“Where is he, Pete?”
“Miss Billy!” gasped4 the old man. Then he saw Aunt Hannah—Aunt Hannah with her bonnet5 askew6, her neck-bow awry7, one hand bare, and the other half covered with a glove wrong side out. Aunt Hannah's cheeks, too, were flushed, and her eyes starry, but with dismay and anger—the last because she did not like the way Pete had said Miss Billy's name. It was one matter for her to object to this thing Billy was doing—but quite another for Pete to do it.
“Of course it's she!” retorted Aunt Hannah, testily8. “As if you yourself didn't bring her here with your crazy messages at this time of night!”
“Pete, where is he?” interposed Billy. “Tell Mr. Bertram I am here—or, wait! I'll go right in and surprise him.”
“Billy!” This time it was Aunt Hannah who gasped her name.
Pete had recovered himself by now, but he did not even glance toward Aunt Hannah. His face was beaming, and his old eyes were shining.
“Miss Billy, Miss Billy, you're an angel straight from heaven, you are—you are! Oh, I'm so glad you came! It'll be all right now—all right! He's in the den9, Miss Billy.”
Billy turned eagerly, but before she could take so much as one step toward the door at the end of the hall, Aunt Hannah's indignant voice arrested her.
“Billy-stop! You're not an angel; you're a young woman—and a crazy one, at that! Whatever angels do, young women don't go unannounced and unchaperoned into young men's rooms! Pete, go tell your master that we are here, and ask if he will receive us.”
Pete's lips twitched10. The emphatic11 “we” and “us” were not lost on him. But his face was preternaturally grave when he spoke12.
“Mr. Bertram is up and dressed, ma'am. He's in the den. I'll speak to him.”
Pete, once again the punctilious13 butler, stalked to the door of Bertram's den and threw it wide open.
Opposite the door, on a low couch, lay Bertram, his head bandaged, and his right arm in a sling14. His face was turned toward the door, but his eyes were closed. He looked very white, and his features were pitifully drawn15 with suffering.
“Mr. Bertram,” began Pete—but he got no further. A flying figure brushed by him and fell on its knees by the couch, with a low cry.
Bertram's eyes flew open. Across his face swept such a radiant look of unearthly joy that Pete sobbed17 audibly and fled to the kitchen. Dong Ling found him there a minute later polishing a silver teaspoon18 with a fringed napkin that had been spread over Bertram's tray. In the hall above Aunt Hannah was crying into William's gray linen19 duster that hung on the hall-rack—Aunt Hannah's handkerchief was on the floor back at Hillside.
In the den neither Billy nor Bertram knew or cared what had become of Aunt Hannah and Pete. There were just two people in their world—two people, and unutterable, incredible, overwhelming rapture20 and peace. Then, very gradually it dawned over them that there was, after all, something strange and unexplained in it all.
“But, dearest, what does it mean—you here like this?” asked Bertram then. As if to make sure that she was “here, like this,” he drew her even closer—Bertram was so thankful that he did have one arm that was usable.
Billy, on her knees by the couch, snuggled into the curve of the one arm with a contented21 little sigh.
“Well, you see, just as soon as I found out to-night that you wanted me, I came,” she said.
“You darling! That was—” Bertram stopped suddenly. A puzzled frown showed below the fantastic bandage about his head. “'As soon as,'” he quoted then scornfully. “Were you ever by any possible chance thinking I didn't want you?”
Billy's eyes widened a little.
“Why, Bertram, dear, don't you see? When you were so troubled that the picture didn't go well, and I found out it was about me you were troubled—I—”
“Well?” Bertram's voice was a little strained.
“Why, of—of course,” stammered22 Billy, “I couldn't help thinking that maybe you had found out you didn't want me.”
Billy blushed.
“I wasn't quite sure why,” she faltered24; “only, of course, I thought of—of Miss Winthrop, you know, or that maybe it was because you didn't care for any girl, only to paint—oh, oh, Bertram! Pete told us,” she broke off wildly, beginning to sob16.
“Pete told you that I didn't care for any girl, only to paint?” demanded Bertram, angry and mystified.
“No, no,” sobbed Billy, “not that. It was all the others that told me that! Pete told Aunt Hannah about the accident, you know, and he said—he said—Oh, Bertram, I can't say it! But that's one of the things that made me know I could come now, you see, because I—I wouldn't hinder you, nor slay25 your Art, nor any other of those dreadful things if—if you couldn't ever—p-paint again,” finished Billy in an uncontrollable burst of grief.
“There, there, dear,” comforted Bertram, patting the bronze-gold head on his breast. “I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about—except the last; but I know there can't be anything that ought to make you cry like that. As for my not painting again—you didn't understand Pete, dearie. That was what they were afraid of at first—that I'd lose my arm; but that danger is all past now. I'm loads better. Of course I'm going to paint again—and better than ever before—now!”
Billy lifted her head. A look that was almost terror came to her eyes. She pulled herself half away from Bertram's encircling arm.
“Why, Billy,” cried the man, in pained surprise. “You don't mean to say you're sorry I'm going to paint again!”
“No, no! Oh, no, Bertram—never that!” she faltered, still regarding him with fearful eyes. “It's only—for me, you know. I can't go back now, and not have you—after this!—even if I do hinder you, and—”
“Hinder me! What are you talking about, Billy?”
Billy drew a quivering sigh.
“Well, to begin with, Kate said—”
“Well, she wrote a letter.”
“I'll warrant she did! Great Scott, Billy! Don't you know Kate by this time?”
“Y-yes, I said so, too. But, Bertram, what she wrote was true. I found it everywhere, afterwards—in magazines and papers, and even in Marie.”
“Humph! Well, dearie, I don't know yet what you found, but I do know you wouldn't have found it at all if it hadn't been for Kate—and I wish I had her here this minute!”
“I don't—not right here,” she cooed, nestling comfortably against her lover's arm. “But you see, dear, she never has approved of the marriage.”
“Well, who's doing the marrying—she, or I?” “That's what I said, too—only in another way,” sighed Billy. “But she called us flyaway flutterbudgets, and she said I'd ruin your career, if I did marry you.”
“Well, I can tell you right now, Billy, you will ruin it if you don't!” declared Bertram. “That's what ailed29 me all the time I was painting that miserable30 portrait. I was so worried—for fear I'd lose you.”
“Lose me! Why, Bertram Henshaw, what do you mean?”
A shamed red crept to the man's forehead.
“Well, I suppose I might as well own up now as any time. I was scared blue, Billy, with jealousy31 of—Arkwright.”
Billy laughed gayly—but she shifted her position and did not meet her lover's eyes.
“Arkwright? Nonsense!” she cried. “Why, he's going to marry Alice Greggory. I know he is! I can see it as plain as day in her letters. He's there a lot.”
“And you never did think for a minute, Billy, that you cared for him?” Bertram's gaze searched Billy's face a little fearfully. He had not been slow to mark that swift lowering of her eyelids32. But Billy looked him now straight in the face—it was a level, frank gaze of absolute truth.
“Never, dear,” she said firmly. (Billy was so glad Bertram had turned the question on her love instead of Arkwright's!) “There has never really been any one but you.”
“Thank God for that,” breathed Bertram, as he drew the bright head nearer and held it close.
After a minute Billy stirred and sighed happily.
“Aren't lovers the beat'em for imagining things?” she murmured.
“They certainly are.”
“You see—I wasn't in love with Mr. Arkwright.”
“I see—I hope.”
“Eh? Well, no!” exploded Bertram. “Do you mean to say you really—”
Billy put a soft finger on his lips.
“Er—'people who live in glass houses,' you know,” she reminded him, with roguish eyes.
“Humph!” he commented.
There was a long silence; then, a little breathlessly, Billy asked:
“And you don't—after all, love me—just to paint?”
“Well, what is that? Is that Kate, too?” demanded Bertram, grimly.
Billy laughed.
“No—oh, she said it, all right, but, you see, everybody said that to me, Bertram; and that's what made me so—so worried sometimes when you talked about the tilt35 of my chin, and all that.”
“Well, by Jove!” breathed Bertram.
There was another silence. Then, suddenly, Bertram stirred.
“Billy, I'm going to marry you to-morrow,” he announced decisively.
Billy lifted her head and sat back in palpitating dismay.
“Bertram! What an absurd idea!”
“Well, I am. I don't know as I can trust you out of my sight till then! You'll read something, or hear something, or get a letter from Kate after breakfast to-morrow morning, that will set you 'saving me' again; and I don't want to be saved—that way. I'm going to marry you to-morrow. I'll get—” He stopped short, with a sudden frown. “Confound that law! I forgot. Great Scott, Billy, I'll have to trust you five days, after all! There's a new law about the license36. We've got to wait five days—and maybe more, counting in the notice, and all.”
Billy laughed softly.
“Five days, indeed, sir! I wonder if you think I can get ready to be married in five days.”
“Don't want you to get ready,” retorted Bertram, promptly37. “I saw Marie get ready, and I had all I wanted of it. If you really must have all those miles of tablecloths38 and napkins and doilies and lace rufflings we'll do it afterwards,—not before.”
“But—”
“Bertram, do you—really?”
The tender glow on Billy's face told its own story, and Bertram's eager eyes were not slow to read it.
“Sweetheart, see here, dear,” he cried softly, tightening40 his good left arm. And forthwith he began to tell her how much he did, indeed, need her.
“Billy, my dear!” It was Aunt Hannah's plaintive41 voice at the doorway42, a little later. “We must go home; and William is here, too, and wants to see you.”
Billy rose at once as Aunt Hannah entered the room.
“Yes, Aunt Hannah, I'll come; besides”—she glanced at Bertram mischievously—“I shall need all the time I've got to prepare for—my wedding.”
“Your wedding! You mean it'll be before—October?” Aunt Hannah glanced from one to the other uncertainly. Something in their smiling faces sent a quick suspicion to her eyes.
“Next Tuesday! But that's only a week away,” gasped Aunt Hannah.
“Yes, a week.”
“But, child, your trousseau—the wedding—the—the—a week!” Aunt Hannah could not articulate further.
“Yes, I know; that is a good while,” cut in Bertram, airily. “We wanted it to-morrow, but we had to wait, on account of the new license law. Otherwise it wouldn't have been so long, and—”
But Aunt Hannah was gone. With a low-breathed “Long! Oh, my grief and conscience—William!” she had fled through the hall door.
“Well, it is long,” maintained Bertram, with tender eyes, as he reached out his hand to say good-night.
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收听单词发音
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1
pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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askew
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| adv.斜地；adj.歪斜的 | |
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awry
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| adj.扭曲的，错的 | |
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8
testily
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| adv. 易怒地, 暴躁地 | |
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9
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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10
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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11
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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12
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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13
punctilious
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| adj.谨慎的，谨小慎微的 | |
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14
sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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15
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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16
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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18
teaspoon
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| n.茶匙 | |
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19
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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20
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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21
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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22
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
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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24
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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25
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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26
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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27
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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29
ailed
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| v.生病( ail的过去式和过去分词 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
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30
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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31
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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32
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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33
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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34
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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35
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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36
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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37
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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38
tablecloths
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| n.桌布，台布( tablecloth的名词复数 ) | |
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39
craftily
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| 狡猾地，狡诈地 | |
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40
tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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41
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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42
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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43
demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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