“Hello, old dear!” she scrawled4. “How’s every little thing? It’s a gay life if you don’t weaken! I haven’t—I’m only taking a long beauty sleep, and if it gets calmer I’ll meet you on deck tonight.”
Jerome was quite excited over the note. He had never received a note like this before. While they were still engaged, Stella had written him three or four letters from Los Gatos, where she had gone on a trip in the summer; but these letters had differed acutely from the note just received from Lili. There was something about Lili’s note, with its vague department store aroma5, that made Jerome tingle6 excitedly. He was very sure none of the clerks he knew in Market street had ever received such a note.
[87]
There was no moon, but the stars were rich and wonderful. She had dragged up blankets from her bunk, and sat snug7 in them on deck—a trifle subdued8, perhaps, by the mighty9 sway of the sea, though she beamed almost as dazzlingly as ever, her eyes opening wider and wider in the starlight till the poor clerk was nearly beside himself.
She asked him if he didn’t want part of her blankets, and he said, very earnestly, oh no, he wasn’t cold. “But you haven’t any overcoat.” No, that was true—because he hadn’t worn one to Girardin’s. Everything seemed to date back to Girardin’s. “Say,” he demanded, “has it seemed long since that night?”
“Has it seemed long!” she exclaimed. “My Gawd!”
“A lot can happen in a little while sometimes,” he mused10. “It seems as though more has happened since that night than altogether in my whole life!”
She grabbed the clerk frantically11. “I thought we were going clear over that time! Don’t it seem so to you when we tip so far?”
Sensations rather similar had not been stranger to his own brain; indeed, furtively12, once or twice earlier in the day he had thought: “I’m a goner!” and tried to recall a very concise13 prayer, and had seen his whole life drawn14 into a swift, convenient synthesis; but the loyal old craft, somehow or other, always managed to come creaking back, and went right on about her business. “It’s perfectly15 safe,” he assured her. The calm may have been egregious16, but there was a genuine throb17 back of his suggestion: “Would you like me to hold onto you so you’d feel more steady?”
“Listen to him!” she tittered, snuggling down into her nest and gazing over at him enticingly18. She half closed her eyes and gave him a vampire19 look.
Jerome, just then, felt as though he would be willing to do anything in the world for Lili. Anything she might ask. He had reached an abject20 phase in his romantic feeling for her. Lili charmed and hypnotized him, made the[88] blood go racing21. No girl had ever affected22 him just this way before.
“Aren’t the stars grand tonight?” she cried, wrinkling her smooth forehead a little, as though making a real and quite taxing effort to appreciate God’s celestial23 accomplishment24. “Did you ever see ’em so big?”
Jerome never had.
“I just love to be out on the ocean,” she sighed, “but ain’t-it-awful-Mabel to think where we’d go to if the boat would go all the way over?”
“I’m crazy to get to Honolulu,” the girl observed.
So was Jerome.
“Have you ever been there?”
“No.”
“I hear there’s a wonderful beach where it’s always moonlight, and everybody plays on those things—”
“Ukuleles?”
“That’s it!”
“I used to have one.”
“You did? What a pity you didn’t bring it along—to Girardin’s,” she added with a little humorous smile. “It would sound sweet a night like this on the water, wouldn’t it?”
He agreed. There was a warm silence. Then she began singing, in a dreamy voice:
“I want to be the leading lady,
I want to have the all-star part....”
She yawned, in a pleasantly relaxed way, and snuggled. “I hate to go to bed a night like this,” she sighed.
Jerome suggested daringly: “Let’s stay up all night!”
Then she tittered again and narrowed her eyes. But for all her lightness, it was becoming obvious that Lili’s attitude toward Jerome had altered somewhat since the day she had[89] gone around with the petition about tie clips. She still beamed on him, of course, because Lili wouldn’t know how to look at any man without more or less beaming. But she also looked at him not a little seriously. He didn’t, somehow, seem quite so funny to look at as he had at first, and he didn’t talk so stiffly.
After a little she asked: “What are you going to do when we get there?”
Jerome didn’t know.
“Haven’t you any idea?”
“Then why do you go back?”
“What can I do?”
“If you could only sing, you might join us in the chorus!”
“I wish I could sing,” he said.
“Ever try?”
“Yes. I sound like one of the fog horns on Yerba Buena during a tule fog!”
She laughed. “It’s a pity, because you could stick around.”
“I’ve often thought I’d like to go on the stage if I ever got a chance....”
“Do you think he’d take me on?”
“N-no,” she replied.
“Do you think I ought not to go back?”
“I’m not much at handing out advice,” she replied, quite seriously, the stars making her big eyes strangely bright, “but if I was you I’d certainly keep on going, now you got started.”
“Yes,” he said, a new determination in his voice. “I guess you’re right. Great Scott! It certainly does seem years since Girardin’s!”
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收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
enquiring
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| a.爱打听的，显得好奇的 | |
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2
bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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3
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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6
tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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7
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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8
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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9
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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10
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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11
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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12
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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13
concise
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| adj.简洁的，简明的 | |
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14
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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15
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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16
egregious
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| adj.非常的，过分的 | |
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17
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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18
enticingly
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19
vampire
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| n.吸血鬼 | |
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20
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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21
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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22
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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23
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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24
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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25
plowed
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| v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过 | |
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26
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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27
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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28
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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30
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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31
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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32
curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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33
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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