DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS
FRANCIS received Mrs. Lawrie’s incoherent offensive letter, gulped1 down its unpalatable statement of fact, burned it, and rushed to his greenhouse to think it over and to master the anger that was rising in him. . . . He blamed himself for not having seen what was in the air and tried to remember incidents and conversations which should have given him the hint. He recollected2 several, quite enough to set him scourging3 himself for his blind neglect, until he began to ask himself what he could have done supposing he had seen and realised. Quite clearly he could not have forbidden Bennett the house. Interference was always dangerous where the emotions were concerned.
Most painful of all was the thought that Annette should not have had trust enough in him to seek his advice and comfort if she were in trouble. She must have suffered, he told himself, to make such a plunge4 into poverty and the responsibility of marriage. It must have been a tremendous flood of feeling that had swept her into it. . . . It was so pitiful: a mere5 child: children both of them.
In a second he found himself thinking the worst of it—a scrambled6 marriage of necessity. He put that from him. Of course not. Annette had been well and happy—except for her illness—extraordinarily happy, and so gentle and sympathetic and thoughtful, so blithe7 and busy. No wickedness there, no hypocritical covering up of dark gnawing8 secrets. Only the most absurd, pitiful [Pg 248]romantic folly9, reckless defiance10 of all the laws of prudence11.
If his thoughts of Annette were gentle and indulgent, he found it hard to extend his kindliness12 to Bennett. Young men would be young men, but they should leave young women alone. (Francis, still regarded young women as generically13 and fundamentally different from young men. To him young women who took any active part in the affairs of love were abnormal and unmaidenly. What exactly young men were to do with their ardour or where to present it, he did not know, and he was unconscious of any discrepancy14 in his thoughts.) The personal factor entered into his contemplation of this side of the pother. He told himself that Bennett had treated him very badly, had accepted his hospitality for years, received his indulgence in his affairs with Gertrude, his—to be sure, unsuccessful—assistance in the furtherance of his clerical ambitions, and then, secretly, with cunning and deceitfulness, he had played upon Annette’s young and innocent affections. There was an easy satisfaction in thus angrily vilifying15 Bennett, but it did not last long, for it led to a conception of Annette which did not sort with her nature as he knew it. She had always been curiously16 self-reliant and, quite clearly, fully17 cognisant of the facts of her existence and the purposes of her womanhood. Still he was reluctant to relinquish18 Bennett from the talons19 of his wrath20. He was going to take Annette away, and could give no guarantee of his ability to provide for her and make her secure against the devastating21 influences of the hard struggle for daily bread. With his instinct for justice he asked himself what else they had to offer Annette, and, further, what they had given her from day to day ever since her return—drudgery, unending toil22, a monotonous23, trivial, and unrewarded activity. That brought him hotly near the heart of the mystery, but he turned his back on it, only to find himself most vividly24 remembering his visit to the house of the Lawries, and finding in that the explanation of Bennett’s share in the preposterous25 marriage. He had wondered then what would become of Bennett. [Pg 249]Now he was answered. . . . Presumably Mrs. Lawrie had not been misinformed. Obviously not. Her vituperation came from a fury of despair, a hopelessness in the face of a new turn of fate, which he felt to be so degrading that he desired to avoid it. Clearly there was nothing to be done. If it was salutary by a heavy use of the tongue to lacerate Annette and bring her to a sense of the seriousness of the thing she had done, he would—but he reflected that his wife would do all that and more than was necessary in that kind. For himself then there was nothing to be done and nothing to be said. If they found it impossible—as was more than likely—to live on Bennett’s income, something must be done to help them. Both families must contribute. . . For a moment he thought fantastically that the solution might be to ignore their marriage altogether, and keep Annette at home until Bennett could afford to keep her. He knew that for folly. If passion had so far blinded their reason that they had rushed into an insoluble compact, to thwart26 and repress it would be to invite unimagined disaster.
“It is beyond me,” he said. “Did these things happen when I was young? The world seems to be changing. I am too old to change with it.”
His last reflection was that, having swallowed Frederic’s disaster, he could not logically strain at Annette’s. He was wounded. Time would heal his wounds. Above all he must not be reduced to such an ignoble27 frenzy28 of bewilderment as Mrs. Lawrie. Then he felt sorry for the “garden-roller.”
“It must be,” he said, “very distressing29 to come on a hard stone in the middle of a soft lawn.”
That restored his humour. He took twelve little pots and began filling them with earth and fibre for his bulbs.
Annette came into the greenhouse. Francis suppressed a desire to run away. He did not look at her, but pretended to be absorbed in his work. Annette asked if she might help him.
“I think,” he said, “I think you had better close the door.”
[Pg 250]
Annette closed the door and stood with her back against it. Francis stole a glance at her. She was excited but there was no fear in her, only a sort of shy obstinacy30. She said:
“How you love your greenhouse! You have been so much happier since we came here.”
“I have. And you?”
“I’m not altogether happy, because I want to go away.”
“My dear!”
“Yes. You can’t be quite happy when you’re going away from things and people you’ve loved and grown used to, can you?”
“I suppose not.”
“Father . . .” Francis trembled. His affections were touched. In his thoughts he had not realised the poignancy31 of his loss. It was going to be very painful; more painful almost than anything that had ever happened to him. He could not bear her hesitation32, and he hastened the calamity33.
“I know,” he said.
“You know?”
“Yes. I have had a letter from—his mother. She is very angry.”
“And you . . . Are you angry?”
“Oh! my dear, dear child . . .”
Then Annette was in his arms and they were crying together, and she was saying:
“Dear, dear father . . . I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I didn’t think, I didn’t think of anything but him. I haven’t thought of anything but him for a long time. . . .”
“But such a wedding . . . no cake, no presents, nobody to cry over you . . .”
“Only you, father.”
“I’m an old fool. I ought to be very angry with you. . . . But I’m not. I ought to be predicting the most horrible and miserable34 future for you. . . . But I can’t. . . . It’s much too serious. . . . I think you ought to tell your mother. It will hurt her less if it comes [Pg 251]from you than if it comes from me. I’ll tell the others. . . . There’s nothing to be said. I believe that you love each other. I will pray for your happiness. . . .”
“He’s ready for me,” said Annette. . . . “I wanted to go to him to-night, but I’ll wait until to-morrow if you like.”
Francis pondered that for a moment.
“No,” he said. “No, I think it would be best if you told your mother now and went away at once. It will save many tears. We shall have the night to get used to the idea. . . . It’s a new idea; rather a difficult one to digest—our little Annette a married woman.”
She told him then that Bennett was coming for her to the end of the street.
“And your belongings35?” asked Francis.
“I was going to carry them.”
“Could you? I never thought they were so little. . . . Don’t brides usually have trousseaux?”
“I’m to have nothing that brides usually have. I don’t want anything.”
Francis filled the twelfth little pot, and very deliberately36 squeezed the mould down with his thumbs.
“I think,” he said, “I think that while you are talking to your mother I will walk along and see my—my son-in-law.”
“Yes. . . . Yes. Bennett will be glad to see you.”
“Will he?” said Francis dubiously37.
They left the greenhouse. He watched Annette run upstairs, took his hat and stick and walked up the street. At the corner he saw a lean figure, standing38 under a lamp-post. It was Bennett. He was seized by a sudden fierce desire to hurt him and he gripped his stick more tightly and sawed with it up and down. He was walking rather faster than he knew and caught up with Bennett before the sudden mood had passed. His stick swung in the air, and Bennett was roused from his dreams of bliss39 by a sudden thwack across his loins. He was more startled than hurt, for he had not heard any approach.
“Ooh!” he cried, then recognised his assailant. “Mr. Folyat!”
[Pg 252]
Francis breathed heavily and raised his stick again. To feel Bennett’s flesh yielding under his blow had given him an intense and peculiar40 satisfaction, a pleasure so unwonted that his senses craved41 more of it. His mind however had shot ahead of his mood and he dropped his stick and said:
“I beg your pardon. . . . That was not what I intended. My intentions are frequently belied42 by my performances. . . . Did I hurt you?”
“You did.” Bennett rubbed his thigh43 ruefully, then stooped and restored his stick to Francis. They stared at each other by the light of the lamp-post and at length Francis said:
“Annette is telling her mother. She has just told me. I propose to stay with you until she comes. We should—a—we should know each other better.”
“I told my mother yesterday, I left her house last night.”
“It was foolish of you to quarrel.”
Francis laid his hand on Bennett’s arm and turned with him down the street. They passed up and down on the side opposite the house, Francis explaining as best he could how and why he had come to strike his son-in-law. He was very frank, and pointed44 out those elements of Bennett’s conduct of which, as a gentleman, he could not approve, but made it clear that they should not stand in the way of a friendly acceptance of the inevitable45.
Upstairs in the drawing-room Annette had found her mother alone with Serge. Mrs. Folyat was knitting a never-ending woollen vest, and Serge was unwinding a skein for her round the back of a chair. Annette told her news. Serge went on winding46 the skein. Mrs. Folyat dropped her knitting, took off her spectacles, put them on again, pushed them up to her forehead and looked Annette up and down. Then very slowly, as though she was groping for her words, she said:
“I am thinking only of your father. This will bring his white hairs in sorrow to the grave.”
“I have told father,” said Annette
[Pg 253]
Mrs. Folyat was too far gone in sentimentality—forged sentiment—to feel anything. She had chosen what she thought the most appropriate and effective method of attack, only to find it parried. She clutched blindly at the first seemingly fit words that came to her mind, those which had already been used by Mrs. Lawrie:
“As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it.”
Serge rose and said:
“That is no reason why you should try to make it more uncomfortable, mother.”
Mrs. Folyat hardly heard him. She had begun to think (the specially47 ordained48 scourge49 of the sentimentalist) what people would say of her; not what they would say of Annette: she was incapable50 of seeing the affair from Annette’s point of view. One of her darling fictions, that of her perfect motherhood, was menaced. She was a she-lioness to protect it: her fictions were to her what her children might have been. With incisive51 and bitter sarcasm52 she assailed53 Annette for the space of two minutes. She predicted that Bennett would take to drink, that he would desert her, that there would be a scandal, and she (Mrs. Folyat) would never be able to hold up her head again. When she could find no more baneful54 prognostications to throw at her offending daughter’s head, she took refuge in tears and began to declare that she wished that she were dead, since all the love she had lavished55 on her children was to be returned with such ingratitude56. They were all ungrateful, all, all—except dear Frederic—and she wished she had never had a daughter. . . . Annette bore it all meekly57, though she was very near breaking down. It had all seemed so simple to her: she loved, she was obeying her love, and all this made it so complicated. . . . Serge’s blood boiled, but he said nothing. He saw that Annette was in an impregnable position, not to be undermined.
Very quietly Annette said:
“I am going to-night, mother. I told father I would stay until to-morrow, but he said I had better go to-night.”
Mrs. Folyat covered her face with her handkerchief. [Pg 254]Tears she knew were unanswerable, but she did not anticipate that Annette would make no attempt to carry the discussion farther. When she removed her handkerchief Annette was gone and Serge was sitting quietly unwinding her skein of wool.
“Serge! Serge!” she said.
“Yes, mother.”
“Has she gone?”
“Yes, mother.”
He turned and looked at her, and under his steady gaze she was silenced. She brought her spectacles down on to her nose, took up her knitting and went on with it. Every now and then she sniffed58.
Serge wound the new skein of wool into a ball and placed it in the basket by her side. He waited for a moment to see if she had anything to say. She only sniffed. Every line in her figure expressed a perfect wallowing in self-pity. He left her to it.
In the street Francis, still clinging to Bennett’s arm, ended his homily thus:
“Marriage, of course, is a blessed condition, and man was not meant to live alone. You will get into difficulties; everybody does. You will look for help; everybody does.—But don’t let it become a habit.”
He had a great deal more to say, but just as, for the fourteenth time, they came opposite the house, the door opened and Serge and Annette came out, he carrying her luggage, a small trunk. In her hands she had two hats of straw, very high in the crown and very small in the brim. Bennett left his father-in-law and rushed over to her.
“Excuse me,” he said to Serge, and took Annette’s trunk from him. Annette laid her hand in his arm and they walked off up the street in the direction of a cab-rank in the main Burdley Road.
Francis joined Serge and they followed close behind.
“And to think,” said Francis, “that Annette should be the first to go, and that she should go like this! . . . What do you, make of it, Serge?”
[Pg 255]
“It would be funny,” replied Serge, “if it were not so pathetic.”
“Just . . . just what I have been feeling. Look at them! They look as if they were going off to an evening’s merry-making.”
“They have forgotten us already.”
That was true. The lovers walked fast, hailed a cab on the rank, and had climbed in to it and were off by the time Serge and Francis came up with them. Serge bawled59 to the driver, the cab stopped, and Annette, conscience-stricken, jumped down and came quickly to her father. Francis drew a ring from his finger, a gold ring set with an emerald, and said:
“I couldn’t let you go without my present.”
“I’m not going far, father.”
“No, my dear, but it is for ever.”
Serge went to Bennett in the cab, shook hands with him, and said:
“You’re doing a bigger thing than you know.”
Bennett wrung60 Serge’s hand, and could find no better expression of his very real emotion than this:
“You’re my brother now, you know.”
Annette came up, kissed Serge, and was promised her finished portrait for a wedding present.
“That’s two!” she said.
“Good-bye, Annette!”
“Good-bye. Good-bye.”
She mounted into the cab again, and its iron wheels went clattering61 over the cobble-stones.
“I wonder,” said Francis, turning homeward, “I wonder if he heard a word of all that I said to him.”
“Did you say much?” asked Serge.
“I struck him.”
Serge laughed.
“It was most extraordinary. An uncontrollable impulse. It needed some explanation, for I meant only to assure him that, in spite of his burglarious entry into it, I accepted him as a member of my family. Do you approve, Serge?”
[Pg 256]
“I believe in Annette. I would rather be Annette than Gertrude or Mary or Minna.”
“So would I. I wonder why?”
“You won’t agree with me, but I detest62 all this repression63 of emotion in the name of virtue64. It is nothing but cowardice65. You can’t destroy emotion by suppressing it. It only goes bad. . . . I’m only thankful to see Annette out of your house and away fighting for her own hand.”
“Theoretically I cannot applaud Annette, but, frankly66, I must confess that I am excited and curiously uplifted by her open defiance of . . .”
“My dear father, you are a sentimentalist yearning67 over love’s young dream. Annette knew that—instinctively. She knew that you would expect her to live on love’s young dream indefinitely, until the bloom was gone from her youth and the edge from her appetite. She knew that she could not trust you. Still less my mother. She took the law into her own hands, and I admire her for it.”
Francis walked on for some moments in silence. At the gate he said:
“I have reason to respect your opinions, Serge, but I heartily68 dislike them. . . . Will you come and help me in the greenhouse? I should be obliged if you will stay with me to-night until your mother is in bed and asleep. It will be so bad for her to talk.”
Mary saw her mother to bed and then came to say good-night to her father. She wore an expression of intense gloom as she pecked at his cheek. She patted his shoulder as though to tell him to be a little man and bear it.
Minna came.
“I shall be the next, pa.”
“Not another elopement, my dear.”
“No, pa. . . I want to send a piece of my wedding-cake to Annette. Will you give me away, Serge?”
[Pg 257]
“With all my heart.”
Minna kissed her father and pulled his beard as she used to do when she was a little girl.
At the door of the greenhouse she turned:
“I shall have Gertrude and Mary for my bridesmaids. Won’t they be pleased? . . .”
“Go to bed,” said Francis.
“We gave Ma some hot gin and water to make her sleep,” said Minna, and she winked69 at Serge. She went away light-heartedly, humming the Dead March in Saul.
Gertrude did not appear.
At half-past twelve Serge went up to his mother’s room, peeped in, saw her sleeping, gently closed the door, and tip-toed away. He told his father.
“Thank God, for that,” said Francis. “I was afraid she . . .”
He took up the lamp and began slowly to move when there came a peremptory70 ring at the front-door bell. The lamp in his hand rattled71, and he went to open the door. He saw a policeman standing on the door-step. He was so startled and alarmed that he could find nothing to say.
“Anything wrong, constable72?” asked Serge.
“The Reverend Mr. Folyat?”
“My name,” answered Francis. “Anything wrong?”
“We’ve got a gentleman at the station; gave us your name for bail73, Mr. Folyat.”
“A gentleman?”
“Yessir. Drunk and obscene language.”
“Have a drink, constable?” said Serge.
“Well, sir . . .”
They went into the study. The constable was refreshed, and told how an old man in a rusty74 green coat and a battered75 silk hat had been brought into the station and for many hours had refused to give his name or any information about himself. He was not known to the police. The arrest took place early in the afternoon. At eleven o’clock he had asked for bail, referred the police [Pg 258]to Mr. Folyat and given his name, but no address. His name was James Lawrie.
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Francis. “Mr. Lawrie! Dear me! Poor gentleman. . . . Will you come with me, Serge?”
They went out as quietly as they could. With his hand on the knob of the front door Serge heard his mother calling from the landing:
“Serge! Francis! Frank!”
He closed the door and ran after his father and the constable, who were already some way up the street.
At the police-station they were kept for some time in the waiting-room until, escorted by a brawny76 officer, old Lawrie appeared before them. He was clearly only just roused from sleep. He looked extremely disreputable, with his hat hanging over one eye and his bushy white hair sticking out under the hat. His white beard was filthy77 with mud and blood. He stood blinking at the light and peering at Francis. After a moment or two he recognised him, removed his hat, and stood with bowed head.
“This is Mr. Folyat,” said the inspector78.
“Aye.”
“Mr. Folyat will go bail for you. You must give your address, age, and occupation.”
Old Lawrie mumbled79 so inarticulately that Francis was appealed to. He gave the address, age, and occupation of Bennett’s father.
After a formality or two they were shown out politely, and old Lawrie was bidden to attend in court the next morning.
He said:
“Aye.”
Out in the street he shook himself like a wet dog. Francis said kindly80:
“I am sorry indeed to meet you again in such unfortunate circumstances, Mr. Lawrie.”
“Blethers!” said the old man. “One prison is like unto another. Man. I’ve made a philosophical81 discovery of the first magnitude. The dirty soul of man was written [Pg 259]on the walls of my cell. . . . When last we met—as they say in the plays—you were kind enough to listen to some verses of mine. What d’ye think of this?”
He took a deep breath, and blew out his chest.
“I composed it as I lay on the hard board in my cell. I wrote it on the wall among the rest, for the benefit and better understanding of my successors:
This place is but a room in Hell,
Damned for the punishment of thieves
Who steal their brothers’ booty; for ’tis sure
The small thief starves on what the big thief leaves.
What d’ye think of it?”
“Admirable!” said Serge.
Old Lawrie turned to him:
“And who may you be? You’ve a bonny voice.”
“My son,” said Francis, glad to say something, for it had just occurred to him that this old lunatic was the father of his new son-in-law. He was infinitely82 relieved when Serge said in a whisper:
“I’ll take him home. It’s on my way.”
They parted company as they came into the Burdley Road. Francis watched Serge and the shambling figure of the old man disappear into the darkness, and then, ruefully enough, walked home. It would be difficult, he thought, to persuade his wife to make light of old Lawrie’s foibles.
“I shall never be able,” he said to himself, “to make her see that Annette has married the son and not the father.”
Indeed, when he told his wife of that night’s adventure—and she kept him at it until half-past four in the morning—it became very clear to him that not Annette’s secrecy83 nor her highhandedness nor her want of faith in her parents was one-half so bitter to her as the fact that Bennett was, with natural inadvertence, his father’s son.
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1
gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3
scourging
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| 鞭打( scourge的现在分词 )； 惩罚，压迫 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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blithe
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| adj.快乐的，无忧无虑的 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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generically
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| adv.一般地 | |
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discrepancy
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| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
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vilifying
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| v.中伤，诽谤( vilify的现在分词 ) | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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talons
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| n.（尤指猛禽的）爪( talon的名词复数 )；（如爪般的）手指；爪状物；锁簧尖状突出部 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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devastating
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| adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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vividly
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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poignancy
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| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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miserable
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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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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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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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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craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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belied
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| v.掩饰( belie的过去式和过去分词 )；证明（或显示）…为虚假；辜负；就…扯谎 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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baneful
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| adj.有害的 | |
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lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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bawled
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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bail
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| v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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brawny
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| adj.强壮的 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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