“May I have a dance, Lady Susan?” he asked.
She looked at him without immediately replying. For a moment she was more like the Susan of Monte Carlo, even though there was something faintly resentful in her expression. It was at least feeling of a sort.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “but do you know I really can’t get my feet to go to-night? I think I must have played too much tennis. Tell me, have you heard how Mr. Blunn is this evening?”
“I haven’t enquired5 since dinner,” Grant replied. “I will let you know if I hear later.”
He turned away and walked out on to the open deck. There was nothing more to be done. He was in a hopeless position. There was nothing he could say to her, no complaint he could make, no excuse he could offer. He drew a wicker chair to the side of the rail, threw himself down, lit a pipe, and began to smoke. Somehow or other the tobacco tasted wrong, even the beauty of the night seemed to increase his depression. Presently he left of? smoking, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. They were playing a waltz he used to dance with Susan. He lay still and listened.
Susan, crossing the deck in search of her father, discovered him in conversation with the Prince and Princess von Diss. She stopped and was half inclined to retreat. Gertrude, however, had already turned towards her.
“Lady Susan,” she said, “I was just sending my husband to look for you. Will you come and sit with me for a moment?”
Susan glanced meaningly towards her father, who she had been told was looking for her. He mistook her appeal for help and smiled acquiescence6.
“Do, Susan,” he enjoined7. “I only sent for you to say that I was going to the smoke room. Von Diss and I will finish our little discussion there.”
Gertrude led the way towards a distant corner where there were two comfortable chairs. Susan walked by her side, apparently8 at her ease, but inwardly fuming9. There was something about this woman which always made her feel young and unformed.
“Of course, my dear Lady Susan,” Gertrude began, “I know that you detest10 having to talk to me. But you see it really can’t be helped. My husband is meeting your father officially and, so long as my husband has decided11 to make me so, I am a perfectly12 respectable woman.”
“I have had very little experience in the ethics13 of such matters,” Susan replied. “I am content as a rule to follow my own judgment14.”
Gertrude settled herself quite comfortably in her chair.
“Ah, well,” she sighed, “you’re very young. It is just your youth which makes your judgment so absurd. You’re very angry with Mr. Grant Slattery, aren’t you?”
“Whatever my feelings may be with regard to Mr. Slattery, or any other man,” Lady Susan rejoined quietly, “they concern—if you will forgive my saying so—myself alone.”
“Very foolish,” Gertrude murmured. “Listen to me, please. Poor Grant, he really is in a ridiculous position. If there weren’t just a spice of tragedy attached to the situation, I am sure I should never accept the role of obvious idiot which seems thrust upon me.”
“I hope you’re not going to offer me any confidences,” Susan begged. “I do not desire them.”
“My dear Lady Prig, you’re going to hear what is good for you,” Gertrude continued calmly. “You can’t get up and leave me, because I am an older woman, and it would be very rude of you. You probably think that when Mr. Slattery said good-by to you in Monte Carlo he knew that I was going to America with him. Well, the poor man didn’t know anything of the sort.”
“He didn’t know?” Susan repeated incredulously. “Why, it was the night before.”
“Precisely,” Gertrude acquiesced15. “You see, I was very fond of Grant Slattery, and I couldn’t quite believe that he had lost all feeling for me. Sheer vanity of course,—for which I suffered. I knew quite well that if I had asked him to take me away he would have refused point-blank—because I had already asked him and he had refused—but I wanted to go away with him and I took a risk. I went on board his yacht as a stowaway16. He hadn’t the faintest idea I was there until the yacht was a day and a half out. He wouldn’t have known, even then, if I hadn’t nearly fainted from hunger.”
Susan sat quite still for a moment. She was struggling to emulate17 her companion’s composure.
“It sounds incredible,” she murmured.
“It is the truth, nevertheless,” Gertrude assured her. “When I disclosed myself, he was aghast. He took no pains to hide from me the fact that my presence there was utterly18 undesired. For some time he considered landing me at Gibraltar. That, however, would have made the matter no better from any point of view, and I suppose he realised that it would have been a particularly brutal19 act. So he let me stay. He had to.”
There was a pause. Gertrude seemed to be listening to the music. Suddenly she recommenced.
“Of course, the rest of the story is absurd, as well as being humiliating. Why I tell it to you I really don’t know. I made an idiot of myself in the usual way, and I forced Grant into the usual hopeless position. I suppose because he was in love with you, he played the Sir Galahad for some time with almost ridiculous perfection. Then one night we ran into a terrible storm. I was frightened, and Grant—he is really very kind-hearted—began to realise that he had been hurting me badly every moment of the time. I became emotional and finally desperate. I will spare you the rest of the story—but I gave Grant no chance. Afterwards I understood how hideous20 one-sided love can be. If I had wronged my husband I paid in the suffering of those three or four days before I could get Grant to land me at Newport. I only saw him for a few minutes at meal times and afterwards when he used to come and try to make polite conversation to me, but the whole affair was ghastly. I had done the most absurd thing a woman could possibly attempt. I had tried to secure for myself the man who was in love with another woman. There were those few hours I spoke21 of during the storm. After that—nothing. I did not see Grant again until we met by accident on the steamer coming back to England. I had been ill in a little country place in New Hampshire and he had no idea even where I was. I wonder whether you would be very kind now and go and ask my husband to give me his arm. I think we must be somewhere near the screw. I am beginning to feel the motion.”
Susan rose to her feet. Something in her expression warned Gertrude.
“My dear child!” she exclaimed, “if you say a single word of what I can see in your face I shall scream. I am an impossible person who has told you an impossible story for an impossible reason. Please do as I ask you.”
Susan rose to her feet and conveyed his wife’s message to the Prince. Then, for a moment, she hesitated. Two or three young men moved towards her but she waved them away.
“In a minute,” she called out. “I am coming back.”
She walked out on to the open part of the deck. A few yards away Grant was still seated, gazing gloomily across the sea. She drew nearer and nearer to his chair. He heard the sound of her hesitating footsteps and turned around. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. He could scarcely believe his eyes. She was smiling at him, a little plaintively22, with just a touch of appeal about her mouth.
“I was stupid, Grant,” she whispered. “Would you care to dance this?”
“Susan!” he exclaimed.
“Very stupid indeed,” she went on. “Let’s have a good long dance like we used to and then do something terribly obvious—go and look at the bows or something.”
He had sense enough to ask no questions, to accept what came to him. Gertrude watched them for a moment as she passed along, leaning on her husband’s arm.
“Really,” she remarked, “I suppose the papers are right when they call that young woman beautiful. I used to think she lacked expression.”
The Prince looked at the young couple through his horn-rimmed eye-glass.
“She does very well,” he agreed. “They have the looks, these young Englishwomen, and the figure—sometimes the wit. They move all the time, though, in a very narrow world.”
Gertrude continued her walk.
“I suppose the stony23 and narrow way has its compensations,” she sighed.
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收听单词发音
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1
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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neophyte
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| n.新信徒；开始者 | |
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enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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7
enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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fuming
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| 愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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13
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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15
acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
stowaway
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| n.（藏于轮船，飞机中的）偷乘者 | |
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emulate
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| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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