Half past six on Friday morning and Constance appeared on the terrace; Constance in fluffy1, billowy, lacy white with a spray of oleander in her belt—the last costume in the world in which one would start on a mountain climb. She cast a glance in passing toward the gateway2 and the stretch of road visible beyond, but both were empty, and seating herself on the parapet, she turned her attention to the lake. The breeze that blew from the farther shore brought fresh Alpine3 odors of flowers and pine trees. Constance sniffed4 it eagerly as she gazed across toward the purple outline of Monte Maggiore. The serenity5 of her smile gradually gave place to doubt; she turned and glanced back toward the house, visibly changing her mind.
But before the change was finished, the quiet of the morning was broken by a clatter6 of tiny scrambling7 obstinate8 hoofs9 and a series of ejaculations, both Latin and English. She glanced toward the gate where Fidilini was visible, plainly determined10 not to come in. Constance laughed expectantly and turned back to the water, her eyes intent on the fishing-smacks that were putting out from the little marino. The sounds of coercion11 increased; a command floated down the driveway in the English tongue. It sounded like:
“You twist his tail, Beppo, while I pull.”
Apparently12 it was understood in spite of Beppo’s slight knowledge of the language. An eloquent13 silence followed; then an outraged14 grunt15 on the part of Fidilini, and the cavalcade16 advanced with a rush to the kitchen door. Tony left Beppo and the donkeys, and crossed the terrace alone. His bow swept the ground in the deferential17 manner of Gustavo, but his glance was far bolder than a donkey-driver’s should have been. She noted18 the fact and tossed him a nod of marked condescension19. A silence followed during which Constance studied the lake; when she turned back, she found Tony arranging a spray of oleander that had dropped from her belt in the band of his hat. She viewed this performance in silent disfavor. Having finished to his satisfaction, he tossed the hat aside and seated himself on the balustrade. Her frown became visible. Tony sprang to his feet with an air of anxiety.
“Scusi, signorina. I have not meant to be presumptious. Perhaps it is not fitting that anyone below the rank of lieutenant20 should sit in your presence?”
“It will not be very long, Tony, before you are discharged for impertinence.”
“Ah, signorina, do not say that! If it is your wish I will kneel when I address you. My family, signorina, are poor; they need the four francs which you so munificently21 pay.”
“I mean the family which I hope to have. Costantina has extravagant23 tastes and coral earrings24 cost two-fifty a pair.”
Constance laughed and assumed a more lenient25 air. She made a slight gesture which might be interpreted as an invitation to sit down; and Tony accepted it.
“By the way, Tony, how do you talk to Costantina, since she speaks no English and you no Italian?”
“We have no need of either Italian or English; the language of love, signorina, is universal.”
“Oh!” she laughed again. “I was at the Hotel du Lac yesterday; I saw Costantina.”
“You saw Costantina!—Ah, signorina, is she not beautiful? Ze mos’ beautiful in all ze world? But ver’ unkind signorina. Yes, she laugh at me; she smile at ozzer men, at soldiers wif uniforms.” He sighed profoundly. “But I love her just ze same, always from ze first moment I see her. It was washday, signorina, by ze lac. I climb over ze wall and talk wif her, but she make fun of me—ver’ unkind. I go away ver’ sad. No use, I say, she like dose soldiers best. But I see her again; I hear her laugh—it sound like angels singing—I say, no, I can not go away; I stay here and make her love me. Yes, I do everysing she ask—but everysing! I wear earrings; I make myself into a fool just to please zat Costantina.”
He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. A slow red flush crept over Constance’s face and she turned her head away and looked across the water.
Mr. Wilder, in full Alpine regalia, stepped out upon the terrace and viewed the beauty of the morning with a prophetic eye. Miss Hazel followed in his wake; she wore a lavender dimity. And suddenly it occurred to Tony’s slow moving masculine perception that neither lavender dimity nor white muslin were fabrics26 fit for mountain climbing.
Constance slipped down from her parapet and hurried to meet them.
“Good-morning, Aunt Hazel. Morning, Dad! You look beautiful! There’s nothing so becoming to a man as knickerbockers—especially if he’s a little stout27.—You’re late,” she added with a touch of severity. “Breakfast has been waiting half an hour and Tony fifteen minutes.”
She turned back toward the donkey-man who was standing28, hat in hand, respectfully waiting orders. “Oh, Tony, I forgot to tell you; we shall not need Beppo and the donkeys to-day. You and my father are going alone.”
“You no want to climb Monte Maggiore—ver’ beautiful mountain.” There was disappointment, reproach, rebellion in his tone.
“We have made inquiries29 and my aunt thinks it too long a trip. Without the donkeys you can cross by boat, and that cuts off three miles.”
“As you please, signorina.” He turned away.
Constance looked after him with a shade of remorse30. When this plan of sending her father and Tony alone had occurred to her as she sailed homeward yesterday from the Hotel du Lac, it had seemed a humorous and fitting retribution. The young man had been just a trifle too sure of her interest; the episode of the hotel register must not go unpunished. But—it was a beautiful morning, a long empty day stretched before her, and Monte Maggiore looked alluring31; there was no pursuit, for the moment, which she enjoyed as much as donkey-riding. Oh yes, she was spiting herself as well as Tony; but considering the circumstances the sacrifice seemed necessary.
When the Farfalla drifted up ready to take the mountain-climbers, Miss Hazel suggested (Constance possessed32 to a large degree the diplomatic faculty33 of making other people propose what she herself had decided34 on) that she and her niece cross with them. Tony was sulky and Constance could not forego the pleasure of baiting him further.
They put in at the village, on their way, for the morning mail; Mr. Wilder wished his paper, even at the risk of not beginning the ascent35 before the sun was high. Giuseppe brought back from the post, among other matters, a letter for Constance. The address was in a dashing, angular hand that pretty thoroughly36 covered the envelope. Had she not been so intent on the writing herself, she would have noted Tony’s astonished stare as he passed it to her.
“Why!” she exclaimed, “here’s a letter from Nannie Hilliard, postmarked Lucerne.”
“Lucerne!” Miss Hazel echoed her surprise. “I thought they were to be in England for the summer?”
“They were—the last I heard.” Constance ripped the letter open and read it aloud.
“Dear Constance: You’ll doubtless be surprised to hear from us in Switzerland instead of in England, and to learn further, that in the course of a week, we shall arrive at Valedolmo en route for the Dolomites. Jerry Junior at the last moment decided to come with us, and you know what a man is when it comes to European travel. Instead of taking two months comfortably to England, as Aunt Kate and I had planned, we did the whole of the British Isles37 in ten days, and Holland and France at the same breathless rate.
“Jerry says he holds the record for the Louvre; he struck a six-mile pace at the entrance, and by looking neither to the right nor the left he did the whole building in forty-three minutes.
“You can imagine the exhausted38 state Aunt Kate and I are in after travelling five weeks with him. We simply struck in Switzerland and sent him on to Italy alone. I had hoped he would meet us in Valedolmo, but we have been detained here longer than we expected, and now he’s rushed off again—where to, goodness only knows; we don’t.
“Anyway, Aunt Kate and I shall land in Valedolmo about the end of the week. I am dying to see you; I have some beautiful news that’s too complicated to write. We’ve engaged rooms at the Hotel du Lac—I hope it’s decent; it’s the only place starred in Baedeker.
“Aunt Kate wishes to be remembered to your father and Miss Hazel.
“Yours ever,
Nan Hilliard.
She returned the letter to its envelope and looked up.
“Now isn’t that abominable40?” she demanded.
“Abominable!” Miss Hazel was scandalized. “My dear, I think it’s delightful41.”
“Oh, yes—I mean about Jerry Junior; I’ve been trying for six years to get hold of that man.”
Tony behind them made a sudden movement that let out nearly a yard of rope, and the Farfalla listed heavily to starboard.
“Tony!” Constance threw over her shoulder. “Don’t you know enough to sit still when you are holding the sheet?”
“Scusi,” he murmured. The sulky look had vanished from his face; he wore an expression of alert attention.
“Of course we shall have them at the villa,” said Miss Hazel. “And we shall have to get some new dishes. Elizabetta has already broken so many plates that she has to stop and wash them between courses.”
Constance looked dreamily across the lake; she appeared to be thinking. “I wonder,” she inquired finally, “if Jerry Junior knew we were here in Valedolmo?”
Her father emerged from the columns of his paper.
“Of course he knew it, and having heard what a dangerous young person you were, he said to himself, ‘I’d better keep out.’”
“I wish I knew. It would make the score against him considerably42 heavier.”
“So there is already a score? I hadn’t supposed that the game had begun.”
She nodded.
“Six years ago—but he doesn’t know it. Yes, Dad,” her tone was melodramatic, “for six years I’ve been waiting for Jerry Junior and planning my revenge. And now, when I have him almost in my grasp, he eludes43 me again!”
“Dear me!” Mr. Wilder ejaculated. “What did the young man do?”
Had Constance turned she would have found Tony’s face an interesting study. But she knew well enough without looking at him that he was listening to the conversation, and she determined to give him something to listen to. It was a salutary thing for Tony to be kept in mind of the fact that there were other men in the world.
She sighed.
“He was the first man I ever loved, Father, and he spurned44 me. Do you remember that Christmas when I was in boarding-school and you were called South on business? I wanted to visit Nancy Long, but you wouldn’t let me because you didn’t like her father; and you got Mrs. Jerymn Hilliard whom I had never set eyes on to invite me there? I didn’t want to go, and you said I must, and were perfectly45 horrid46 about it—you remember that?”
“Yes, I see you do. And you remember how, with my usual sweetness, I finally gave way? Well, Dad, you never knew the reason. The Yale Glee Club came to Westfield that year just before the holidays began, and Miss Jane let everybody go to the concert whose deportment had been above eighty—that of course included me.
“Well, we all went, and we all fell in love—in a body—with a sophomore48 who played the banjo and sang negro songs. He had lovely dark gazelle-like eyes and he sang funny songs without smiling. The whole school raved49 about him all the way home; we cut his picture out of the program and pasted in the front of our watches. His name, Father—” she paused dramatically, “was Jerymn Hilliard Junior!”
“I sat up half the night writing diplomatic letters to you and Mrs. Hilliard; and the next day when it got around that I was actually going to visit in his house—well, I was the most popular girl in school. I was sixteen years old then; I wore sailor suits and my hair was braided down my back. Probably I did look young; and then Nannie, whom I was supposedly visiting, was only fifteen. There were a lot of cousins in the house besides all the little Hilliards, and what do you think? They made the children eat in the schoolroom! I never saw him until Christmas night; then when we were introduced, he shook my hand in a listless sort of way, said ‘How d’ y’ do?’ and forgot all about me. He went off with the Glee Club the next day, and I only saw him once more.
“We were playing blind man’s buff in the school-room; I had just been caught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing50. Everybody else was clapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stood Jerry Junior! He looked straight at me and growled51:
“‘What are you kids making such an infernal racket about?’”
She shut her eyes.
“Aunt Hazel, Dad, just think. He was my first love. His picture was at that moment in a locket around my neck. And he called me a kid!”
“And you’ve never seen him since?” Miss Hazel’s smile expressed amused indulgence.
Constance shook her head.
“He’s always been away when I’ve visited Nan—and for six years I’ve been waiting.” She straightened up with an air of determination. “But now, if he’s on the continent of Europe, I’ll get him!”
“And what shall you do with him?” her father mildly inquired.
“Do with him? I’ll make him take it back; I’ll make him eat that word kid!”
“H’m!” said her father. “I hope you’ll get him; he might act as an antidote52 to some of these officers.”
They had run in under the shadow of the mountain and the keel grated on the shore. Constance raised her eyes and studied the towering crag above their heads; when she lowered them again, her gaze for an instant met Tony’s. There was a new light in his eyes—amusement, triumph, something entirely53 baffling. He gave her the intangible feeling of having at last got the mastery of the situation.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
fluffy
|
|
| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
gateway
|
|
| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
alpine
|
|
| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
sniffed
|
|
| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
serenity
|
|
| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
clatter
|
|
| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
scrambling
|
|
| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
obstinate
|
|
| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
hoofs
|
|
| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
coercion
|
|
| n.强制，高压统治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
eloquent
|
|
| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
outraged
|
|
| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
grunt
|
|
| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
cavalcade
|
|
| n.车队等的行列 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
deferential
|
|
| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
condescension
|
|
| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
lieutenant
|
|
| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
munificently
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
22
orphan
|
|
| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
extravagant
|
|
| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
earrings
|
|
| n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
lenient
|
|
| adj.宽大的，仁慈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
fabrics
|
|
| 织物( fabric的名词复数 )； 布； 构造； （建筑物的）结构（如墙、地面、屋顶）：质地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
inquiries
|
|
| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
remorse
|
|
| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
alluring
|
|
| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
faculty
|
|
| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
ascent
|
|
| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
thoroughly
|
|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
isles
|
|
| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
exhausted
|
|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
abominable
|
|
| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
delightful
|
|
| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
considerably
|
|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
eludes
|
|
| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的第三人称单数 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
spurned
|
|
| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
horrid
|
|
| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
grunted
|
|
| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
sophomore
|
|
| n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
raved
|
|
| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
squealing
|
|
| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
growled
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
antidote
|
|
| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |