“My adopted country people are back again in force,” Gertrude remarked.
“They interest me more than any other people here,” Grant confessed. “It is as though the nation had changed its type.”
“Explain yourself, please,” she invited.
“I must speak frankly3 if I do,” he warned her.
“As frankly as you please. I hold no brief for my husband’s country people. I like some of them and hate others.”
“Well, then,” he continued, “it seems to me that the women are no longer blowsy and florid and over-dressed, the men no longer push their way and swagger. Somehow or other the women have learnt how to dress and the men have acquired manners. They are not in the least like the travelling Germans of say thirty years ago—just before the war.”
“They are feeling their way,” she remarked cynically4.
He looked down at her with the air of one who has listened to wise words. In reality, it was he who was feeling his way.
“I am not so sure,” he reflected. “I wonder sometimes whether the whole nation has not changed, whether the war did not purge5 them of their boastfulness and conceit6, whether this present generation has not acquired a different and a less offensive outlook.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asked.
“I am simply speculating,” he answered. “To begin with there is a great change in your aristocracy. Young Prince Frederick, for instance. Every one says that he has modelled himself exactly upon what the present King Edward VIII of England was like when he was a lad of twenty. All the older statesmen tell us that he was the most popular young man in the civilised world, modest, democratic, charming. These are not Teutonic qualities, you know, but your Prince Frederick is certainly developing them.”
“I wonder,” she murmured.
“Tell me, what is your own attitude towards your husband’s country people?” he went on, almost bluntly. “Do you like them or don’t you? And, more important still, do you believe in them or don’t you?”
She looked around her a little nervously7. The Rooms were thronged8 with people but the corner in which they were standing9 was still almost isolated10.
“My friend,” she confided11, “I am a simple woman and not a psychologist. I live amongst the German people. I do not dislike them as I am sure I should have disliked the Germans of thirty years ago, but I do not understand them. You must remember that of the Germans who made their country the most hated in the world before the war of nineteen-fourteen, I naturally knew nothing. I wasn’t even born when the Peace of Versailles was signed. The German of those days is, so far as I am concerned, as extinct as the dodo!”
“If he is not extinct,” Grant said, “he is at least not in the limelight.”
“He has perhaps learnt to wear the sheep’s clothing,” she suggested. “You will not be able to induce me to say one word either for or against these people whom I confess that I do not understand. If you would really like to know all about them,” she went on, “shall we ask the one man who ought to know? Have you ever met Prince Lutrecht?”
“Never,” Grant replied. “I know of him, of course, and I have heard Lord Yeovil speak of him several times lately. They meet most days, of course, at Nice.”
“I shall present you,” she promised. “You will find him a most interesting and delightful12 man, and, if my husband is to be believed, it is he who, for the next generation, will decide the destinies of his country.”
“It will give me great pleasure to meet him,” Grant assured her. “He was not in office when I was in Berlin but I remember being told he had a great dislike to America and Americans.”
She shrugged13 her shoulders.
“His father was of the Hohenzollern regime,” she remarked, “and the Republican Government of to-day is a bitter pill for the aristocracy of a score of generations. He seems to be alone just now. Wait until I call you.”
She crossed the room and was welcomed cordially by a tall, exceedingly aristocratic-looking man, apparently14 about sixty years of age, dressed with the utmost care, handsome and with a charming smile. A moment or two later he made his way with Gertrude by his side to where Grant was standing. He brushed aside Gertrude’s formal introduction.
“I had interests in the Foreign Office at Berlin when Mr. Slattery was at the American Embassy,” he said. “I remember him quite well. I regret very much to hear that you have left the Service, Mr. Slattery, We need all the help we can get nowadays from Americans of your status and culture.”
“Germany has shown lately that she needs no help from any one, sir,” Grant replied.
The Prince smiled gravely.
“You are very kind. There is no power on earth which could hinder the German people from attaining15 to their destiny. But we need understanding and we need sympathy. We are not always represented to our friends as we would wish. I hope that I shall see more of you in Monte Carlo, Mr. Slattery. I am staying at the Villa16 Monaco and shall be glad to receive your visit. I am usually to be found at home, at any time when the Congress at Nice is not sitting.”
He passed on, with a low bow and a whispered farewell to Gertrude, leaving in Grant’s mind a curious impression of unfriendliness, for which he could not in the least account. Even his civility had seemed unnatural17.
“They say that he is to be our next President,” Gertrude confided.
Her companion watched the Prince thoughtfully as the latter paused to accept the greetings of a friend.
“I don’t think I ever met a man who looked so ill-fitted to be the President of a great democracy,” he remarked drily.
“Could you think of a more suitable post for him?”
He nodded.
“I could more easily imagine him the Mephistophelian chancellor18 of an autocrat19.”
“Back in the Hohenzollern days?”
“Or in the days which may be in store for us,” he replied.
She looked into the baccarat room.
“An empty place at my favorite table!” she exclaimed. “Call on me early to-morrow. Grant, and we’ll plan something. Forgive my hurrying. I can’t afford to miss this.”
He watched her pass into the outer room and seat herself contentedly20 in the vacant place. Then he strolled from table to table, risking a louis now and then, but scarcely waiting to see the result. A spirit of restlessness pursued him. He stood aloof21 for some minutes, watching Gertrude immersed in the baccarat. Then he wandered into the Bar, where Susan Yeovil presently found him. She sank into a chair by his side.
“Broke!” she announced ruefully, turning her little handbag inside out. “Not a louis left, and the others won’t be ready to go home for an hour yet.”
“Can I be of any assistance?” he ventured.
She shook her head.
“I’ve been too nicely brought up. I couldn’t possibly borrow money from you. Tell me about the beautiful lady.”
“She was very well known three or four years ago in Washington as Gertrude Butler,” Grant confided. “She is the woman to whom I was engaged and who married Prince Otto von Diss.”
She was instantly grave.
“You poor thing!” she exclaimed. “How horrid22 for you meeting her like that. Did you mind much?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I was asking myself that question as you came up. I have never been able to analyse exactly my feeling for her, either during those days of our engagement or since, I was very much in love with her, if that counts for anything.”
“It doesn’t,” she assured him. “Being in love is just a spring disease. I fancied myself in love with Bobby before I heard of him advertising23 himself with that Russian lady in Nice. Six sets of tennis this afternoon, three eclairs and the cocktail24 you are going to give me presently have completely cured me.”
“Fancy intruding25 your own experiences in such a serious matter! You are only a child,” he reminded her with a smile.
“I’m nineteen,” she retorted. “Surely that is old enough for anything. I am of age for the great passion itself, if only it would arrive, and arrive quickly. I believe I heard that croupier call out number fourteen. I know I shall end by besmirching26 my good name and borrowing a louis from you.”
He laid a handful of notes upon the table beside them. She shook her head again.
“Don’t tempt27 me,” she begged. “Besides, I think I would rather talk. I am interested in the Princess. Tell me just how you are feeling about her.”
“I couldn’t,” he confessed.
“Is she here without her husband?”
“Yes.”
“Cat! Of course she’s come to flirt28 with you.”
“I don’t think so. I think she has come here with an altogether different purpose.”
“What purpose?”
He smiled at her with affected29 tolerance30.
“After all, you know,” he said, “young people shouldn’t be too curious.”
She drew away from him petulantly31.
“I wonder,” she complained, “why you always persist in treating me as though I were a child.”
“Well, aren’t you?” he rejoined. “Nineteen isn’t very old, you know.”
“Anyway, if father can tell me things,” she argued, “I don’t see why you should be so secretive.”
“What does your father tell you?”
“Nothing that I am going to repeat to you, Mr. Inquisitor. I will tell you this, though,” she went on, dropping her voice a little. “He isn’t at all happy about the way things are going over at Nice. Did you know that it was he who insisted upon sittings being suspended for a day, and that he and Arthur sent no less than twenty cables away last night.”
“Yes, I knew,” he admitted, “but I had no idea that you did.”
She permitted herself a friendly little grimace32.
“I only mentioned it just to show that every one doesn’t ignore me as you do,” she observed. “Here’s Arthur. He’s having a day off, isn’t he?”
The young man came up and displayed a handful of plaques33. He was good-looking in a pale, rather tired way.
“Why do I slave for your father, Lady Susan,” he demanded, “for a vulgar pittance34, when there are thousands to be picked up here without the slightest effort?”
“Vulgar pittance!” she scoffed35. “I’m sure Dad, or rather the country, pays you quite as much as you’re worth. Besides, look at the number of free meals you get!”
“This to the private secretary of a Prime Minister!” the young man groaned36. “Why, my dear child—”
“I’m nobody’s ‘dear child’!” she interrupted. “I am ‘Lady Susan’ to you two men, except perhaps after a dance, or in the moonlight, or on the river, when I feel yielding and let either of you call me ‘Susan.’ Please, get it into your heads that I am nobody’s ‘child.’ In this age of flappers, nineteen is almost passe. I could be married to-morrow if I chose.”
“Heaven forbid!” Arthur exclaimed. “At any rate unless it were to me.”
“You’d have to change considerably37 before I’d marry either of you,” she declared. “If you’ve won all those plaques, you can lend me one. You can get it out of Father to-night.”
“And you refused to borrow from me,” Grant said reproachfully.
“Well, you see Arthur is one of the household,” she explained, “and I don’t feel the same way about him. Besides, I shall probably repay him in ten minutes. I feel that my luck is in.”
She strolled off. The Honourable38 Arthur Lymane sank into her vacant place.
“You’re coming up to-night, Slattery?”
“I’m dining.”
“The Chief wants to see you particularly,” Lymane confided, dropping his voice. “He’s already cabled to Washington. There’s a damned funny atmosphere about the proceedings39 at Nice this time. Nothing that amounts to anything without doubt, but every one seems to be so jolly mysterious.”
“Is that so?” Grant murmured.
“The Chief took the bull by the horns yesterday when he suspended sittings for twenty-four hours. It gives us a breathing spell, anyway.”
“Have you any idea what’s at the bottom of it all?” Grant asked.
His companion shook his head.
“The Chief will talk to you to-night. He may be more communicative with you than he has been with me. By Jove! Grant, old fellow!” he exclaimed, his tone suddenly changing to one of wondering admiration40. “There’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Coming straight at us, too.”
The young man had already risen to his feet as though about to take his departure, but, as Gertrude crossed the room towards them, he remained transfixed, watching her. His look was no ordinary stare. The admiration it expressed was, in its way, too subtle and too involuntary.
“She’s coming straight at us,” he repeated, in an agitated41 whisper. “For heaven’s sake, if you know her, Slattery, present me.”
Gertrude, smiling, came towards them. She seemed already to appreciate the situation. Grant rose to his feet.
“Congratulate me!” she exclaimed. “I’ve won thirty thousand francs.”
“Come and celebrate with us,” Grant invited, drawing up a chair for her. “Let me present my friend, Mr. Arthur Lymane—the Princess von Diss.”
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1
medley
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| n.混合 | |
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auspicious
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| adj.吉利的；幸运的，吉兆的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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cynically
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| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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purge
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| n.整肃，清除，泻药，净化；vt.净化，清除，摆脱；vi.清除，通便，腹泻，变得清洁 | |
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conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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8
thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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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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12
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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autocrat
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| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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besmirching
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| v.弄脏( besmirch的现在分词 )；玷污；丑化；糟蹋（名誉等） | |
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27
tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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petulantly
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32
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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33
plaques
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| （纪念性的）匾牌( plaque的名词复数 )； 纪念匾； 牙斑； 空斑 | |
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pittance
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| n.微薄的薪水，少量 | |
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35
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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37
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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