'Is Mr. Angus often as late as this?' Mary's brother paused to ask at the gate.
'Why, sir,' the porter answered, 'I am on duty until eight o'clock, and as likely as not he will still be sitting there when I go. His shadow up there has become a sort of companion to me in the long nights, but I sometimes wonder what has come over the gentleman of late.'
'He is busy, I suppose; that is all,' Dick said sharply.
The porter shook his head doubtfully, like one who knew the ways of literary hands. He probably wrote himself.
'Mr. Angus only came in from his office at three o'clock,' he said, 'and you would think he would have had enough of writing by that time. You can see his arm going on the blind though yet, and it won't be out of his common if he has another long walk before he goes to bed.'
'Does he walk so late as this?' asked Dick, to whom six in the morning was an hour of the night.
'I never knew such a gentleman for walking,' replied the porter, 'and when I open the gate to him he is off at six miles an hour. I can hear the echo of his feet two or three streets off. He doesn't look as if he did it for pleasure either.'
'What else would he do it for?'
'I can't say. He looks as if he wanted to run away from himself.'
Dick passed out, with a forced laugh. He knew that since saying good-bye to Mary at Sunbury Station, Rob had hardly dared to stop working and face the future. The only rest Rob got was when he was striding along the great thoroughfares, where every one's life seemed to have a purpose except his own. But it was only when he asked himself for what end he worked that he stopped working. There were moments when he could not believe that it was all over. He saw himself dead, and the world going on as usual. When he read what he had written the night before, he wondered how people could be interested in such matters. The editor of the Wire began to think of this stolid6 Scotsman every time there was a hitch7 in the office, but Rob scarcely noticed that he was making progress. It could only mean ten or twenty pounds more a month; and what was that to a man who had only himself to think of, and had gathered a library on twenty shillings a week? He bought some good cigars, however.
Dick, who was longing8 for his father's return from the Continent, so that the responsibility for this miserable9 business might be transferred to the colonel's shoulders, frequently went into Rob's rooms to comfort him, but did not know how to do it. They sat silently on opposite sides of the very hearthrug which Mary had once made a remark about—Rob had looked interestedly at the rug after she went away—and each thought that, but for the other's sake, he would rather be alone.
What Dick felt most keenly was Rob's increased regard for him. Rob never spoke10 of the Tawny11 Owl12 without an effort, but he showed that he appreciated Dick's unspoken sympathy. If affairs could have righted themselves in that way, Mary's brother would have preferred to be turned with contumely out of Rob's rooms, where, as it was, and despite his friendship for Rob, he seemed now to be only present on false pretences13. Dick was formally engaged to Nell now, but he tried at times to have no patience with Rob. Perhaps he thought a little sadly in his own rooms that to be engaged is not all the world.
Dick had hoped that the misunderstanding which parted Rob and Mary at Sunbury would keep them apart without further intervention14 from him. That was not to be. The next time he went to Molesey he was asked why he had not brought Mr. Angus with him, and though it was not Mary who asked the question, she stopped short on her way out of the saloon to hear his answer.
'He did not seem to want to come,' Dick replied reluctantly.
'I know why Mr. Angus would not come with you,' Nell said to Dick when they were alone; 'he thinks Mary is engaged to Sir Clement15.'
'Nonsense,' said Dick.
'I am sure of it,' said Nell; 'you know we all thought so that day we were up the river.'
'Then let him think so if he chooses,' Dick said harshly. 'It is no affair of his.'
'Oh, it is!' Nell exclaimed. 'But I suppose it would never do, Dick?'
'What you are thinking of is quite out of the question,' replied Dick, feeling that it was a cruel fate which compelled him to act a father's part to Mary; 'and besides, Mary does not care for him like that. She told me so herself.'
'Oh, but she does,' Nell replied, in a tone of conviction.
'Did she tell you so?'
'No, she said she didn't,' answered Nell, as if that made no difference.
'Well,' said Dick wearily, 'it is much better that Angus should not come here again.'
Nevertheless, when Dick returned to London he carried in his pocket an invitation to Rob to spend the following Saturday at the Tawny Owl. It was a very nice note in Mary Abinger's handwriting, and Dick would have liked to drop it over the Hungerfield Bridge. He gave it to Rob, however, and stood on the defensive16.
The note began, 'Dear Mr. Angus, Mrs. Meredith would be very pleased if you could——'
The blood came to Rob's face as he saw the handwriting, but it went as quickly.
'They ask me down next Saturday,' Rob said bluntly to Dick, 'but you know why I can't go.'
'You had better come,' miserable Dick said, defying himself.
'She is to marry Dowton, is she not?' Rob asked, but with no life in his voice.
Dick turned away his head, to leave the rest to fate.
'So, of course I must not go,' Rob continued bravely.
Dick did not dare to look him in the face, but Rob put his hand on the shoulder of Mary's brother.
'I was a madman,' he said, 'to think that she could ever have cared for me, but this will not interfere17 with our friendship, Abinger?'
'Surely not,' said Dick, taking Rob's hand.
It was one of those awful moments in men's lives when they allow, face to face, that they like each other.
Rob concluded that Mrs. Meredith, knowing nothing of his attachment18 for Mary, saw no reason why he should not return to the house-boat, and that circumstances had compelled Mary to write the invitation. His blundering honesty would not let him concoct19 a polite excuse for declining it, and Mrs. Meredith took his answer amiss, while Nell dared not say what she thought for fear of Dick. Mary read his note over once, and then went for a solitary20 walk round the island. Rob saw her from the tow-path where he had been prowling about for hours in hopes of catching21 a last glimpse of her. Her face was shaded beneath her big straw hat, and no baby-yacht, such as the Thames sports, ever glided22 down the river more prettily23 than she tripped along the island path. Once her white frock caught in a dilapidated seat, and she had to stoop to loosen it. Rob's heart stopped beating for a moment just then. The way Mary extricated24 herself was another revelation. He remembered having thought it delightful25 that she seldom knew what day of the month it was, and having looked on in an ecstasy26 while she searched for the pocket of her dress. The day before Mrs. Meredith had not been able to find her pocket, and Rob had thought it foolish of ladies not to wear their pockets where they could be more easily got at.
Rob did not know it, but Mary saw him. She had but to beckon27, and in three minutes he would have been across the ferry. She gave no sign, however, but sat dreamily on the ramshackle seat that patient anglers have used until the Thames fishes must think seat and angler part of the same vegetable. Though Mary would not for worlds have let him know that she saw him, she did not mind his standing afar off and looking at her. Once after that Rob started involuntarily for Molesey, but realising what he was about by the time he reached Surbiton, he got out of the train there and returned to London.
An uneasy feeling possessed28 Dick that Mary knew of the misunderstanding which kept Rob away, and possibly even of her brother's share in fostering it. If so, she was too proud to end it. He found that if he mentioned Rob to her she did not answer a word. Nell's verbal experiments in the same direction met with a similar fate, and every one was glad when the colonel reappeared to take command.
Colonel Abinger was only in London for a few days, being on his way to Glen Quharity, the tenant29 of which was already telegraphing him glorious figures about the grouse30. Mary was going too, and the Merediths were shortly to return to Silchester.
'There is a Thrums man on this stair,' Dick said to his father one afternoon in Frobisher's Inn, 'a particular friend of mine, though I have treated him villainously.'
'Ah,' said the colonel, who had just come up from the house-boat, 'then you might have him in, and make your difference up. Perhaps he could give me some information about the shooting.'
'Possibly,' Dick said; 'but we have no difference to make up, because he thinks me as honest as himself. You have met him, I believe.'
'What did you say his name was?'
'His name is Angus.'
'I can't recall any Angus.'
'Ah, you never knew him so well as Mary and I do.'
'Mary?' asked the colonel, looking up quickly.
'Yes,' said Dick. 'Do you remember a man from a Silchester paper who was at the castle last Christmas?'
'What!' cried the colonel, 'an underbred, poaching fellow who——'
'Not at all,' said Dick, 'an excellent gentleman, who is to make his mark here, and, as I have said, my very particular friend.'
'I have something more to tell you of him,' continued Dick remorselessly. 'I have reason to believe, as we say on the Press when hard up for copy, that he is in love with Mary.'
The colonel sprang from his seat. 'Be calm,' said Dick.
'I am calm,' cried the colonel, not saying another word, so fearful was he of what Dick might tell him next.
'That would not, perhaps, so much matter,' Dick said, coming to rest at the back of a chair, 'if it were not that Mary seems to have an equal regard for him.'
Colonel Abinger's hands clutched the edge of the table, and it was not a look of love he cast at Dick.
'If this be true,' he exclaimed, his voice breaking in agitation33, 'I shall never forgive you, Richard, never. But I don't believe it.'
Dick felt sorry for his father.
'It is a fact that has to be faced,' he said, more gently.
'Not a bit of it,' said Dick. 'He may be on the regular staff of the Wire any day now.'
'You dare to look me in the face, and tell me you have encouraged this, this——' cried the colonel, choking in a rush of words.
'Quite the contrary,' Dick said; 'I have done more than I had any right to do to put an end to it.'
'Then it is ended?'
'I can't say.'
'In a manner,' Dick said, 'you are responsible for the whole affair. Do you remember when you were at Glen Quharity two or three years ago asking a parson called Rorrison, father of Rorrison the war correspondent, to use his son's Press influence on behalf of a Thrums man? Well, Angus is that man. Is it not strange how this has come about?'
'It is enough to make me hate myself,' replied the irate35 colonel, though it had not quite such an effect as that.
When his father had subsided36 a little, Dick told him of what had been happening in England during the last month or two. There had been a change of Government, but the chief event was the audacity37 of a plebeian38 in casting his eyes on a patrician's daughter. What are politics when the pipes in the bath-room burst?
'So you see,' Dick said in conclusion, 'I have acted the part of the unrelenting parent fairly well, and I don't like it.'
'Had I been in your place,' replied the colonel, 'I would have acted it a good deal better.'
'You would have told Angus that you considered him, upon the whole, the meanest thing that crawls, and that if he came within a radius39 of five miles of your daughter you would have the law of him? Yes; but that sort of trespassing40 is not actionable nowadays; and besides, I don't know what Mary might have said.'
'Trespassing!' echoed the colonel; 'I could have had the law of him for trespassing nearly a year ago.'
'You mean that time you caught him fishing in the Dome41? I only heard of that at second-hand42, but I have at least no doubt that he fished to some effect.'
'He can fish,' admitted the colonel; 'I should like to know what flies he used.'
Dick laughed.
'Angus,' he said, 'is a man with a natural aptitude43 for things. He does not, I suspect, even make love like a beginner.'
'You are on his side, Richard.'
'There will be no more shuffling,' said the colonel fiercely. 'I shall see this man and tell him what I think of him. As for Mary——'
He paused.
'Yes,' said Dick, 'Mary is the difficulty. At present I cannot even tell you what she is thinking of it all. Mary is the one person I could never look in the face when I meditated45 an underhand action—I remember how that sense of honour of hers used to annoy me when I was a boy—and so I have not studied her countenance46 much of late.'
'She shall marry Dowton,' said the colonel decisively.
'It is probably a pity, but I don't think she will,' replied Dick. 'Of course you can prevent her marrying Angus by simply refusing your consent.'
'Yes, and I shall refuse it.'
'Though it should break her heart she will never complain,' said Dick, 'but it does seem a little hard on Mary that we should mar4 her life rather than endure a disappointment ourselves.'
'You don't look at it in the proper light,' said the colonel, who, like most persons, made the proper light himself; 'in saving her from this man we do her the greatest kindness in our power.'
'Um,' said Dick, 'of course. That was how I put it to myself, but just consider Angus calmly, and see what case we have against him.'
'He is not a gentleman,' said the colonel.
'He ought not to be, according to the proper light, but he is.'
'Pshaw!' the colonel exclaimed pettishly47. 'He may have worked himself up into some sort of position, like other discontented men of his class, but he never had a father.'
'He says he had a very good one. Weigh him, if you like, against Dowton, who is a good fellow in his way, but never, so far as I know, did an honest day's work in his life. Dowton's whole existence has been devoted48 to pleasure-seeking, while Angus has been climbing up ever since he was born, and with a heavy load on his back, too, most of the time. If he goes on as he is doing, he will have both a good income and a good position shortly.'
'Dowton's position is made,' said the colonel.
'Exactly,' said Dick, 'and Angus is making his for himself. Whatever other distinction we draw between them is a selfish one, and I question if it does us much credit.'
'I have no doubt,' said the colonel, 'that Mary's pride will make her see this matter as I do.'
'It will at least make her sacrifice herself for our pride, if you insist on that.'
Mary's father loved her as he had loved her mother, though he liked to have his own way with both of them. His voice broke a little as he answered Dick.
'You have a poor opinion of your father, my boy,' he said. 'I think I would endure a good deal if Mary were to be the happier for it.'
Dick felt a little ashamed of himself.
'Whatever I may say,' he answered, 'I have at least acted much as you would have done yourself. Forgive me, father.'
'Let us talk of your affairs rather, Richard,' he said. 'I have at least nothing to say against Miss Meredith.'
Dick moved uncomfortably in his chair, and then stood up, thinking he heard a knock at the door.
'Are you there, Abinger?' some one called out. 'I have something very extraordinary to tell you.'
Dick looked at his father, and hesitated. 'It is Angus,' he said.
'Let him in,' said the colonel.
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收听单词发音
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1
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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3
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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4
mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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5
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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6
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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7
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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8
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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9
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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10
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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11
tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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12
owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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13
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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14
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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15
clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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16
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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17
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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18
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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19
concoct
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| v.调合，制造 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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21
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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22
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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23
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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24
extricated
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| v.使摆脱困难，脱身( extricate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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27
beckon
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| v.(以点头或打手势)向...示意，召唤 | |
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28
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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29
tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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30
grouse
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| n.松鸡；v.牢骚，诉苦 | |
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31
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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32
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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33
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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35
irate
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| adj.发怒的，生气 | |
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36
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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37
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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38
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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39
radius
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| n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限 | |
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40
trespassing
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| [法]非法入侵 | |
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41
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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42
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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43
aptitude
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| n.(学习方面的)才能，资质，天资 | |
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44
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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45
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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46
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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47
pettishly
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48
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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