook hands on it and I gave him my word as a
gentleman. If I broke that I couldn’t be trusted to keep my word to you, could I, dear?”
It was a puzzling situation for Winfield. How could he demand that the woman in whose hands he was to put his honor should begin their compact by a breach58 of honor?
How could he counsel her to be false to one solemn obligation and expect her to be true to another assumed later?
Reben followed up his telegram by a letter of protest against Sheila’s bad faith. He referred to the expense he had been at; he had bought a great foreign play,
paying down heavy advance royalties59; he had given large orders to scene-painters, lithographers, and printers, and had flooded the country with her photographs and his
announcements. The cast was selected, and her defection would mean cruelty to them as well as disloyalty to him.
She felt helpless. Winfield was helpless. She could only mourn and he rage. They were like two lovers who find themselves on separate ships.
Winfield went back to his father’s factory in a fume60 of wrath61 and grief. Sheila went to Reben’s factory with the meekness62 of a mill-hand carrying a dinner-pail.
Sheila made a poor effort to smile at the stage-door keeper, who lifted his hat to her and welcomed her as if she were the goddess of spring. The theater had been
lonely all summer, but with the autumn was burgeoning63 into vernal activity.
The company in its warm-weather clothes made little spots of color in the dimly lighted cave of the stage. The first of the members to greet Sheila was Floyd Eldon.
Eldon seized both of Sheila’s hands and wrung them, and his heart cried aloud in his soft words: “God bless you, Sheila. We’re to be together again and I’m to play
your lover again. You’ve got to listen to me telling you eight times a week how much I—”
“Why, Mr. Batterson, how do you do?”
The director—Batterson again—came forward with other troupers, old friends or strangers. Then Reben called to Sheila from the night beyond the footlights. She
stumbled and groped her way out front to him, and he scolded her roundly for giving him such a scare.
The director’s voice calling the company together rescued her from answering Reben’s questions as to the mysterious “change of plans” that had inspired her
telegram.
“I guess you must have been crazy with the heat,” he said.
“Call it that,” said Sheila. And she rejoined the company, trying not to be either uppish or ’umble in her new quality as the star.
The author of the play was a Parisian plutocrat whose wares64 had traversed all the oceans, though he had never ventured across the English Channel. So he was not
present to read the play aloud. Ben Prior, the adapter, was a meek57 hack65 afraid of his own voice, and Batterson was not inclined to show the company how badly their
director read. His assistant distributed the parts, and the company, clustered in chairs, read in turn as their cues came.
Each had hefted his own part, and judged it by the number of its pages. One might have guessed nearly how many pages each had by the vivacity66 or the dreariness67 of his
attack.
It is a saddening thing to an ambitious actor to realize that his business for a whole season is to be confined to brief appearances and unimportant speeches.
People congratulated old Jaffer because he was out of the play after the first act. But, cynic as he was, he was not glad to feel that he would be in his street mufti
when the second curtain rose. It is pleasant to play truant69, but it is no fun to be turned out of school when everybody else is in.
Of all the people there the most listless was the one who had the biggest, bravest r?le, the one round which all the others revolved70, the one to whom all the others “
Sheila had to be reminded of her cue again and again. Batterson’s voice recalled her as from a distance.
It is as strange as anything so usual and immemorial can be, how madly lovers can love; how much agony they can extract from a brief separation; what bitter terror
they can distil73 from ordinary events. As the tormented74 girl read her lines and later walked through the positions or stood about in the maddening stupidities of a
first rehearsal, she had actually to battle with herself to keep from screaming aloud:
“I don’t want to act! I don’t want the public to love me! I want only my Bret!”
The temptation to hurl75 the part in Reben’s face, to mock the petty withes of contract and promise, and to fly to her lover, insane as it was, was a temptation she
barely managed to fight off.
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收听单词发音
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1
betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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7
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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betrothal
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| n. 婚约, 订婚 | |
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11
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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12
forum
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| n.论坛，讨论会 | |
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outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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15
reposed
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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consigning
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的现在分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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17
parlors
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| 客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店 | |
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18
piazzas
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| n.广场，市场( piazza的名词复数 ) | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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21
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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23
snipped
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| v.剪( snip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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disclaim
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| v.放弃权利，拒绝承认 | |
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gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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26
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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27
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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28
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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dynamite
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| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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clutter
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| n.零乱，杂乱；vt.弄乱，把…弄得杂乱 | |
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deplore
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| vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾 | |
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accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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befuddlement
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| 迷惘，昏迷，失常 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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bungled
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| v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的过去式和过去分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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39
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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41
bluster
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| v.猛刮；怒冲冲的说；n.吓唬，怒号；狂风声 | |
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42
forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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extort
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| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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45
pouted
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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47
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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48
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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49
perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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51
salutes
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| n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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52
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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rehearsals
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| n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复 | |
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54
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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55
allay
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| v.消除，减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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56
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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57
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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58
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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59
royalties
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| 特许权使用费 | |
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60
fume
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| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
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61
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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62
meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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63
burgeoning
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| adj.迅速成长的，迅速发展的v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的现在分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝） | |
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64
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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65
hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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66
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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67
dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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68
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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69
truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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70
revolved
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| v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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72
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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73
distil
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| vt.蒸馏；提取…的精华，精选出 | |
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74
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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