“Of course. He selects all my things for me,” said Rosamond proudly.
“Well, he does a good job. He knows what’s right for you.” St. Peter continued to look her up and down with satisfaction. “And Kathleen is getting new furs. You were advising her?”
“She didn’t mention it to me,” Rosamond replied in a guarded voice.
“No? And what do you call this, what beast?” he asked ingenuously9, again stroking the fur with his bare hand.
“It’s taupe.”
“Oh, moleskin!” He drew back a little. “Couldn’t be better for your complexion10. And is it warm?”
“Very warm — and so light.”
“I see, I see!” He took Rosamond’s arm and escorted her to her car. “Give Louie my compliments on his choice.” The motor glided11 away — he wished he could escape as quickly and noiselessly, for he was a coward. But he had a feeling that Kathleen was watching him from behind the sash curtains. He went up to the door and made a long and thorough use of the foot-scraper before he tapped on the glass. Kathleen let him in. She was very pale; even her lips, which were always pink, like the inside of a white shell, were without colour. Neither of them mentioned the just-departed guest.
“Have you been out in the park, Kitty? This is a pretty little storm. Perhaps you’ll walk over to the old house with me presently.” He talked soothingly12 while he took off his coat and rubbers. “And now for the furs!”
Kathleen went slowly into her bedroom. She was gone a great while — perhaps ten actual minutes. When she came back, the rims13 of her eyes were red. She carried four large pasteboard boxes, tied together with twine14. St. Peter sprang up, took the parcel, and began untying15 the string. He opened the first and pulled out a brown stole. “What is it, mink16?”
“No, it’s Hudson Bay sable17.”
“Very pretty.” He put the collar round her neck and drew back to look at it. But after a sharp struggle Kathleen broke down. She threw off the fur and buried her face in a fresh handkerchief.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy, but it’s no use today. I don’t want any furs, really. She spoils everything for me.”
“Oh, my dear, my dear, you hurt me terribly!” St. Peter put his hands tenderly on her soft hazel-coloured hair. “Face it squarely, Kitty; you must not, you cannot, be envious18. It’s self-destruction.”
“I can’t help it, Father. I am envious. I don’t think I would be if she let me alone, but she comes here with her magnificence and takes the life out of all our poor little things. Everybody knows she’s rich, why does she have to keep rubbing it in?”
“But, Kitty dear, you wouldn’t have her go home and change her coat before coming to see you?”
“Oh, it’s not that, Father, it’s everything! You know we were never jealous of each other at home. I was always proud of her good looks and good taste. It’s not her clothes, it’s a feeling she has inside her. When she comes toward me, I feel hate coming toward me, like a snake’s hate!”
St. Peter wiped his moist forehead. He was suffering with her, as if she had been in physical anguish19. “We can’t, dear, we can’t, in this world, let ourselves think of things — of comparisons — like that. We are all too susceptible20 to ugly suggestions. If Rosamond has a grievance21, it’s because you’ve been untactful about Louie.”
“Even if I have, why should she be so revengeful? Does she think nobody else calls him a Jew? Does she think it’s a secret? I don’t mind being called a Gentile.”
“It’s all in the way it’s done, you know, Kitty. And you’ve shown that you were a little bored with all their new things, now haven’t you?”
“I’ve shown that I don’t like the way she overdresses, I suppose. I would never have believed that Rosie could do anything in such bad taste. While she is here among her old friends, she ought to dress like the rest of us.”
“But doesn’t she? It seems to me her things look about like yours.”
“Oh, Father, you’re so simple! And Mother is very careful not to enlighten you. We go to the Guild22 to sew for the Mission fund, and Rosie comes in in a handmade French frock that cost more than all our dresses put together.”
“But if hers are no prettier, what does it matter how much they cost?” He was watching Kathleen fearfully. Her pale skin had taken on a greenish tinge23 — there was no doubt about it. He had never happened to see that change occur in a face before, and he had never realized to what an ugly, painful transformation24 the common phrase “green with envy” referred.
“Oh, foolish, they are prettier, though you may not see it. It’s not just the clothes” — she looked at him intently, and her eyes, in their reddened rims, expanded and cleared. “It’s everything. When we were at home, Rosamond was a kind of ideal to me. What she thought about anything decided25 it for me. But she’s entirely26 changed. She’s become Louie. Indeed, she’s worse than Louie. He and all this money have ruined her. Oh, Daddy, why didn’t you and Professor Crane get to work and stop all this before it began? You were to blame. You knew that Tom had left something that was worth a lot, both of you. Why didn’t you do something? You let it lie there in Crane’s laboratory for this — this Marsellus to come along and exploit, until he almost thinks it’s his own idea.”
“Things might have turned out the same, anyway,” her father protested. “Whatever the process earned was Rosamond’s. I wasn’t in the mood to struggle with manufacturers, I know nothing of such things. And Crane needs every ounce of his strength for his own experiments. He doesn’t care anything but the extent of space.”
“He’d better have taken a few days off and saved his friend’s reputation. Tom trusted him with everything. It’s too foolish; that poor man being cut to pieces by surgeons all the time, and picking up the little that’s left of himself and bothering about the limitations of space — much good they’ll do him!”
St. Peter rose, took both of his daughter’s hands and stood laughing at her. “Come now! You have more brains than that, Kitty. It happens you do understand that whatever poor Crane can find out about space is more good to him than all the money the Marselluses will ever have. But are you implying that if Crane and I had developed Tom’s discovery, we might have kept Rosie and her money in the family, for ourselves?”
Kathleen threw up her head. “Oh, I don’t want her money!”
“Exactly; nor do I. And we mustn’t behave as if we did want it. If you permit yourself to be envious of Rosie, you’ll be very foolish, and very unhappy.”
The Professor walked away across the snowy park with a tired step. He was heavy-hearted. For Kathleen he had a special kind of affection. Perhaps it was because he had had to take care of her for one whole summer when she was little. Just as Mrs. St. Peter was ready to start for Colorado with the children, the younger one developed whooping-cough and had to be left at home with her father. He had opportunity to observe all her ways. She was only six, but he found her a square-dealing, dependable little creature. They worked out a satisfactory plan of life together. She was to play in the garden all morning, and was not on any account to disturb him in his study. After lunch he would take her to the lake or the woods, or he would read to her at home. She took pride in keeping her part of the contract. One day when he came out of his study at noon, he found her sitting on the third floor stairs, just outside his door, with the arnica bottle in one hand and the fingers of the other puffed27 up like wee pink sausages. A bee had stung her in the garden, and she had waited half the morning for sympathy. She was very independent, and would tug28 at her leggings or overshoes a great while before she asked for help.
When they were little girls, Kathleen adored her older sister and liked to wait on her, was always more excited about Rosie’s new dresses and winter coat than about her own. This attachment29 had lasted even after they were grown. St. Peter had never seen any change in it until Rosamond announced her engagement to Louie Marsellus. Then, all at once, Kathleen seemed to be done with her sister. Her father believed she couldn’t forgive Rosie’s forgetting Tom so quickly.
It was dark when the Professor got back to the old house and sat down at his writing-table. He would have an hour on his notes, he told himself, in spite of families and fortunes. And he had it. But when he looked up from his writing as the Angelus was ringing, two faces at once rose in the shadows outside the yellow circle of his lamp: the handsome face of his older daughter, surrounded by violet-dappled fur, with a cruel upper lip and scornful half-closed eyes, as she had approached her car that afternoon before she saw him; and Kathleen, her square little chin set so fiercely, her white cheeks actually becoming green under her swollen30 eyes. He couldn’t believe it. He rose quickly and went to his one window, opened it wider, and stood looking at the dark clump31 of pine-trees that told where the Physics building stood. A sharp pain clutched his heart. Was it for this the light in Outland’s laboratory used to burn so far into the night!
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1
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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2
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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3
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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4
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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5
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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6
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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7
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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8
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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9
ingenuously
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| adv.率直地，正直地 | |
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10
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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11
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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12
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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13
rims
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| n.（圆形物体的）边( rim的名词复数 )；缘；轮辋；轮圈 | |
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14
twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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15
untying
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| untie的现在分词 | |
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16
mink
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| n.貂，貂皮 | |
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17
sable
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| n.黑貂；adj.黑色的 | |
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18
envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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19
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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20
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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21
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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22
guild
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| n.行会，同业公会，协会 | |
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23
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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24
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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25
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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26
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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27
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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28
tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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29
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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30
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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31
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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