The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these documents, and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while there had been more talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her friend’s guarantee of a life of elegance1 were not quite definite: “Well, I see every one at my place.”
“Every one?”
“Lots of swells2. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and the place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those whose names are in the papers — mamma has still The Morning Post — and who come up for the season.”
Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. “Yes, and I dare say it’s some of your people that I do.”
Her companion assented3, but discriminated4. “I doubt if you ‘do’ them as much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and arrangements, their little games and secrets and vices5 — those things all pass before me.”
This was a picture that could make a clergyman’s widow not imperceptibly gasp6; it was in intention moreover something of a retort to the thousand tulips. “Their vices? Have they got vices?”
Our young critic even more overtly7 stared then with a touch of contempt in her amusement: “Haven’t you found that out?” The homes of luxury then hadn’t so much to give. “I find out everything.”
Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek8 person, was visibly struck. “I see. You do ‘have’ them.”
“Oh I don’t care! Much good it does me!”
Mrs. Jordan after an instant recovered her superiority. “No — it doesn’t lead to much.” Her own initiations so clearly did. Still — after all; and she was not jealous: “There must be a charm.”
“In seeing them?” At this the girl suddenly let herself go. “I hate them. There’s that charm!”
Mrs. Jordan gaped9 again. “The real ‘smarts’?”
“Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes — it comes to me; I’ve had Mrs. Bubb. I don’t think she has been in herself, but there are things her maid has brought. Well, my dear!” — and the young person from Cocker’s, recalling these things and summing them up, seemed suddenly to have much to say. She didn’t say it, however; she checked it; she only brought out: “Her maid, who’s horrid10 — she must have her!” Then she went on with indifference11: “They’re too real! They’re selfish brutes12.”
Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last the plan of treating it with a smile. She wished to be liberal. “Well, of course, they do lay it out.”
“They bore me to death,” her companion pursued with slightly more temperance.
But this was going too far. “Ah that’s because you’ve no sympathy!”
The girl gave an ironic13 laugh, only retorting that nobody could have any who had to count all day all the words in the dictionary; a contention14 Mrs. Jordan quite granted, the more that she shuddered15 at the notion of ever failing of the very gift to which she owed the vogue16 — the rage she might call it — that had caught her up. Without sympathy — or without imagination, for it came back again to that — how should she get, for big dinners, down the middle and toward the far corners at all? It wasn’t the combinations, which were easily managed: the strain was over the ineffable17 simplicities18, those that the bachelors above all, and Lord Rye perhaps most of any, threw off — just blew off like cigarette-puffs — such sketches19 of. The betrothed20 of Mr. Mudge at all events accepted the explanation, which had the effect, as almost any turn of their talk was now apt to have, of bringing her round to the terrific question of that gentleman. She was tormented22 with the desire to get out of Mrs. Jordan, on this subject, what she was sure was at the back of Mrs. Jordan’s head; and to get it out of her, queerly enough, if only to vent21 a certain irritation23 at it. She knew that what her friend would already have risked if she hadn’t been timid and tortuous24 was: “Give him up — yes, give him up: you’ll see that with your sure chances you’ll be able to do much better.”
Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put before her with a particular sniff25 for poor Mr. Mudge she should hate it as much as she morally ought. She was conscious of not, as yet, hating it quite so much as that. But she saw that Mrs. Jordan was conscious of something too, and that there was a degree of confidence she was waiting little by little to arrive at. The day came when the girl caught a glimpse of what was still wanting to make her friend feel strong; which was nothing less than the prospect26 of being able to announce the climax27 of sundry28 private dreams. The associate of the aristocracy had personal calculations — matter for brooding and dreaming, even for peeping out not quite hopelessly from behind the window-curtains of lonely lodgings29. If she did the flowers for the bachelors, in short, didn’t she expect that to have consequences very different from such an outlook at Cocker’s as she had pronounced wholly desperate? There seemed in very truth something auspicious30 in the mixture of bachelors and flowers, though, when looked hard in the eye, Mrs. Jordan was not quite prepared to say she had expected a positive proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our young woman arrived at last, none the less, at a definite vision of what was in her mind. This was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of Mr. Mudge would, unless conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, almost hate her on the day she should break a particular piece of news. How could that unfortunate otherwise endure to hear of what, under the protection of Lady Ventnor, was after all so possible.
收听单词发音 |
1
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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2
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discriminated
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| 分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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7
overtly
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| ad.公开地 | |
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8
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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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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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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15
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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16
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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17
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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18
simplicities
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| n.简单，朴素，率直( simplicity的名词复数 ) | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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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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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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23
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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25
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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26
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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27
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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30
auspicious
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| adj.吉利的；幸运的，吉兆的 | |
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