So we had climbed the zigzags4 to the right of the Riffelberg and followed the footpath5 overlooking the glacier6, in the silence enjoined7 by single file, but at last we were seated on the hillside, a trifle beyond that emerald patch which some humourist has christened the Cricket-ground. Beneath us were the serracs of the Gorner Glacier, teased and tousled like a fringe of frozen breakers. Beyond the serracs was the main stream of comparatively smooth ice, with its mourning band of moraine, and beyond that the mammoth8 sweep and curve of the Théodule where these glaciers9 join. Peak after peak of dazzling snow dwindled10 away to the left. Only the gaunt Riffelhorn reared a brown head against the blue. And there we sat, Mrs. Lascelles and I, with all this before us and a rock behind, while I wondered what my companion meant to say, and how she would begin.
I had not to wonder long.
"You were very good to me last night, Captain Clephane."
There was evidently no beating about the bush for Mrs. Lascelles. I thoroughly11 approved, but was nevertheless somewhat embarrassed for the moment.
"I—really I don't know how, Mrs. Lascelles!"
"Oh, yes, you do, Captain Clephane; you recognised me at a glance, as I did you."
"You know you did."
"You are making me know it."
"Captain Clephane, you knew it all along; but we won't argue that point. I am not going to deny my identity. It is very good of you to give me the chance, if rather unnecessary. I am not a criminal. Still you could have made me feel like one, last night, and heaps of men would have done so, either for the fun of it or from want of tact13."
I looked inquiringly at Mrs. Lascelles. She could tell me what she pleased, but I was not going to anticipate her by displaying an independent knowledge of matters which she might still care to keep to herself. If she chose to open up a painful subject, well, the pain be upon her own head. Yet I must say that there was very little of it in her face as our eyes met. There was the eager candour that one could not help admiring, with the glowing look of gratitude14 which I had done so ridiculously little to earn; but the fine flushed face betrayed neither pain, nor shame, nor the affectation of one or the other. There was a certain shyness with the candour. That was all.
"You know quite well what I mean," continued Mrs. Lascelles, with a genuine smile at my disingenuous15 face. "When you met me before it was under another name, which you have probably quite forgotten."
"No, I remember it."
"Do you remember my husband?"
"Did you ever hear—"
Her lip trembled. I dropped my eyes.
"Yes," I admitted, "or rather I saw it for myself in the papers. It's no use pretending I didn't, nor yet that I was the least bit surprised or—or anything else!"
That was not one of my tactful speeches. It was culpably17, might indeed have been wilfully18, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and impulsive19 utterance20 which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence. My instincts about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all. Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, and my companion only broke it as I was in the act of framing an apology.
"May I bore you, Captain Clephane?" she asked abruptly21. I looked at her once more. She had regained22 an equal mastery of face and voice, and the admirable candour of her eyes was undimmed by the smallest trace of tears.
"You may try," said I, smiling with the obvious gallantry.
"If I tell you something about myself from that time on, will you believe what I say?"
"You are the last person whom I should think of disbelieving."
"Thank you, Captain Clephane."
"On the other hand, I would much rather you didn't say anything that gave you pain, or that you might afterward23 regret."
There was a touch of weariness in Mrs. Lascelles's smile, a rather pathetic touch to my mind, as she shook her head.
"I am not very sensitive to pain," she remarked. "That is the one thing to be said for having to bear a good deal while you are fairly young. I want you to know more about me, because I believe you are the only person here who knows anything at all. And then—you didn't give me away last night!"
I pointed24 to the grassy25 ledge3 in front of us, such a vivid green against the house now a hundred feet below.
"I am not pushing you over there," I said. "I take about as much credit for that."
"Ah," sighed Mrs. Lascelles, "but that dear boy, who turns out to be a friend of yours, he knows less than anybody else! He doesn't even suspect. It would have hurt me, yes, it would have hurt even me, to be given away to him! You didn't do it while I was there, and I know you didn't when I had turned my back."
"Of course you know I didn't," I echoed rather testily26 as I took out a cigarette. The case reminded me of the night before. But I did not again hand it to Mrs. Lascelles.
"Well, then," she continued, "since you didn't give me away, even without thinking, I want you to know that after all there isn't quite so much to give away as there might have been. A divorce, of course, is always a divorce; there is no getting away from that, or from mine. But I really did marry again. And I really am the widow they think I am."
I looked quickly up at her, in pure pity and compassion27 for one gone so far in sorrow and yet such a little way in life. It was a sudden feeling, an unpremeditated look, but I might as well have spoken aloud. Mrs. Lascelles read me unerringly, and she shook her head, sadly but decidedly, while her eyes gazed calmly into mine.
"It was not a happy marriage, either," she said, as impersonally28 as if speaking of another woman. "You may think what you like of me for saying so to a comparative stranger; but I won't have your sympathy on false pretences29, simply because Major Lascelles is dead. Did you ever meet him, by the way?"
"Well, it was not very happy for either of us. I suppose such marriages never are. I know they are never supposed to be. Even if the couple are everything to each other, there is all the world to point his finger, and all the world's wife to turn her back, and you have to care a good deal to get over that. But you may have been desperate in the first instance; you may have said to yourself that the fire couldn't be much worse than the frying-pan. In that case, of course, you deserve no sympathy, and nothing is more irritating to me than the sympathy I don't deserve. It's a matter of temperament31; I'm obliged to speak out, even if it puts people more against me than they were already. No, you needn't say anything, Captain Clephane; you didn't express your sympathy, I stopped you in time.... And yet it is rather hard, when one's still reasonably young, with almost everything before one—to be a marked woman all one's time!"
Up to her last words, despite an inviting32 pause after almost every sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing33 upon herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my word, until these last two or three from Mrs. Lascelles. They, however, demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in such terms.
"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew me here. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I should have known of it indirectly34 instead of directly; but even supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would probably have made up for it."
"Do you stay much in hotels?"
There had been something in the mellow35 voice which made such a question only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good deal to recall it.
"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs. Lascelles, "unless one sets up house alone, which is costlier36 and far less comfortable. You see, one does make a friend or two sometimes—before one is found out."
"But surely your people—"
This time I did check myself.
"My people," said Mrs. Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me."
"But Major Lascelles—surely his people—"
"They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of madness in their eyes was his marriage. It was worse than the worst thing he had ever done before. Still, it is not for me to say anything, or feel anything, against his family...."
And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck37 of her life so young, who was so utterly38 alone, so proud and independent in her loneliness, and apparently39 quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little different in kind; but even with my solicitude40 for them there mingled41 already no small consideration for the social solitary42 whom I watched now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a world of high lights and great backgrounds, and whom to watch was to admire, even against the greatest of them all. Alas43! mere44 admiration45 could not change my task or stay my hand; it could but clog46 me by destroying my singleness of purpose, and giving me a double heart to match my double face.
Since, however, a detestable duty had been undertaken, and since as a duty it was more apparent than I had dreamt of finding it, there was nothing for it but to go through with the thing and make immediate47 enemies of my friends. So I set my teeth and talked of Bob. I was glad Mrs. Lascelles liked him. His father was a remote connection of mine, whom I had never met. But I had once known his mother very well.
"And what is she like?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, calling her fine eyes home from infinity48, and fixing them once more on me.
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1
divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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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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4
zigzags
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| n.锯齿形的线条、小径等( zigzag的名词复数 )v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的第三人称单数 ) | |
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footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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glacier
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| n.冰川，冰河 | |
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enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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glaciers
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| 冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 ) | |
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10
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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12
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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13
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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disingenuous
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| adj.不诚恳的，虚伪的 | |
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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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culpably
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| adv.该罚地，可恶地 | |
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wilfully
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| adv.任性固执地；蓄意地 | |
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19
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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testily
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| adv. 易怒地, 暴躁地 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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impersonally
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| ad.非人称地 | |
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pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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30
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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32
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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33
bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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36
costlier
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| adj.昂贵的( costly的比较级 )；代价高的；引起困难的；造成损失的 | |
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37
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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38
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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40
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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41
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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42
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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43
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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44
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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45
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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46
clog
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| vt.塞满，阻塞；n.[常pl.]木屐 | |
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47
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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48
infinity
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| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
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