Mrs. Server, at table, was out of my range, but I wondered if, had she not been so, I shouldn’t now have been moved to recognise in her fixed17 expressiveness18 nothing more than our common reciprocal tribute. Hadn’t everyone my eyes could at present take in a fixed expressiveness? Was I not very possibly myself, on this ground of physiognomic congruity19, more physiognomic than anyone else? I made my excellence20, on the chance, go as far as it would to cover my temporary doubts. I saw Mrs. Brissenden, in another frock, naturally, and other jewels from those of the evening before; but she gave me, across the board, no more of a look than if she had quite done with me. It struck me that she felt she had done — that, as to the subject of our discussion, she deemed her case by this time so established as to offer comparatively little interest. I couldn’t come to her to renew the discussion; I could only come to her to make my submission21; and it doubtless appeared to her — to do her justice — more delicate not to triumph over me in advance. The profession of joy, however, reigned22 in her handsome face none the less largely for my not having the benefit of it. If I seem to falsify my generalisation by acknowledging that her husband, on the same side, made no more public profession of joy than usual, I am still justified23 by the fact that there was something in a manner decorative24 even in Brissenden’s wonted gloom. He reminded me at this hour more than ever of some fine old Velasquez or other portrait — a presentation of ugliness and melancholy25 that might have been royal. There was as little of the common in his dry, distinguished26 patience as in the case I had made out for him. Blighted27 and ensconed, he looked at it over the rigid28 convention, his peculiar29 perfection of necktie, shirt-front and waistcoat, as some aged30 remnant of sovereignty at the opera looks over the ribbon of an order and the ledge31 of a box.
I must add, however, that in spite of my sense of his wife’s indulgence I kept quite aware of the nearer approach, as course followed course, of my hour of reckoning with her — more and more saw the moment of the evening at which, frankly32 amused at last at having me in a cleft33 stick, she would draw me a little out of the throng34. Of course, also, I was much occupied in asking myself to what degree I was prepared to be perjured35. Was I ready to pretend that my candour was still unconvinced? And was I in this case only instinctively36 mustering37 my arguments? I was certainly as sorry that Mrs. Server was out of my view as if I proposed still to fight; and I really felt, so far as that went, as if there might be something to fight for after the lady on my left had given me a piece of news. I had asked her if she happened to know, as we couldn’t see, who was next Mrs. Server, and, though unable to say at the moment, she made no scruple38, after a short interval39, of ascertaining40 with the last directness. The stretch forward in which she had indulged, or the information she had caused to be passed up to her while I was again engaged on my right, established that it was Lord Lutley who had brought the lovely lady in and that it was Mr. Long who was on her other side. These things indeed were not the finest point of my companion’s communication, for I saw that what she felt I would be really interested in was the fact that Mr. Long had brought in Lady John, who was naturally, therefore, his other neighbour. Beyond Lady John was Mr. Obert, and beyond Mr. Obert Mrs. Froome, not, for a wonder, this time paired, as by the immemorial tradition, so fairly comical in its candour, with Lord Lutley. Wasn’t it too funny, the kind of grandmotherly view of their relation shown in their always being put together? If I perhaps questioned whether “grandmotherly” were exactly the name for the view, what yet at least was definite in the light of this evening’s arrangement was that there did occur occasions on which they were put apart. My friend of course disposed of this observation by the usual exception that “proved the rule”; but it was absurd how I had thrilled with her announcement, and our exchange of ideas meanwhile helped to carry me on.
My theory had not at all been framed to embrace the phenomenon thus presented; it had been precisely42 framed, on the contrary, to hang together with the observed inveteracy43 of escape, on the part of the two persons about whom it busied itself, from public juxtaposition44 of more than a moment. I was fairly upset by the need to consider at this late hour whether going in for a new theory or bracing45 myself for new facts would hold out to me the better refuge. It is perhaps not too much to say that I should scarce have been able to sit still at all but for the support afforded me by the oddity of the separation of Lord Lutley and Mrs. Froome; which, though resting on a general appearance directly opposed to that of my friends, offered somehow the relief of a suggestive analogy. What I could directly clutch at was that if the exception did prove the rule in the one case it might equally prove it in the other. If on a rare occasion one of these couples might be divided, so, by as uncommon47 a chance, the other might be joined; the only difference being in the gravity of the violated law. For which pair was the betrayal greatest? It was not till dinner was nearly ended and the ladies were about to withdraw that I recovered lucidity49 to make out how much more machinery50 would have had to be put into motion consistently to prevent, than once in a way to minimise, the disconcerting accident.
All accidents, I must add, were presently to lose themselves in the unexpectedness of my finding myself, before we left the dining-room, in easy talk with Gilbert Long — talk that was at least easy for him, whatever it might have struck me as necessarily destined51 to be for me. I felt as he approached me — for he did approach me — that it was somehow “important”; I was so aware that something in the state of my conscience would have prevented me from assuming conversation between us to be at this juncture52 possible. The state of my conscience was that I knew too much — that no one had really any business to know what I knew. If he suspected but the fiftieth part of it there was no simple spirit in which he could challenge me. It would have been simple of course to desire to knock me down, but that was barred by its being simple to excess. It wouldn’t even have been enough for him merely to ground it on a sudden fancy. It fitted, in fine, with my cogitations that it was so significant for him to wish to speak to me that I didn’t envy him his attempt at the particular shade of assurance required for carrying the thing off. He would have learned from Mrs. Server that I was not, as regarded them, at all as others were; and thus his idea, the fruit of that stimulation53, could only be either to fathom54, to felicitate, or — as it were — to destroy me. What was at the same time obvious was that no one of these attitudes would go quite of itself. The simple sight of him as he quitted his chair to take one nearer my own brought home to me in a flash — and much more than anything had yet done — the real existence in him of the condition it was my private madness (none the less private for Grace Brissenden’s so limited glimpse of it,) to believe I had coherently stated. Is not this small touch perhaps the best example I can give of the intensity55 of amusement I had at last enabled my private madness to yield me? I found myself owing it, from this time on and for the rest of the evening, moments of the highest concentration.
Whatever there might have been for me of pain or doubt was washed straight out by the special sensation of seeing how “clever” poor Long not only would have to be, but confidently and actually was; inasmuch as this apprehension56 seemed to put me in possession of his cleverness, besides leaving me all my own. I made him welcome, I helped him to another cigarette, I felt above all that I should enjoy him; my response to his overture57 was, in other words, quickly enough to launch us. Yet I fear I can do little justice to the pleasant suppressed tumult58 of impression and reflection that, on my part, our ten minutes together produced. The elements that mingled59 in it scarce admit of discrimination. It was still more than previously60 a deep sense of being justified. My interlocutor was for those ten minutes immeasurably superior — superior, I mean, to himself — and he couldn’t possibly have become so save through the relation I had so patiently tracked. He faced me there with another light than his own, spoke61 with another sound, thought with another ease and understood with another ear. I should put it that what came up between us was the mere things of the occasion, were it not for the fine point to which, in my view, the things of the occasion had been brought. While our eyes, at all events, on either side, met serenely62, and our talk, dealing63 with the idea, dealing with the extraordinary special charm, of the social day now deepening to its end, touched our companions successively, touched the manner in which this one and that had happened to be predominantly a part of that charm; while such were our immediate conditions I wondered of course if he had not, just as consciously and essentially64 as I, quite another business in mind. It was not indeed that our allusion65 to the other business would not have been wholly undiscoverable by a third person.
So far as it took place it was of a “subtlety,” as we used to say at Newmarch, in relation to which the common register of that pressure would have been, I fear, too old-fashioned a barometer66. I had moreover the comfort — for it amounted to that — of perceiving after a little that we understood each other too well for our understanding really to have tolerated the interference of passion, such passion as would have been represented on his side by resentment67 of my intelligence and on my side by resentment of his. The high sport of such intelligence — between gentlemen, to the senses of any other than whom it must surely be closed — demanded and implied in its own intimate interest a certain amenity68. Yes, accordingly, I had promptly69 got the answer that my wonder at his approach required: he had come to me for the high sport. He would formerly70 have been incapable71 of it, and he was beautifully capable of it now. It was precisely the kind of high sport — the play of perception, expression, sociability72 — in which Mrs. Server would a year or two before have borne as light a hand. I need scarcely add how little it would have found itself in that lady’s present chords. He had said to me in our ten minutes everything amusing she couldn’t have said. Yet if when our host gave us the sign to adjourn73 to the drawing-room so much as all this had grown so much clearer, I had still, figuratively speaking, a small nut or two left to crack. By the time we moved away together, however, these resistances had yielded. The answers had really only been waiting for the questions. The play of Long’s mind struck me as more marked, since the morning, by the same amount, as it might have been called, as the march of poor Briss’s age; and if I had, a while before, in the wood, had my explanation of this latter addition, so I had it now of the former — as to which I shall presently give it.
When music, in English society, as we know, is not an accompaniment to the voice, the voice can in general be counted on to assert its pleasant identity as an accompaniment to music; but at Newmarch we had been considerably74 schooled, and this evening, in the room in which most of us had assembled, an interesting pianist, who had given a concert the night before at the near county town and been brought over during the day to dine and sleep, would scarce have felt in any sensitive fibre that he was not having his way with us. It may just possibly have been an hallucination of my own, but while we sat together after dinner in a dispersed75 circle I could have worked it out that, as a company, we were considerably conscious of some experience, greater or smaller from one of us to the other, that had prepared us for the player’s spell. Felicitously77 scattered78 and grouped, we might in almost any case have had the air of looking for a message from it — of an imagination to be flattered, nerves to be quieted, sensibilities to be soothed79. The whole scene was as composed as if there were scarce one of us but had a secret thirst for the infinite to be quenched80. And it was the infinite that, for the hour, the distinguished foreigner poured out to us, causing it to roll in wonderful waves of sound, almost of colour, over our receptive attitudes and faces. Each of us, I think, now wore the expression — or confessed at least to the suggestion — of some indescribable thought; which might well, it was true, have been nothing more unmentionable than the simple sense of how the posture81 of deference82 to this noble art has always a certain personal grace to contribute. We neglected nothing of it that could make our general effect ample, and whether or no we were kept quiet by the piano, we were at least admonished83, to and fro, by our mutual84 visibility, which each of us clearly, desired to make a success. I have little doubt, furthermore, that to each of us was due, as the crown of our inimitable day, the imputation85 of having something quite of our own to think over.
We thought, accordingly — we continued to think, and I felt that, by the law of the occasion, there had as yet been for everyone no such sovereign warrant for an interest in the private affairs of everyone else. As a result of this influence all that at dinner had begun to fade away from me came back with a rush and hovered86 there with a vividness. I followed many trains and put together many pieces; but perhaps what I most did was to render a fresh justice to the marvel87 of our civilised state. The perfection of that, enjoyed as we enjoyed it, all made a margin88, a series of concentric circles of rose-colour (shimmering away into the pleasant vague of everything else that didn’t matter,) for the so salient little figure of Mrs. Server, still the controlling image for me, the real principle of composition, in this affluence89 of fine things. What, for my part, while I listened, I most made out was the beauty and the terror of conditions so highly organised that under their rule her small lonely fight with disintegration90 could go on without the betrayal of a gasp91 or a shriek92, and with no worse tell-tale contortion93 of lip or brow than the vibration94, on its golden stem, of that constantly renewed flower of amenity which my observation had so often and so mercilessly detached only to find again in its place. This flower nodded perceptibly enough in our deeply stirred air, but there was a peace, none the less, in feeling the spirit of the wearer to be temporarily at rest. There was for the time no gentleman on whom she need pounce95, no lapse96 against which she need guard, no presumption97 she need create, nor any suspicion she need destroy. In this pause in her career it came over me that I should have liked to leave her; it would have prepared for me the pleasant after-consciousness that I had seen her pass, as I might say, in music out of sight.
But we were, alas98! all too much there, too much tangled99 and involved for that; every actor in the play that had so unexpectedly insisted on constituting itself for me sat forth101 as with an intimation that they were not to be so easily disposed of. It was as if there were some last act to be performed before the curtain could fall. Would the definite dramatic signal for ringing the curtain down be then only — as a grand climax102 and coup46 de théatre — the due attestation103 that poor Briss had succumbed104 to inexorable time and Mrs. Server given way under a cerebral105 lesion? Were the rest of us to disperse76 decorously by the simple action of the discovery that, on our pianist’s striking his last note, with its consequence of permitted changes of attitude, Gilbert Long’s victim had reached the point of final simplification and Grace Brissenden’s the limit of age recorded of man? I could look at neither of these persons without a sharper sense of the contrast between the tragedy of their predicament and the comedy of the situation that did everything for them but suspect it. They had truly been arrayed and anointed, they had truly been isolated106, for their sacrifice. I was sufficiently107 aware even then that if one hadn’t known it one might have seen nothing; but I was not less aware that one couldn’t know anything without seeing all; and so it was that, while our pianist played, my wandering vision played and played as well. It took in again, while it went from one of them to the other, the delicate light that each had shed on the other, and it made me wonder afresh what still more delicate support they themselves might not be in the very act of deriving108 from their dim community. It was for the glimmer109 of this support that I had left them together two or three hours before; yet I was obliged to recognise that, travel between them as my fancy might, it could detect nothing in the way of a consequent result. I caught no look from either that spoke to me of service rendered them; and I caught none, in particular, from one of them to the other, that I could read as a symptom of their having compared notes. The fellow-feeling of each for the lost light of the other remained for me but a tie supposititious — the full-blown flower of my theory. It would show here as another flower, equally mature, for me to have made out a similar dim community between Gilbert Long and Mrs. Brissenden — to be able to figure them as groping side by side, proportionately, towards a fellowship of light overtaken; but if I failed of this, for ideal symmetry, that seemed to rest on the general truth that joy brings people less together than sorrow.
So much for the course of my impressions while the music lasted — a course quite consistent with my being prepared for new combinations as soon as it was over. Promptly, when that happened, the bow was unbent; and the combination I first seized, amid motion and murmur111 and rustle112, was that, once more, of poor Briss and Lady John, the latter of whom had already profited by the general reaction to endeavour to cultivate afresh the vainest of her sundry113 appearances. She had laid on him the same coercive hand to which I owed my having found him with her in the afternoon, but my intervention114 was now to operate with less ceremony. I chanced to be near enough to them for Brissenden, on seeing me, to fix his eyes on me in silence, but in a manner that could only bring me immediately nearer. Lady John never did anything in silence, but she greeted me as I came up to them with a fine false alarm. “No, indeed,” she cried, “you shan’t carry him off this time!” — and poor Briss disappeared, leaving us face to face, even while she breathed defiance115. He had made no joke of it, and I had from him no other recognition; it was therefore a mere touch, yet it gave me a sensible hint that he had begun, as things were going, to depend upon me, that I already in a fashion figured to him — and on amazingly little evidence after all — as his natural protector, his providence116, his effective omniscience117. Like Mrs. Server herself, he was materially on my hands, and it was proper I should “do” for him. I wondered if he were really beginning to look to me to avert118 his inexorable fate. Well, if his inexorable fate was to be an unnameable climax, it had also its special phases, and one of these I had just averted119. I followed him a moment with my eyes, and I then observed to Lady John that she decidedly took me for too simple a person. She had meanwhile also watched the direction taken by her liberated120 victim, and was the next instant prepared with a reply to my charge. “Because he has gone to talk with May Server? I don’t quite see what you mean, for I believe him really to be in terror of her. Most of the men here are, you know, and I’ve really assured myself that he doesn’t find her any less awful than the rest. He finds her the more so by just the very marked extra attention that you may have noticed she has given him.”
“And does that now happen to be what he has so eagerly gone off to impress upon her?”
Lady John was so placed that she could continue to look at our friends, and I made out in her that she was not, in respect to them, without some slight elements of perplexity. These were even sufficient to make her temporarily neglect the defence of the breach121 I had made in her consistency122. “If you mean by ‘impressing upon’ her speaking to her, he hasn’t gone — you can see for yourself — to impress upon her anything; they have the most extraordinary way, which I’ve already observed, of sitting together without sound. I don’t know,” she laughed, “what’s the matter with such people!”
“It proves in general,” I admitted, “either some coldness or some warmth, and I quite understand that that’s not the way you sit with your friends. You steer123 admirably clear of every extravagance. I don’t see, at any rate, why Mrs. Server is a terror —— ”
But she had already taken me up. “If she doesn’t chatter124 as I do?” She thought it over. “But she does — to everyone but Mr. Briss. I mean to every man she can pick up.”
I emulated125 her reflection. “Do they complain of it to you?”
“They’re more civil than you,” she returned; “for if, when they flee before it, they bump up against me in their flight, they don’t explain that by intimating that they’re come from bad to worse. Besides, I see what they suffer.”
“And do you hear it?”
“What they suffer? No, I’ve taken care not to suffer myself. I don’t listen. It’s none of my business.”
“Is that a way of gently expressing,” I ventured to ask, “that it’s also none of mine?”
“It might be,” she replied, “if I had, as you appear to, the imagination of atrocity126. But I don’t pretend to so much as conceive what’s your business.”
“I wonder if it isn’t just now,” I said after a moment, “to convict you of an attempt at duplicity that has not even had the saving grace of success! Was it for Brissenden himself that you spoke just now as if you believed him to wish to cling to you?”
“Well, I’m kind enough for anything,” she goodnaturedly enough laughed. “But what,” she asked more sharply, “are you trying to find out?”
Such an awful lot, the answer to this would politely have been, that I daresay the aptness of the question produced in my face a shade of embarrassment127. I felt, however, the next moment that I needn’t fear too much. What I, on approaching Lady John, had found myself moved to test, using her in it as a happy touchstone, was the degree of the surrounding, the latent, sense of things: an impulse confirmed by the manner in which she had momentarily circled about the phenomenon of Mrs. Server’s avidity, about the mystery of the terms made with it by our friend. It was present to me that if I could catch, on the part of my interlocutress, anything of a straight scent128, I might take that as the measure of a diffused danger. I mentally applied129 this term to the possibility of diffusion130, because I suddenly found myself thinking with a kind of horror of any accident by which I might have to expose to the world, to defend against the world, to share with the world, that now so complex tangle100 of hypotheses that I have had for convenience to speak of as my theory. I could toss the ball myself, I could catch it and send it back, and familiarity had now made this exercise — in my own inner precincts — easy and safe. But the mere brush of Lady John’s clumsier curiosity made me tremble for the impunity131 of my creation. If there had been, so to speak, a discernment, however feeble, of my discernment, it would have been irresistible132 to me to take this as the menace of some incalculable catastrophe133 or some public ugliness. It wasn’t for me definitely to image the logical result of a verification by the sense of others of the matter of my vision; but the thing had only to hang before me as a chance for me to feel that I should utterly134 object to it, though I may appear to weaken this statement if I add that the opportunity to fix the degree of my actual companion’s betrayed mystification was almost a spell. This, I conceive, was just by reason of what was at stake. How could I happily tell her what I was trying to find out? — tell her, that is, not too much for security and yet enough for relief? The best answer seemed a brave jump. I was conscious of a certain credit open with her in my appearance of intellectual sympathy.
“Well,” I brought out at last, “I’m quite aching to ask you if you’ll forgive me a great liberty, which I owe to your candid135 challenge my opportunity to name. Will you allow me to say frankly that I think you play a dangerous game with poor Briss, in whom I confess I’m interested? I don’t of course speak of the least danger to yourself; but it’s an injustice136 to any man to make use of him quite so flagrantly. You don’t in the least flatter yourself that the poor fellow is in love with you — you wouldn’t care a bit if he were. Yet you’re willing to make him think you like him, so far as that may be necessary to explain your so frequently ingenious appropriation137 of him. He doesn’t like you too much, as yet; doesn’t even like you quite enough. But your potency138 may, after all, work on him, and then, as your interest is so obviously quite elsewhere, what will happen will be that you’ll find, to your inconvenience, that you’ve gone too far. A man never likes a woman enough unless he likes her more than enough. Unfortunately it’s what the inveterate139 ass41 is sure sooner or later to do.”
Lady John looked just enough interested to look detached from most of the more vulgar liabilities to offence. “Do I understand that to be the pretty name by which you describe Mr. Briss?”
“He has his share of it, for I’m thinking of the idiots that we everyone of us are. I throw out a warning against a contingency140.”
“Are you providing for the contingency of his ceasing to care for his wife? If you are” — and Lady John’s amusement took on a breadth — “you may be said to have a prudent141 mind and to be taking time by the forelock.”
At this I pricked142 up my ears. “Do you mean because of his apparently143 incorruptible constancy?”
“I mean because the whole thing’s so before one. She has him so in hand that they’re neither of them in as much danger as would count for a mouse. It doesn’t prevent his liking144 to dally145 by the way — for she dallies146 by the way, and he does everything she does. Haven’t I observed her,” Lady John continued, “dallying a little, so far as that goes, with you? You’ve the tact147 to tell me that he doesn’t think me good enough, but I don’t require, do I? — for such a purpose as his — to be very extraordinarily148 good. You may say that you wrap it up immensely and try to sugar the dose! Well, all the same, give up, for a quiet life, the attempt to be a providence. You can’t be a providence and not be a bore. A real providence knows; whereas you,” said Lady John, making her point neatly149, “have to find out — and to find out even by asking ‘the likes of’ me. Your fine speech meanwhile doesn’t a bit tell me what.”
It affected150 me again that she could get so near without getting nearer. True enough it was that I wanted to find out; and though I might expect, or fear, too much of her, I wondered at her only seeing this — at her not reading deeper. The peril151 of the public ugliness that haunted me rose or fell, at this moment, with my varying view of her density152. Or rather, to be more exact, I already saw her as necessarily stupid because I saw her as extravagantly153 vain. What I see now of course is that I was on my own side almost stupidly hard with her — as I may also at that hour have been subject to her other vice110. Didn’t I perhaps, in proportion as I felt how little she saw, think awfully154 well of myself, as we said at Newmarch, for seeing so much more? It comes back to me that the sense thus established of my superior vision may perfectly155 have gone a little to my head. If it was a frenzied156 fallacy I was all to blame, but if it was anything else whatever it was naturally intoxicating157. I really remember in fact that nothing so much as this confirmed presumption of my impunity had appeared to me to mark the fine quality of my state. I think there must fairly have been a pitch at which I was not sure that not to partake of that state was, on the part of others, the sign of a gregarious158 vulgarity; as if there were a positive advantage, an undiluted bliss159, in the intensity of consciousness that I had reached. I alone was magnificently and absurdly aware — everyone else was benightedly out of it. So I reflected that there would be almost nothing I mightn’t with safety mention to my present subject of practice as an acknowledgment that I was meddlesome160. I could put no clue in her hand that her notorious acuteness would make of the smallest use to her. The most she could do would be to make it of use to myself, and the clue it seemed best to select was therefore a complete confession161 of guilt162.
“You’ve a lucidity of your own in which I’m forced to recognise that the highest purity of motive163 looks shrivelled and black. You bring out accordingly what has made me thus beat about the bush. Have you really such a fund of indulgence for Gilbert Long as we most of us, I gather — though perhaps in our blindness — seem to see it stick out again that he supposes? May he fondly feel that he can continue to count on it? Or, if you object to my question in that form, is it not, frankly, to making his attitude — after all so thoroughly164 public — more convenient to each of you that (without perhaps quite measuring what you’re about,) you’ve gone on sacrificing poor Briss? I call it sacrificing, you see, in spite of there having been as yet no such great harm done. And if you ask me again what business of mine such inquiries165 may represent, why, the best thing will doubtless be to say to you that, with a smaller dose of irrepressible irony166 in my composition than you have in yours, I can’t make so light as you of my tendency to worry on behalf of those I care for. Let me finally hasten to add that I’m not now including in that category either of the two gentlemen I’ve named.”
I freely concede, as I continue my record, that to follow me at all, at this point, gave proof on Lady John’s part of a faculty167 that should have prevented my thinking of her as inordinately168 backward. “Then who in the world are these objects of your solicitude169?”
I showed, over and above my hesitation170, my regret for the need of it. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”
At this, not unnaturally171, she fairly scoffed172. “Asking me everything and telling me nothing, you nevertheless look to me to satisfy you? Do you mean,” she pursued, “that you speak for persons whose interest is more legitimately173 founded than the interest you so flatteringly attribute to myself?”
“Well, yes — let them be so described! Can’t you guess,” I further risked, “who constitutes at least one of my preoccupations?”
The condescension174 of her consent to think marked itself handsomely enough. “Is it your idea to pretend to me that I’m keeping Grace Brissenden awake?” There was consistency enough in her wonder. “She has not been anything but nice to me; she’s not a person whose path one crosses without finding it out; and I can’t imagine what has got into her if any such grievance175 as that is what she has been pouring out to you in your apparently so deep confabulations.”
This toss of the ball was one that, I saw quickly enough, even a taste for sport wouldn’t justify176 my answering, and my logical interest lay moreover elsewhere. “Dear no! Mrs. Brissenden certainly feels her strength, and I should never presume to take under my charge any personal situation of hers. I had in my mind a very different identity.”
Lady John, as if to be patient with me, looked about at our companions for a hint of it, wondering which of the ladies I might have been supposed to “care for” so much as to tolerate in her a preference for a rival; but the effect of this survey was, I the next instant observed, a drop of her attention from what I had been saying. Her eye had been caught by the sight of Gilbert Long within range of us, and then had been just visibly held by the fact that the person seated with him on one of the small sofas that almost of necessity made conversation intimate was the person whose name, just uttered between us, was, in default of the name she was in search of, still in the air. Gilbert Long and Mrs. Briss were in familiar colloquy177 — though I was aware, at the first flush, of nothing in this that should have made my interlocutress stare. That is I was aware of nothing but that I had simultaneously178 myself been moved to some increase of sharpness. What could I have known that should have caused me to wonder at the momentary179 existence of this particular conjunction of minds unless it were simply the fact that I hadn’t seen it occur amid the many conjunctions I had already noticed — plus the fact that I had a few minutes before, in the interest of the full roundness of my theory, actually been missing it? These two persons had met in my presence at Paddington and had travelled together under my eyes; I had talked of Mrs. Briss with Long and of Long with Mrs. Briss; but the vivid picture that their social union forthwith presented stirred within me, though so strangely late in the day, it might have seemed, for such an emotion, more than enough freshness of impression. Yet — now that I did have it there — why should it be vivid, why stirring, why a picture at all? Was any temporary collocation, in a house so encouraging to sociability, out of the range of nature? Intensely prompt, I need scarcely say, were both my freshness and my perceived objections to it. The happiest objection, could I have taken time to phrase it, would doubtless have been that the particular effect of this juxtaposition — to my eyes at least — was a thing not to have been foreseen. The parties to it looked, certainly, as I felt that I hadn’t prefigured them; though even this, for my reason, was not a description of their aspect. Much less was it a description for the intelligence of Lady John — to whom, however, after all, some formulation of what she dimly saw would not be so indispensable.
We briefly180 watched, at any rate, together, and as our eyes met again we moreover confessed that we had watched. And we could ostensibly have offered each other no explanation of that impulse save that we had been talking of those concerned as separate and that it was in consequence a little odd to find ourselves suddenly seeing them as one. For that was it — they were as one; as one, at all events, for my large reading. My large reading had meanwhile, for the convenience of the rest of my little talk with Lady John, to make itself as small as possible. I had an odd sense, till we fell apart again, as of keeping my finger rather stiffly fixed on a passage in a favourite author on which I had not previously lighted. I held the book out of sight and behind me; I spoke of things that were not at all in it — or not at all on that particular page; but my volume, none the less, was only waiting. What might be written there hummed already in my ears as a result of my mere glimpse. Had they also wonderfully begun to know? Had she, most wonderfully, and had they, in that case, prodigiously181 come together on it? This was a possibility into which my imagination could dip even deeper than into the depths over which it had conceived the other pair as hovering182. These opposed couples balanced like bronze groups at the two ends of a chimney-piece, and the most I could say to myself in lucid48 deprecation of my thought was that I mustn’t take them equally for granted merely because they balanced. Things in the real had a way of not balancing; it was all an affair, this fine symmetry, of artificial proportion. Yet even while I kept my eyes away from Mrs. Briss and Long it was vivid to me that, “composing” there beautifully, they could scarce help playing a part in my exhibition. The mind of man, furthermore — and my generalisation pressed hard, with a quick twist, on the supersubtlety as to which I had just been privately183 complacent184 — the mind of man doubtless didn’t know from one minute to the other, under the appeal of phantasmagoric life, what it would profitably be at. It had struck me a few seconds before as vulgarly gross in Lady John that she was curious, or conscious, of so small a part; in spite of which I was already secretly wincing185 at the hint that these others had begun to find themselves less in the dark and perhaps even directly to exchange their glimmerings.
My personal privilege, on the basis of the full consciousness, had become, on the spot, in the turn of an eye, more than questionable186, and I was really quite scared at the chance of having to face — of having to see them face — another recognition. What did this alarm imply but the complete reversal of my estimate of the value of perception? Mrs. Brissenden and Long had been hitherto magnificently without it, and I was responsible perhaps for having, in a mood practically much stupider than the stupidest of theirs, put them gratuitously187 and helplessly on it. To be without it was the most consistent, the most successful, because the most amiable, form of selfishness; and why should people admirably equipped for remaining so, people bright and insolent188 in their prior state, people in whom this state was to have been respected as a surface without a scratch is respected, be made to begin to vibrate, to crack and split, from within? Wasn’t it enough for me to pay, vicariously, the tax on being absurd? Were we all to be landed, without an issue or a remedy, in a condition on which that tax would be generally levied189? It was as if, abruptly190, with a new emotion, I had wished to unthink every thought with which I had been occupied for twenty-four hours. Let me add, however, that even had this process been manageable I was aware of not proposing to begin it till I should have done with Lady John.
The time she took to meet my last remark is naturally not represented by this prolonged glance of mine at the amount of suggestion that just then happened to reach me from the other quarter. It at all events duly came out between us that Mrs. Server was the person I did have on my mind; and I remember that it had seemed to me at the end of a minute to matter comparatively little by which of us, after all, she was first designated. There is perhaps an oddity — which I must set down to my emotion of the moment — in my not now being able to say. I should have been hugely startled if the sight of Gilbert Long had appeared to make my companion suddenly think of her; and reminiscence of that shock is not one of those I have found myself storing up. What does abide191 with me is the memory of how, after a little, my apprehensions192, of various kinds, dropped — most of all under the deepening conviction that Lady John was not a whit193 less agreeably superficial than I could even at the worst have desired. The point established for me was that, whereas she passed with herself and so many others as taking in everything, she had taken in nothing whatever that it was to my purpose she should not take. Vast, truly, was the world of observation, that we could both glean194 in it so actively195 without crossing each other’s steps. There we stood close together, yet — save for the accident of a final dash, as I shall note — were at opposite ends of the field.
It’s a matter as to which the truth sounds priggish, but I can’t help it if — yes, positively196 — it affected me as hopelessly vulgar to have made any induction197 at all about our companions but those I have recorded, in such detail, on behalf of my own energy. It was better verily not to have touched them — which was the case of everyone else — than to have taken them up, with knowing gestures, only to do so little with them. That I felt the interest of May Server, that May Server felt the interest of poor Briss, and that my feeling incongruously presented itself as putting up, philosophically198, with the inconvenience of the lady’s — these were, in fine, circumstances to which she clearly attached ideas too commonplace for me to judge it useful to gather them in. She read all things, Lady John, heaven knows, in the light of the universal possibility of a “relation”; but most of the relations that she had up her sleeve could thrust themselves into my theory only to find themselves, the next minute, eliminated. They were of alien substance — insoluble in the whole. Gilbert Long had for her no connection, in my deeper sense, with Mrs. Server, nor Mrs. Server with Gilbert Long, nor the husband with the wife, nor the wife with the husband, nor I with either member of either pair, nor anyone with anything, nor anything with anyone. She was thus exactly where I wanted her to be, for, frankly, I became conscious, at this climax of my conclusion, that I a little wanted her to be where she had distinctly ended by betraying to me that her proper inspiration had placed her. If I have just said that my apprehensions, of various kinds, had finally and completely subsided199, a more exact statement would perhaps have been that from the moment our eyes met over the show of our couple on the sofa, the question of any other calculable thing than that hint of a relation had simply known itself superseded200. Reduced to its plainest terms, this sketch201 of an improved acquaintance between our comrades was designed to make Lady John think. It was designed to make me do no less, but we thought, inevitably, on different lines.
I have already so represented my successions of reflection as rapid that I may not appear to exceed in mentioning the amusement and philosophy with which I presently perceived it as unmistakable that she believed in the depth of her new sounding. It visibly went down for her much nearer to the bottom of the sea than any plumb202 I might be qualified203 to drop. Poor Briss was in love with his wife — that, when driven to the wall, she had had to recognise; but she had not had to recognise that his wife was in love with poor Briss. What was then to militate, on that lady’s part, against a due consciousness, at the end of a splendid summer day, a day on which occasions had been so multiplied, of an impression of a special order? What was to prove that there was “nothing in it” when two persons sat looking so very exceptionally much as if there were everything in it, as if they were for the first time — thanks to finer opportunity — doing each other full justice? Mustn’t it indeed at this juncture have come a little over my friend that Grace had lent herself with uncommon good nature, the previous afternoon, to the arrangement by which, on the way from town, her ladyship’s reputation was to profit by no worse company, precisely, than poor Briss’s? Mrs. Brissenden’s own was obviously now free to profit by my companion’s remembering — if the fact had reached her ears — that Mrs. Brissenden had meanwhile had Long for an escort. So much, at least, I saw Lady John as seeing, and my vision may be taken as representing the dash I have confessed myself as making from my end of our field. It offers us, to be exact, as jostling each other just sensibly — though I only might feel the bruise204 — in our business of picking up straws. Our view of the improved acquaintance was only a straw, but as I stooped to it I felt my head bump with my neighbour’s. This might have made me ashamed of my eagerness, but, oddly enough, that effect was not to come. I felt in fact that, since we had even pulled against each other at the straw, I carried off, in turning away, the larger piece.
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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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merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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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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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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discrediting
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| 使不相信( discredit的现在分词 )； 使怀疑； 败坏…的名声； 拒绝相信 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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expressiveness
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| n.富有表现力 | |
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congruity
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| n.全等，一致 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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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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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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perjured
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| adj.伪证的，犯伪证罪的v.发假誓，作伪证( perjure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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mustering
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的现在分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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ascertaining
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的现在分词 ) | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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inveteracy
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| n.根深蒂固，积习 | |
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juxtaposition
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| n.毗邻，并置，并列 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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48
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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50
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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54
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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59
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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60
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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61
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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62
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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64
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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66
barometer
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| n.气压表，睛雨表，反应指标 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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68
amenity
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| n.pl.生活福利设施，文娱康乐场所；（不可数）愉快，适意 | |
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69
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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72
sociability
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| n.好交际，社交性，善于交际 | |
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73
adjourn
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| v.（使）休会，（使）休庭 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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75
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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76
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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felicitously
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| adv.恰当地，适切地 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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79
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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81
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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82
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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83
admonished
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| v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
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84
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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85
imputation
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| n.归罪，责难 | |
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86
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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87
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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88
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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89
affluence
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| n.充裕，富足 | |
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90
disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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91
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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92
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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93
contortion
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| n.扭弯，扭歪，曲解 | |
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94
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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95
pounce
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| n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意 | |
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96
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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97
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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98
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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99
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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100
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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101
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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102
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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103
attestation
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| n.证词 | |
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104
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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105
cerebral
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| adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的 | |
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106
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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107
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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108
deriving
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| v.得到( derive的现在分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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109
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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110
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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111
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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112
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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113
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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114
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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115
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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116
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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117
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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118
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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119
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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120
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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121
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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122
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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123
steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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124
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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125
emulated
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| v.与…竞争( emulate的过去式和过去分词 )；努力赶上；计算机程序等仿真；模仿 | |
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126
atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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127
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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128
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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129
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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130
diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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131
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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132
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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133
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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134
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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135
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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136
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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137
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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138
potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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139
inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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140
contingency
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| n.意外事件，可能性 | |
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141
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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142
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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143
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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144
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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145
dally
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| v.荒废(时日)，调情 | |
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146
dallies
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| v.随随便便地对待( dally的第三人称单数 )；不很认真地考虑；浪费时间；调情 | |
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147
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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148
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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149
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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150
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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151
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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152
density
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| n.密集，密度，浓度 | |
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153
extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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154
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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155
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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156
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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157
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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158
gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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159
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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160
meddlesome
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| adj.爱管闲事的 | |
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161
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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162
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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163
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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164
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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165
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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166
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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167
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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168
inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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169
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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170
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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171
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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172
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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173
legitimately
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| ad.合法地；正当地，合理地 | |
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174
condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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175
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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176
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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177
colloquy
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| n.谈话，自由讨论 | |
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178
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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179
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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180
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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181
prodigiously
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| adv.异常地，惊人地，巨大地 | |
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182
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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183
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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184
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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185
wincing
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的现在分词 ) | |
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186
questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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187
gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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188
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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189
levied
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| 征（兵）( levy的过去式和过去分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税 | |
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190
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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191
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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192
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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193
whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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194
glean
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| v.收集(消息、资料、情报等) | |
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195
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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196
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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197
induction
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| n.感应，感应现象 | |
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198
philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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199
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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200
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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201
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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202
plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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203
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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204
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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