It was evidently an amateur production, but it was good for all that. And Ethan was troubling his head not at all as to its origin or its merits or defects. It was sufficient for him that it showed a small, graceful6 figure in white against a background of foliage7, and that the eyes which looked straight into his from under the waving hair with its golden fillet were Hers. It was Clytie. One hand rested softly on a flower-clustered spray of azalea, one bare sandaled foot gleamed forth8 from under the straight white folds of the peplum and the lips were parted in a little startled smile. Ethan devoured9 it eagerly while his heart glowed and ached at[177] once. He remembered telling her that he would like to see those pictures, and remembered her laughing response: “I’m afraid you never will!” And now he was looking at one of them after all! And he was still looking when the gardener entered with the replenished10 wood-basket.
“Where did this come from, Billings?” Ethan asked carelessly.
Billings set down his burden and crossed to the table. He was a small man, well toward sixty, with his weather-beaten face shrivelled into innumerable tiny, kindly11 wrinkles. In spite of his years, however, he showed no signs of the mental degeneration which his wife had feared. He came and looked near-sightedly at the card which Ethan held out.
“Why, sir, Lizzie came across that in one of the upstair rooms when she[178] was cleaning up after the folks went away and she put it on the mantel here, thinking maybe it was valuable and they’d send back for it.”
“I see.” Ethan laid it on the table, his eyes still upon it. “I don’t think they’ll want it. Doubtless Miss Devereux has plenty more.”
“Yes, sir; they took a good many, sir, between them.”
“They? Oh, she had a friend with her?”
“Yes, sir. Miss Hoyt. I remember when they was taking those, sir. It was early in the summer, soon after they came. The young ladies they dressed themselves up in those queer things—sort o’ like sheets, they was, sir—” the gardener’s voice became faintly apologetic, as though he had not quite approved of such doings—“and went out on the lawn one forenoon.[179] They got me to cut away a bit of the branches, sir, right here.” Billings indicated the upper left-hand corner of the picture. “She said she had to have more light. It wasn’t much, sir; just a few old twigs12; no harm done, sir.”
“Of course not. It was—Miss Devereux asked you?”
“Yes, sir; Miss Laura they called her. A very pleasant young lady, sir.”
“You know her, then, sir?”
“I—hardly that; I’ve met her.”
“Yes, sir.” Billings turned toward the fire. “Shall I drop another log on, sir?”
“No, I shall be going to bed very shortly.”
“Very well, sir.” Billings mended[180] the fire, replaced the tongs14 and stood carefully erect15 again, chuckling16 reminiscently. Then finding Ethan’s eyes on him questioningly he said: “she took me, sir, too, with her camery.”
“Really? I should like to see the picture.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s in the kitchen. Shall I fetch it? Lizzie says it’s a very speakin’ likeness17, sir, excepting that I was sort o’ took by surprise, so to say, and had no time to spruce up.”
“Yes, bring it in by all means.”
The gardener hurried away and Ethan turned again to the picture. When Billings returned Ethan said carelessly:
“By the way, if your wife asks about this you can tell her I have—er—taken charge of it. Ah, this is the picture, eh? Why, I’d call that excellent,[181] Billings, excellent! Truly, a very speaking likeness. You say Miss Devereux took this?”
Billings
“Yes, sir, the same day they was taking the others, sir. I had lopped off the branches and was standin’ by watching, sir, and after she had taken that one there, sir, she said to me: ‘Billings, would you mind if I took’——”
“Not after she’d taken this, Billings,” interrupted Ethan, in the interests of accuracy. “She didn’t take this one, of course.”
“I beg pardon, Mr. Ethan?”
“Never mind. I only said you didn’t mean that it was after she had taken this one; it was another one you meant.”
“Oh, no, sir, it was that very one, sir. I had just lopped off the branches——”
[182]
“You don’t mean that she took her own picture, surely?” asked Ethan with a smile.
“No, sir.”
“Exactly.”
“It was that one you have there, sir, she took.”
“This one? Now, look here, Billings, let’s get this straightened out while we’re at it. Do you mean that Miss Devereux—mind, I’m talking of Miss Devereux—do you mean that Miss Devereux took this photograph I have in my hands?”
“Yes, sir, that’s the one. I had just lopped——”
“Never mind the lopping,” interrupted Ethan with smiling impatience18. “But tell me how she did it.”
“Why, sir, she stood her camery up a little ways off, sir; it had three little legs onto it, sir; and she pressed[183] a little rubber ball, and the camery went ‘click,’ sir, like that, sir,—‘click!’ and——”
“Yes, yes, but—now look here, how far off was the camera from—from this place, where you had lopped the branches?”
“About twenty feet, sir, maybe.”
“Well, will you kindly, tell me how Miss Devereux managed to squeeze the little rubber ball and get into the picture at the same time?”
“Sir?”
“What I mean is,” answered Ethan patiently, “how could she have been here—” tapping the photograph he held—“and at the camera the same instant?”
[184]
“But she wasn’t there, sir!” he explained.
“Wasn’t where? At the camera?”
“Wasn’t here!” exclaimed Ethan. “Then how—hang it, man, but here’s her picture!”
“Beg pardon, Mr. Ethan?” Billings looked both pained and puzzled, and shot a quick look of inquiry21 at the dinner table.
“I say here’s her picture, you idiot!” repeated Ethan.
“Whose picture, sir?”
“Why, Miss Devereux’s!”
“No, sir.”
“What do you mean by ‘no, sir?’ I say——”
A light broke upon Mr. Billings.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Ethan,”[185] he explained hurriedly. “I see your mistake, sir, but you said as how you’d met the young lady, and I thought you understood as how that wasn’t her, sir.”
“What? Who?”
“Wasn’t Miss Devereux, sir.”
“Do you mean that this isn’t Miss Devereux here in this picture?” cried Ethan.
“Yes, sir; that is, no, sir. That isn’t her, Mr. Ethan.”
“Isn’t—! Then who is it?”
“Miss Hoyt, sir. I thought you under——”
Ethan took Billings by the arms and forced him into a chair.
“You sit there and answer my questions, Billings,” he commanded excitedly. He held the photograph before the gardener’s alarmed face.
“Who is this in the picture?”
[186]
“Miss Hoyt, sir, as I was telling you——”
“Nonsense! You’re mistaken, man! Look close; take it in your hands! Don’t answer until you’ve looked at it well. Where are your spectacles?”
“I don’t wear any, sir,” was the dignified22 reply. “My eyes, Mr. Ethan, are just as clear as ever they were, sir. Why, I can see——”
“Yes, yes, I beg your pardon, Billings, but I have most particular reasons for wanting to be certain about this! Now—take a good look at it!—now who is she?”
“Miss Hoyt, sir, and if you was to put me in jail the next minute, sir, I wouldn’t say different! No, sir, not if my life was depending on it, sir!”
Clytie—Miss Hoyt
“And it’s not Miss Devereux?”
[187]
“No, sir, nor never was! Why, Mr. Ethan, Miss Devereux, as you must recall, sir, is quite tall and slim, like—like a young birch, sir,—with very dark hair. And Miss Hoyt, sir, as you can see——”
Ethan planted himself with his back to the fire and lighted a cigarette with trembling fingers.
“Billings,” he said softly, “I’ve been a damned fool!”
“Yes—that is, I can’t believe it, sir,” was the respectful answer. But Billings’ expression said otherwise.
“Now I want you to tell me all you know about Miss Hoyt,” said Ethan. “By the way, what was her first name?”
“Cicely, sir; Miss Cicely Hoyt.”
“Cicely,” repeated Ethan softly. “It just suits her!”
“Beg pardon, sir?”
[188]
“Oh, never mind. Where does she live?”
Billings thought in silence a moment.
“Ellington, sir,” he answered triumphantly23, evidently pleased at his powers of memory.
“Where the deuce is that, though?”
“About the centre of the state, sir, I think.”
“This state, do you mean? Massachusetts?”
“Yes, sir, Massachusetts.”
“And she was a friend of Miss Devereux’s?”
“Yes, sir. I gathered as how they went to school together. And Miss Hoyt’s father, sir, died a while back and left her and her mother very poorly off, sir. And the young lady is employed in a library at Ellington, as I understand it, sir, and her mother is there, too, sir.”
[189]
“In the library?”
“No, sir, in Ellington. They used to live in Ohio, I believe.”
Ethan was silent a moment, smoking furiously. Then,
“Tell Farrell to come in here at once, Billings. And I’m much obliged for what you’ve told me. Oh, wait, Billings! Throw another log on the fire first. I don’t want it to go out; you and I have got lots to talk about to-night!”
Farrell came speedily.
“Do you know where Ellington, Massachusetts, is?” asked Ethan.
“Yes, sir.”
“How long a run is it?”
“Well, Mr. Parmley, I don’t know how the roads are now, sir, but supposing[190] they’re in fair condition we’d ought to do it in about two and half hours.”
“Then if we left here at seven in the morning we’d get to Ellington by noon?”
“Couldn’t help it, sir, barring accidents.”
“There mustn’t be any accidents,” answered Ethan, a bit unreasonably25.
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Very well, sir.”
Farrell went out and as the door closed softly behind him Ethan, the photograph in his hands, threw himself into the chair before the fire and beamed blissfully at the flames.
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收听单词发音
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1
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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pitchers
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| 大水罐( pitcher的名词复数 ) | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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9
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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replenished
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| 补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 )； 重新装满 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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12
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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13
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
tongs
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| n.钳；夹子 | |
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15
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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16
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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18
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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19
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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20
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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21
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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22
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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23
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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24
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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25
unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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