It was one of those moments in life when one is taken unawares. I think our common realization8 of the need of masking the reality of our encounter, the hasty search in our minds for some plausible9 face upon this meeting, must have been very obvious to the lady who observed us. Mary's first thought was for a pseudonym10. Mine was to make it plain we met by accident.
"It's Mr.—Stephen!" said Mary.
"It's you!"
"Dropped out of the sky!"
"Very late?"
"One gleam of light—and a yawning waiter. Or I should have had to break windows.... And then I meet you!"
Then for a moment or so we were silent, with our sense of the immense gravity of this position growing upon us. A little tow-headed waiter-boy appeared with their coffee and rolls on a tray poised12 high on his hand.
"You'll have your coffee out here with us?" said Mary.
"Where else?" said I, as though there was no conceivable alternative, and told the tow-headed waiter.
Belatedly Mary turned to introduce me to her secretary: "My friend Miss Summersley Satchel. Mr.—Stephen." Miss Satchel and I bowed to each other and agreed that the lake was very beautiful in the morning light. "Mr. Stephen," said Mary, in entirely13 unnecessary explanation, "is an old friend of my mother's. And I haven't seen him for years. How is Mrs. Stephen—and the children?"
I answered briefly14 and began to tell of my climb down the Titlis. I addressed myself with unnecessary explicitness15 to Miss Satchel. I did perhaps over-accentuate the extreme fortuitousness of my appearance.... From where I stood, the whole course of the previous day after I had come over the shoulder was visible. It seemed a soft little shining pathway to the top, but the dangers of the descent had a romantic intensification16 in the morning light. "The rule of the game," said I, "is that one stops and waits for daylight. I wonder if anyone keeps that rule."
We talked for a time of mountains, I still standing17 a little aloof18 until my coffee came. Miss Summersley Satchel produced that frequent and most unpleasant bye-product of a British education, an intelligent interest in etymology19. "I wonder," she said, with a brow of ruffled20 omniscience21 and eyeing me rather severely22 with a magnified eye, "why it is called Titlis. There must be some reason...."
Presently Miss Satchel was dismissed indoors on a transparent23 excuse and Mary and I were alone together. We eyed one another gravely. Perhaps all the more gravely because of the wild excitement that was quickening our pulse and breathing, and thrilling through our nerves. She pushed back the plate before her and put her dear elbows on the table and dropped her chin between her hands in an attitude that seemed all made of little memories.
"I suppose," she said, "something of this kind was bound to happen."
She turned her eyes to the mountains shining in the morning light. "I'm glad it has happened in a beautiful place. It might have been—anywhere."
"Last night," I said, "I was thinking of you and wanting to hear your voice again. I thought I did."
"I too. I wonder—if we had some dim perception...."
She scanned my face. "Stephen, you're not much changed. You're looking well.... But your eyes—they're dog-tired eyes. Have you been working too hard?"
"A conference—what did you call them once?—a Carnegieish conference in London. Hot weather and fussing work and endless hours of weak grey dusty speeches, and perhaps that clamber over there yesterday was too much. It was too much. In India I damaged a leg.... I had meant to rest here for a day."
"Well,—rest here."
"With you!"
"Why not? Now you are here."
"But—— After all, we've promised."
"It's none of our planning, Stephen."
"It seems to me I ought to go right on—so soon as breakfast is over."
She weighed that with just the same still pause, the same quiet moment of lips and eyes that I recalled so well. It was as things had always been between us that she should make her decision first and bring me to it.
"It isn't natural," she decided24, "with the sun rising and the day still freshly beginning that you should go or that I should go. I've wanted to meet you like this and talk about things,—ten thousand times. And as for[Pg 329] me Stephen I won't go. And I won't let you go if I can help it. Not this morning, anyhow. No. Go later in the day if you will, and let us two take this one talk that God Himself has given us. We've not planned it. It's His doing, not ours."
I sat, yielding. "I am not so sure of God's participation," I said. "But I know I am very tired, and glad to be with you. I can't tell you how glad. So glad—— I think I should weep if I tried to say it...."
"Three, four, five hours perhaps—even if people know. Is it so much worse than thirty minutes? We've broken the rules already; we've been flung together; it's not our doing, Stephen. A little while longer—adds so little to the offence and means to us——"
"Yes," I said, "but—if Justin knows?"
"He won't."
"Your companion?"
There was the briefest moment of reflection. "She's discretion25 itself," she said.
"Still——"
"If he's going to know the harm is done. We may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. And he won't know. No one will know."
"The people here."
"Nobody's here. Not a soul who matters. I doubt if they know my name.... No one ever talks to me."
I sat in the bright sunshine, profoundly enervated26 and quite convinced, but still maintaining out of mere27 indolence a show of hesitation28....
"You take the good things God sends you, Stephen—as I do. You stay and talk with me now, before the curtain falls again. We've tired of letters. You stay and talk to me.
"Here we are, Stephen, and it's the one chance that is ever likely to come to us in all our lives. We'll keep the point of honor; and you shall go to-day. But don't let's drive the point of honor into the quick. Go easy Stephen, old friend.... My dear, my dear! What has happened to you? Have you forgotten? Of course! Is it possible for you to go, mute, with so much that we can say.... And these mountains and this sunlight!..."
I looked up to see her with her elbows on the table and her hands clasped under her chin; that face close to mine, her dear blue eyes watching me and her lips a little apart.
No other human being has ever had that effect upon me, so that I seem to feel the life and stir in that other body more than I feel my own.
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1
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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3
satchel
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| n.(皮或帆布的)书包 | |
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4
corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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5
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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7
tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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8
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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9
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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10
pseudonym
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| n.假名，笔名 | |
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11
benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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12
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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13
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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14
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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15
explicitness
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16
intensification
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| n.激烈化，增强明暗度；加厚 | |
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17
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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18
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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19
etymology
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| n.语源；字源学 | |
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20
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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21
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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22
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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23
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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24
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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25
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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26
enervated
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| adj.衰弱的，无力的v.使衰弱，使失去活力( enervate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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28
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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