“Mrs. Beever has not come back? Julia wants her Julia must see her! ”
Dennis was separated by the width of the hall from the girl with whom he had just enjoyed such an opportunity of reunion, but there was for the moment no indication that Tony Bream, engrossed4 with a graver accident, found a betrayal in the space between them. He had, however, for Dennis the prompt effect of a reminder5 to take care: it was a consequence of the very nature of the man that to look at him was to recognise the value of appearances and that he couldn’t have dropped upon any scene, however disordered, without, by the simple fact, re establishing a superficial harmony. His new friend met him with a movement that might have been that of stepping in front of some object to hide it, while Rose, on her side, sounding out like a touched bell, was already alert with her response. “Ah,” said Dennis, to himself, “ it’s for them she cares! ”
“She has not come back, but if there’s a hurry ”
Rose was all there.
“There is a hurry. Some one must go for her.”
Dennis had a point to make that he must make on the spot. He spoke6 before Rose’s rejoinder. “ With your increasing anxieties, Mr. Bream, I’m quite ashamed to be quartered on you. Hadn’t I really better be at the inn? ”
“At the inn to go from here? My dear fellow, are you mad? ” Tony sociably7 scoffed8; he wouldn’t hear of it. “ Don’t be afraid; we’ve plenty of use for you if only to keep this young woman quiet.”
“He can be of use this instant.” Rose looked at her suitor as if there were not the shadow of a cloud between them. “ The servants are getting luncheon9. Will you go over for Mrs. Beever? ”
“Ah,” Tony demurred10, laughing, “we mustn’t make him fetch and carry! ”
Dennis showed a momentary11 blankness and then, in his private discomposure, jumped at the idea of escaping from the house and into the air. “ Do employ me,” he pleaded. “ I want to stretch my legs I’ll do anything.”
“Since you’re so kind, then, and it’s so near,” Tony replied. “ Mrs. Beever’s our best friend, and always the friend of our friends, and she’s only across the river.”
“Just six minutes,” said Rose, “ by the short way. Bring her back with you.”
“The short way,” Tony pressingly explained, “ is through my garden and out of it by the gate on the river.”
“At the river you turn to the right the little foot-bridge is her bridge,” Rose went on.
“You pass the gatehouse empty and closed at the other side of it, and there you are,” said Tony.
“In her garden it’s lovely. Tell her it’s for Mrs. Bream and it’s important,” Rose added.
“My wife’s calling aloud for her! ” Tony laid his hand, with his flushed laugh, on the young man’s shoulder.
Dennis had listened earnestly, looking at his com panions in turn. “ It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know in the least who I am? ”
“She knows perfectly12 don’t be shy! ” Rose familiarly exclaimed.
Tony gave him a great pat on the back which sent him off. “ She has even something particular to say to you! She takes a great interest in his rela tions with you,” he continued to Rose as the door closed behind their visitor. Then meeting in her face a certain impatience13 of any supersession14 of the question of Julia’s state, he added, to justify15 his allusion16, a word accompanied by the same excited laugh that had already broken from him. “ Mrs. Beever deprecates the idea of any further delay in your marriage and thinks you’ve got quite enough to ‘ set up ’ on. She pronounces your means remark ably adequate.”
“What does she know about our means? ” Rose coldly asked.
“No more, doubtless, than I! But that needn’t prevent her. It’s the wish that’s father to the thought. That’s the result of her general goodwill17 to you.”
“She has no goodwill of any sort to me. She doesn’t like me.” Rose spoke with marked dryness, in which moreover a certain surprise at the direction of her friend’s humour was visible. Tony was now completely out of his groove18; they indeed both were, though Rose was for the moment more successful in concealing19 her emotion. Still vibrating with the immense effort of the morning and particularly of the last hour, she could yet hold herself hard and observe what was taking place in her companion. He had been through something that had made his nerves violently active, so that his measure of security, of reality almost, was merged20 in the mere21 sense of the unusual. It was precisely22 this evidence of what he had been through that helped the girl’s curiosity to preserve a waiting attitude the firm surface she had triumphantly23 presented to each of the persons whom, from an early hour, she had had to encounter. But Tony had now the air of not intending to reward her patience by a fresh communication; it was as if some new delicacy24 had operated and he had struck himself as too explicit25. He had looked astonished at her judgment26 of the lady of Eastmead.
“My dear Rose,” he said, “ I think you’re greatly mistaken. Mrs. Beever much appreciates you.”
She was silent at first, showing him a face worn with the ingenuity27 of all that in her interview with Dennis Vidal she had had to keep out of it and put into it. “ My dear Tony,” she then blandly28 replied, “I’ve never known any one like you for not having two grains of observation. I’ve known people with only a little; but a little’s a poor affair. You’ve absolutely none at all, and that, for your character, is the right thing: it’s magnificent and perfect.”
Tony greeted this with real hilarity29. “I like a good square one between the eyes! ”
“You can’t like it as much as I like you for being just as you are. Observation’s a second-rate thing; it’s only a precaution the refuge of the small and the timid. It protects our own ridicules30 and props31 up our defences. You may have ridicules I don’t say so; but you’ve no suspicions and no fears and no doubts; you’re natural and generous and easy ”
“And beautifully, exquisitely32 stupid! ” Tony broke in. “ ‘ Natural ’ thank you I Oh, the horrible people who are natural! What you mean only you’re too charming to say it is that I’m so utterly33 taken up with my own interests and feelings that I pipe about them like a canary in a cage. Not to have the things you mention, and above all not to have imagination, is simply not to have tact34, than which nothing is more unforgivable and more loath35 some. What lovelier proof of my selfishness could I be face to face with than the fact which I imme diately afterwards blushed for that, coming in to you here a while ago, in the midst of something so important to you, I hadn’t the manners to ask you so much as a question about it?”
“Do you mean about Mr. Vidal after he had gone to his room? You did ask me a question,” Rose said; “ but you had a subject much more interesting to speak of.” She waited an instant before adding: “ You spoke of something I haven’t ceased to think of.” This gave Tony a chance for reference to his discharge of the injunction she had then laid upon him; as a reminder of which Rose further observed: “ There’s plenty of time for Mr. Vidal.”
“I hope indeed he’s going to stay. I like his looks immensely,” Tony responded. “ I like his type; it matches so with what you’ve told me of him. It’s the real thing I wish we had him here.” Rose, at this, gave a small, confused cry, and her host went on: “Upon my honour I do I know a man when I see him. He’s just the sort of fellow I personally should have liked to be.”
“You mean you’re not the real thing? ” Rose asked.
It was a question of a kind that Tony’s good nature, shining out almost splendidly even through trouble, could always meet with princely extrava gance. “ Not a bit! I’m bolstered36 up with all sorts of little appearances and accidents. Your friend there has his feet on the rock.” This picture of her friend’s position moved Rose to another vague sound the effect of which, in turn, was to make Ton}’ look at her more sharply. But he appeared not to impute37 to her any doubt of his assertion, and after an instant he reverted38, with a jump, to a matter that he evidently wished not to drop. “ You must really, you know, do justice to Mrs. Beever. When she dislikes one it’s not a question of shades or degrees. She’s not an underhand enemy she very soon lets one know it.”
“You mean by something she says or does? ”
Tony considered a moment. “ I mean she gives you her reasons she’s eminently39 direct. And I’m sure she has never lifted a finger against you.”
“Perhaps not. But she will,” said Rose. “ You yourself just gave me the proof.”
Tony wondered. “ What proof? ”
“Why, in telling Dennis that she had told you she has something special to say to him.”
Tony recalled it it had already passed out of his mind. “ What she has to say is only what I myself have already said for the rest of us that she hopes with all her heart things are now smooth for his marriage.”
“Well, what could be more horrid40 than that? ”
“More horrid? ” Tony stared.
“What has she to do with his marriage? Her interference is in execrable taste.”
The girl’s tone was startling, and her companion’s surprise augmented41, showing itself in his lighted eyes and deepened colour. “ My dear Rose, isn’t that sort of thing, in a little circle like ours, a permitted joke a friendly compliment? We’re all so with you.”
She had turned away from him. She went on, as if she had not heard him, with a sudden tremor42 in her voice the tremor of a deep upheaval43: “ Why does she give opinions that nobody wants or asks her for? What does she know of our relations or of what difficulties and mysteries she touches? Why can’t she leave us alone at least for the first hour?”
Embarrassment44 was in Tony’s gasp45 the unex pected had sprung up before him. He could only stammer46 after her as she moved away: “ Bless my soul, my dear child you don’t mean to say there are difficulties? Of course it’s no one’s business but one hoped you were in quiet waters.” Across her interval47, as he spoke, she suddenly faced round, and his view of her, with this, made him smite48 his forehead in his penitent49, expressive50 way. “ What a brute51 I am not to have seen you’re not quite happy, and not to have noticed that he! ” Tony caught himself up; the face offered him was the convulsed face that had not been offered Dennis Vidal. Rose literally52 glared at him; she stood there with her two hands on her heaving breast and something in all her aspect that was like the first shock of a great accident. What he saw, without understanding it, was the final snap of her tremendous tension, the end of her wonderful false calm. He misunderstood it in fact, as he saw it give way before him: he sprang at the idea that the poor girl had received a blow a blow which her self-control up to within a moment only presented as more touchingly53 borne. Vidal’s absence was there as a part of it: the situa tion flashed into vividness. “His eagerness to leave you surprised me,” he exclaimed, “and yours to make him go! ” Tony thought again, and before he spoke his thought her eyes seemed to glitter it back. “He has not brought you bad news he has not failed of what we hoped? ” He went to her with compassion54 and tenderness: “You don’t mean to say, my poor girl, that he doesn’t meet you as you supposed he would? ” Rose dropped, as he came, into a chair; she had burst into passionate55 tears. She threw herself upon a small table, burying her head in her arms, while Tony, all wonder and pity, stood above her and felt helpless as she sobbed56. She seemed to have sunk under her wrong and to quiver with her pain. Her host, with his own re current pang57, could scarcely bear it: he felt a sharp need of making some one pay. “ You don’t mean to say Mr. Vidal doesn’t keep faith? ”
“Oh, God! oh, God! oh, God!” Rose Armiger wailed58.
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收听单词发音
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1
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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spoke
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| 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 | |
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7
sociably
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| adv.成群地 | |
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scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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demurred
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| v.表示异议，反对( demur的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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supersession
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| 取代，废弃； 代谢 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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groove
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| n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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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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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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29
hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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ridicules
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| n.嘲笑( ridicule的名词复数 )；奚落；嘲弄；戏弄v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的第三人称单数 ) | |
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31
props
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| 小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋 | |
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32
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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loath
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| adj.不愿意的；勉强的 | |
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bolstered
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| v.支持( bolster的过去式和过去分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
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impute
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| v.归咎于 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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40
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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41
Augmented
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| adj.增音的 动词augment的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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42
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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43
upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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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
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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46
stammer
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| n.结巴，口吃；v.结结巴巴地说 | |
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47
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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48
smite
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| v.重击；彻底击败；n.打；尝试；一点儿 | |
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49
penitent
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| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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50
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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51
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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52
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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53
touchingly
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| adv.令人同情地，感人地，动人地 | |
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54
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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56
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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57
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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58
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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