“Princess,” she confided3 to Gertrude, “I think your friend, Mr. Blunn, is the most amusing man I’ve ever met.”
Gertrude smiled.
“He is one of those impossible persons who never grow up,” she declared. “A picnic like this is the joy of his life. He was simply delighted when I gave him Mr. Slattery’s message. The strange part of it is that he can scarcely cross the gangway of a steamer without being violently ill. Yet a cruise like this he simply revels4 in.”
“Make his fortune as a raconteur5 on the music-hall stage,” Bobby Lancaster chuckled6. “Some of the stories he told after you girls had come up on deck!—there was one about a little Dutch girl. I really must—”
“Bobby,” Susan interrupted severely7, “I am ashamed of you. The story will reach us all in due course through the proper channels. You will tell your sister, of course. She will tell me. And so on.”
“Then there was another about an Italian maid.”
His sister rose to her feet and thrust her arm through his.
“Bobby,” she said, “you and I will take a little walk. You have brought this upon yourself. I can’t see you chuckling8 there and leaving me to wonder what it’s about all the time. We’ll stroll down to the bows.”
“This roundabout business is trying but decent,” Susan observed. “I suppose I shall have to wait at least another quarter of an hour. In the meantime, Mr. Slattery, I adore your yacht.”
“She really is wonderful, Grant,” Gertrude intervened. “You hadn’t anything like this in the old days, had you?”
“Perhaps it was as well,” Susan murmured, with a rare impulse of ill humour.
Gertrude smiled across at her rival. Grant had scarcely left her side all day and she was beginning to feel a little sorry for this very charming young English girl to whom her coming was likely to prove so disastrous9. Even the picnic had been arranged at her suggestion.
“Well, the yacht has arrived, and other things,” she remarked. “It is never too late in this world, so long as one has the will. Grant, I want to go to the Dutch East Indies.”
“I’d better tell him to put in at Naples and coal, then,” he suggested.
“You will kindly10 remember,” Susan observed, “that you have the Prime Minister of the greatest empire in the world on board, who will be required at Nice at a quarter to eleven to-morrow morning to preside over the little tea party there.”
“That is unfortunate,” Gertrude sighed. “Such a quarrelsome little tea party too, isn’t it?”
Lymane, who was seated in the little circle, moved in his chair uneasily. Grant turned slightly towards her.
“Quarrelsome, is it?” he repeated. “How do you know that?”
“Oh, the air is full of rumours,” she answered carelessly. “Yesterday, for instance, everybody was saying that that poor dear Baron11 Naga had committed suicide because America was to be invited once more to come into the Pact12.”
“I thought it was because he found he had one funnel13 too many on his latest cruiser,” Bobby Lancaster remarked.
“Idiot!” his sister exclaimed. “That’s the business of the Limitation of Armaments Congress, not the Pact.”
“Naga, as a matter of fact, represented his country on both Boards,” Lymane pointed14 out. “Too much for one man. I know that he dreaded15 that journey to Washington every year.”
The stewards16 appeared with tea. Lord Yeovil and Cornelius Blunn joined the little group. The latter removed his hat, dragged his chair out to where he could set the full benefit of the sunlight and the breeze, and smiled on every one beatifically18.
“Mr. Slattery,” he said, “you are, without exception, the most fortunate man in the world. You own the most perfect yacht I have ever seen, you have no business or other cares, you have the friends who make a man happy. It is a wonderful existence.”
Grant smiled.
“Rather a lazy one, I am afraid,” he admitted.
“Laziness is the only sound philosophy of life,” Blunn insisted. “If you have no need to work for yourself, why do it? If you spend your time working for others, you meet with nothing but ingratitude19. I grudge20 the time I have to give to the management of my own affairs, but I am always deeply grateful that I was never tempted21 to dabble22 in politics. I am training up young men, and in five years’ time I shall be free from all cares. When that time comes, I shall be like a lizard23 in the sun of good fortune. I will never write a letter and seldom read a newspaper.”
“I thought that all Germans were politicians by instinct, from their cradles upwards,” Lord Yeovil remarked, smiling.
“Not in these days,” Blunn replied, helping24 himself to his third cake. “My father, of course, was a rabid politician, but he lived in terrible times. A prosperous Germany is so much to the good, of course, but her sons naturally lack the inspiration of what used to be known as patriotism25. The fact of it is,” he went on, “that industrially Germany has come in for a great heritage. If she had been as prosperous in nineteen-fourteen as she is today, that wicked old Kaiser of ours might have rattled26 his sabre forever and no one would have listened. What people have often failed to understand about my country is that we are not seekers after glory. We want money and the ease and comfort and happy days that money brings.”
“You don’t think that Germany wants another war, then?” Bobby Lancaster asked.
“My dear young man,” Blunn assured him emphatically, “there isn’t a leader living or a cause in existence which could induce the German of to-day to exchange the loom27 for the sword. There isn’t a nation which rejoices so thoroughly28 in the Pact. I thought that this was absolutely understood by now. Even the English sensationalists have begun to trust us.”
He smiled around upon them all. Somehow or other he seemed to feel the inspiration of the circle of interested auditors29.
“There is only one thing needed,” he continued, “which my friends the politicians tell me would end the last hopes of the militarists, and that is that the Pact of Nations, over which my honoured friend here, Lord Yeovil, so ably presides, should induce the United States of America to join them and abandon forever her present aloofness30. I do not understand myself the means by which this could be done or the etiquette31 necessary, but as a representative German citizen, my hand of comradeship is ready at any moment.”
“I wonder,” Lord Yeovil speculated, “whether you really do speak as a representative German citizen.”
“Believe me, I do,” was the earnest reply. “My simple tastes in life are shared by millions. What the German of to-day wants is his beer, his wine, his music and his womankind. He wants to spend his spare time with his children and to be able to buy his little home early in life. I am not a great traveller; I don’t know how it is with other nations. I know how it is with my own. We want to live out our days comfortably and pleasantly. We are natural human beings, filled with natural desires. I have eaten too many cakes. I shall walk for a little time or I shall have no appetite for this wonderful dinner, which our gracious host has promised us. Princess, will you do me the honour?”
Gertrude rose from her place.
“I am not a great walker, Mr. Blunn,” she warned him, “but for ten minutes I will be your companion.”
“That ten minutes,” he rejoined, “will be the crown of my day.”
They all looked after him a little curiously32 as he stepped out upon his promenade33. Lord Yeovil was very much interested.
“I am delighted. Grant,” he said to Slattery, “that you have given me an opportunity, through your friend the Princess von Diss, of meeting Mr. Blunn. I find him an extraordinary intriguing34 personality.”
“For a multimillionaire he seems to be a very simple creature,” Rose Lancaster observed.
“‘Multi’ is inadequate,” Grant interposed. “He is reputed to be worth anything from forty to sixty million pounds. It is hard to see how any one could have handled such wealth and have remained so apparendy ingenuous35.”
“Do you distrust him?” Susan asked a little bluntly.
Grant hesitated. He seemed to be watching Gertrude and Blunn as they walked together,—Gertrude superbly beautiful, walking with the perfect grace of her long limbs and exquisite36 poise37, Blunn striding along cheerfully by her side, a figure, by contrast, almost of absurdity38.
“Well, I don’t know,” he acknowledged. “You remember what our own Ambassador said many years ago. ‘Trust everybody but a German, and trust a German when he is dead.’”
Lord Yeovil smiled.
“Nevertheless, Grant,” he confessed, “I have a leaning towards Mr. Blunn. I am almost sorry that he is not a politician. I would rather have him seated at the Conference table than our friend Lutrecht. What about a rubber of bridge until cocktail39 time? We can play on deck.”
Blunn stopped short in his promenade.
“Bridge?” he repeated, with a broad smile. “Did I hear some one say anything about bridge?”
“Mr. Blunn is a fanatic,” Gertrude declared. “Grant, you will have to come and entertain me, unless you are very anxious to play.”
He rose at once to his feet and gave an order to the steward17 whom he had summoned.
“I will show you the chart room,” he suggested. “There are plenty to play without me.”
They strolled off together. Susan sat watching them with interlaced fingers. Suddenly she became aware that Blunn’s eyes were upon her.
“Lady Susan and I against any two,” he proposed jovially40. “Take me out if I double ‘no trumps’ with your best suit, partner. Discard from weakness. Always support me when you can, and we’ll win all the money there is on the yacht. Between ourselves, I have a yacht almost as large as this, lying up in Kiel Harbour even now. I daren’t use her because of the socialists41.”
“Socialists!” Lord Yeovil repeated. “One never hears of them nowadays.”
“They’ve all come to Germany,” Blunn confided. “They are like mice,—they always go for the ripening42 cheese. They are just a slur43 upon our too great prosperity. One ‘no trump,’ partner. I knew it. You have brought me luck. I am going to hold every card in the pack.”
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1
sartorially
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improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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3
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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4
revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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5
raconteur
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| n.善讲故事者 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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8
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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9
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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11
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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13
funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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16
stewards
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| （轮船、飞机等的）乘务员( steward的名词复数 )； （俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的）管理员； （大型活动的）组织者； （私人家中的）管家 | |
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steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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beatifically
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| adj. 祝福的, 幸福的, 快乐的, 慈祥的 | |
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ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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dabble
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| v.涉足，浅赏 | |
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lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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auditors
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| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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30
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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32
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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34
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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35
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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38
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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39
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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40
jovially
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| adv.愉快地，高兴地 | |
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41
socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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42
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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43
slur
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| v.含糊地说；诋毁；连唱；n.诋毁；含糊的发音 | |
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