Gladys had strong feelings about places. She looked around her with satisfaction. “Of all the places where we used to play, Enid, this was my favourite,” she declared.
“You girls sit up there on the elm roots,” Claude suggested. “Wherever you put your foot in this soft gravel7, water gathers. You’ll spoil your white shoes. I’ll get the cress for you.”
“Stuff my pail as full as you can, then,” Gladys called as they sat down. “I wonder why the Spanish dagger8 grows so thick on this hill, Enid? These plants were old and tough when we were little. I love it here.”
She leaned back upon the hot, glistening9 hill-side. The sun came down in red rays through the elm-tops, and all the pebbles10 and bits of quartz11 glittered dazzlingly. Down in the stream bed the water, where it caught the light, twinkled like tarnished12 gold. Claude’s sandy head and stooping shoulders were mottled with sunshine as they moved about over the green patches, and his duck trousers looked much whiter than they were. Gladys was too poor to travel, but she had the good fortune to be able to see a great deal within a few miles of Frankfort, and a warm imagination helped her to find life interesting. She did, as she confided13 to Enid, want to go to Colorado; she was ashamed of never having seen a mountain.
Presently Claude came up the bank with two shining, dripping pails. “Now may I sit down with you for a few minutes?”
Moving to make room for him beside her, Enid noticed that his thin face was heavily beaded with perspiration14. His pocket handkerchief was wet and sandy, so she gave him her own, with a proprietary15 air. “Why, Claude, you look quite tired! Have you been over-doing? Where were you before you came here?”
“I was out in the country with your father, looking at his alfalfa.”
“And he walked you all over the field in the hot sun, I suppose?”
Claude laughed. “He did.”
“Well, I’ll scold him tonight. You stay here and rest. I am going to drive Gladys home.”
Gladys protested, but at last consented that they should both drive her home in Claude’s car. They lingered awhile, however, listening to the soft, amiable16 bubbling of the spring; a wise, unobtrusive voice, murmuring night and day, continually telling the truth to people who could not understand it.
When they went back to the house Enid stopped long enough to cut a bunch of heliotrope for Mrs. Farmer, — though with the sinking of the sun its rich perfume had already vanished. They left Gladys and her flowers and cresses at the gate of the white cottage, now half hidden by gaudy17 trumpet18 vines.
Claude turned his car and went back along the dim, twilight19 road with Enid. “I usually like to see Gladys, but when I found her with you this afternoon, I was terribly disappointed for a minute. I’d just been talking with your father, and I wanted to come straight to you. Do you think you could marry me, Enid?”
“I don’t believe it would be for the best, Claude.” She spoke20 sadly.
He took her passive hand. “Why not?”
“My mind is full of other plans. Marriage is for most girls, but not for all.”
Enid had taken off her hat. In the low evening light Claude studied her pale face under her brown hair. There was something graceful21 and charming about the way she held her head, something that suggested both submissiveness and great firmness. “I’ve had those far-away dreams, too, Enid; but now my thoughts don’t get any further than you. If you could care ever so little for me to start on, I’d be willing to risk the rest.” She sighed. “You know I care for you. I’ve never made any secret of it. But we’re happy as we are, aren’t we?”
“No, I’m not. I’ve got to have some life of my own, or I’ll go to pieces. If you won’t have me, I’ll try South America, — and I won’t come back until I am an old man and you are an old woman.”
Enid looked at him, and they both smiled.
The mill house was black except for a light in one upstairs window. Claude sprang out of his car and lifted Enid gently to the ground. She let him kiss her soft cool mouth, and her long lashes22. In the pale, dusty dusk, lit only by a few white stars, and with the chill of the creek already in the air, she seemed to Claude like a shivering little ghost come up from the rushes where the old mill-dam used to be. A terrible melancholy23 clutched at the boy’s heart. He hadn’t thought it would be like this. He drove home feeling weak and broken. Was there nothing in the world outside to answer to his own feelings, and was every turn to be fresh disappointment? Why was life so mysteriously hard? This country itself was sad, he thought, looking about him,-and you could no more change that than you could change the story in an unhappy human face. He wished to God he were sick again; the world was too rough a place to get about in.
There was one person in the world who felt sorry for Claude that night. Gladys Farmer sat at her bedroom window for a long while, watching the stars and thinking about what she had seen plainly enough that afternoon. She had liked Enid ever since they were little girls, — and knew all there was to know about her. Claude would become one of those dead people that moved about the streets of Frankfort; everything that was Claude would perish, and the shell of him would come and go and eat and sleep for fifty years. Gladys had taught the children of many such dead men. She had worked out a misty24 philosophy for herself, full of strong convictions and confused figures. She believed that all things which might make the world beautiful — love and kindness, leisure and art — were shut up in prison, and that successful men like Bayliss Wheeler held the keys. The generous ones, who would let these things out to make people happy, were somehow weak, and could not break the bars. Even her own little life was squeezed into an unnatural25 shape by the domination of people like Bayliss. She had not dared, for instance, to go to Omaha that spring for the three performances of the Chicago Opera Company. Such an extravagance would have aroused a corrective spirit in all her friends, and in the schoolboard as well; they would probably have decided26 not to give her the little increase in salary she counted upon having next year.
There were people, even in Frankfort, who had imagination and generous impulses, but they were all, she had to admit, inefficient27 — failures. There was Miss Livingstone, the fiery28, emotional old maid who couldn’t tell the truth; old Mr. Smith, a lawyer without clients, who read Shakespeare and Dryden all day long in his dusty office; Bobbie Jones, the effeminate drug clerk, who wrote free verse and “movie” scenarios29, and tended the sodawater fountain.
Claude was her one hope. Ever since they graduated from High School, all through the four years she had been teaching, she had waited to see him emerge and prove himself. She wanted him to be more successful than Bayliss AND STILL BE CLAUDE. She would have made any sacrifice to help him on. If a strong boy like Claude, so well endowed and so fearless, must fail, simply because he had that finer strain in his nature, — then life was not worth the chagrin30 it held for a passionate31 heart like hers.
At last Gladys threw herself upon the bed. If he married Enid, that would be the end. He would go about strong and heavy, like Mr. Royce; a big machine with the springs broken inside.
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1
heliotrope
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| n.天芥菜；淡紫色 | |
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scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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quartz
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| n.石英 | |
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tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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13
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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proprietary
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| n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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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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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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scenarios
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| n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本 | |
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chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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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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