Mrs. Lowder had said to Milly at Matcham that she and her niece, as allies, could practically conquer the world; but though it was a speech about which there had even then been a vague, grand glamour8, the girl read into it at present more of an approach to a meaning. Kate, for that matter, by herself, could conquer anything, and she, Milly Theale, was probably concerned with the "world" only as the small scrap9 of it that most impinged on her and that was therefore first to be dealt with. On this basis of being dealt with she would doubtless herself do her share of the conquering: she would have something to supply, Kate something to take—each of them thus, to that tune10, something for squaring with Aunt Maud's ideal. This in short was what it came to now—that the occasion, in the quiet late lamplight, had the quality of a rough rehearsal11 of the possible big drama. Milly knew herself dealt with—handsomely, completely: she surrendered to the knowledge, for so it was, she felt, that she supplied her helpful force. And what Kate had to take Kate took as freely and, to all appearance, as gratefully; accepting afresh, with each of her long, slow walks, the relation between them so established and consecrating12 her companion's surrender simply by the interest she gave it. The interest to Milly herself we naturally mean; the interest to Kate Milly felt as probably inferior. It easily and largely came for their present talk, for the quick flight of the hour before the breach13 of the spell—it all came, when considered, from the circumstance, not in the least abnormal, that the handsome girl was in extraordinary "form." Milly remembered her having said that she was at her best late at night; remembered it by its having, with its fine assurance, made her wonder when she was at her best and how happy people must be who had such a fixed14 time. She had no time at all; she was never at her best—unless indeed it were exactly, as now, in listening, watching, admiring, collapsing15. If Kate moreover, quite mercilessly, had never been so good, the beauty and the marvel16 of it was that she had never really been so frank; being a person of such a calibre, as Milly would have said, that, even while "dealing17" with you and thereby18, as it were, picking her steps, she could let herself go, could, in irony19, in confidence, in extravagance, tell you things she had never told before. That was the impression—that she was telling things, and quite conceivably for her own relief as well; almost as if the errors of vision, the mistakes of proportion, the residuary innocence20 of spirit still to be remedied on the part of her auditor21 had their moments of proving too much for her nerves. She went at them just now, these sources of irritation22, with an amused energy that it would have been open to Milly to regard as cynical23 and that was nevertheless called for—as to this the other was distinct—by the way that in certain connections the American mind broke down. It seemed at least—the American mind as sitting there thrilled and dazzled in Milly—not to understand English society without a separate confrontation24 with all the cases. It couldn't proceed by—there was some technical term she lacked until Milly suggested both analogy and induction25, and then, differently, instinct, none of which were right: it had to be led up and introduced to each aspect of the monster, enabled to walk all round it, whether for the consequent exaggerated ecstasy26 or for the still more as appeared to this critic disproportionate shock. It might, the monster, Kate conceded, loom27 large for those born amid forms less developed and therefore no doubt less amusing; it might on some sides be a strange and dreadful monster, calculated to devour28 the unwary, to abase29 the proud, to scandalize the good; but if one had to live with it one must, not to be for ever sitting up, learn how: which was virtually in short to-night what the handsome girl showed herself as teaching.
She gave away publicly, in this process, Lancaster Gate and everything it contained; she gave away, hand over hand, Milly's thrill continued to note, Aunt Maud and Aunt Maud's glories and Aunt Maud's complacencies; she gave herself away most of all, and it was naturally what most contributed to her candour. She didn't speak to her friend once more, in Aunt Maud's strain, of how they could scale the skies; she spoke30, by her bright, perverse31 preference on this occasion, of the need, in the first place, of being neither stupid nor vulgar. It might have been a lesson, for our young American, in the art of seeing things as they were—a lesson so various and so sustained that the pupil had, as we have shown, but receptively to gape32. The odd thing furthermore was that it could serve its purpose while explicitly33 disavowing every personal bias34. It wasn't that she disliked Aunt Maud, who was everything she had on other occasions declared; but the dear woman, ineffaceably stamped by inscrutable nature and a dreadful art, wasn't—how could she be?—what she wasn't. She wasn't any one. She wasn't anything. She wasn't anywhere. Milly mustn't think it—one couldn't, as a good friend, let her. Those hours at Matcham were inespérées, were pure manna from heaven; or if not wholly that perhaps, with humbugging old Lord Mark as a backer, were vain as a ground for hopes and calculations. Lord Mark was very well, but he wasn't the cleverest creature in England, and even if he had been he still wouldn't have been the most obliging. He weighed it out in ounces, and indeed each of the pair was really waiting for what the other would put down.
"She has put down you." said Milly, attached to the subject still; "and I think what you mean is that, on the counter, she still keeps hold of you."
"Lest"—Kate took it up—"he should suddenly grab me and run? Oh, as he isn't ready to run, he's much less ready, naturally, to grab. I am—you're so far right as that—on the counter, when I'm not in the shop-window; in and out of which I'm thus conveniently, commercially whisked: the essence, all of it, of my position, and the price, as properly, of my aunt's protection." Lord Mark was substantially what she had begun with as soon as they were alone; the impression was even yet with Milly of her having sounded his name, having imposed it, as a topic, in direct opposition35 to the other name that Mrs. Lowder had left in the air and that all her own look, as we have seen, kept there at first for her companion. The immediate36 strange effect had been that of her consciously needing, as it were, an alibi37—which, successfully, she so found. She had worked it to the end, ridden it to and fro across the course marked for Milly by Aunt Maud, and now she had quite, so to speak, broken it in. "The bore is that if she wants him so much—wants him, heaven forgive her! for me—he has put us all out, since your arrival, by wanting somebody else. I don't mean somebody else than you."
Milly threw off the charm sufficiently38 to shake her head. "Then I haven't made out who it is. If I'm any part of his alternative he had better stop where he is."
"Truly, truly?—always, always?"
Milly tried to insist with an equal gaiety. "Would you like me to swear?"
Kate appeared for a moment—though that was doubtless but gaiety too—to think. "Haven't we been swearing enough?"
"You have perhaps, but I haven't, and I ought to give you the equivalent. At any rate there it is. Truly, truly as you say—'always, always.' So I'm not in the way."
"Thanks," said Kate—"but that doesn't help me."
"Oh, it's as simplifying for him that I speak of it."
"The difficulty really is that he's a person with so many ideas that it's particularly hard to simplify for him. That's exactly of course what Aunt Maud has been trying. He won't," Kate firmly continued, "make up his mind about me."
"Well," Milly smiled, "give him time."
Her friend met it in perfection. "One is doing that—one is. But one remains39, all the same, but one of his ideas."
"There's no harm in that," Milly returned, "if you come out in the end as the best of them. What's a man," she pursued, "especially an ambitious one, without a variety of ideas?"
"No doubt. The more the merrier." And Kate looked at her grandly. "One can but hope to come out, and do nothing to prevent it."
All of which made for the impression, fantastic or not, of the alibi. The splendour, the grandeur40 were, for Milly, the bold ironic41 spirit behind it, so interesting too in itself. What, moreover, was not less interesting was the fact, as our young woman noted42 it, that Kate confined her point to the difficulties, so far as she was concerned, raised only by Lord Mark. She referred now to none that her own taste might present; which circumstance again played its little part. She was doing what she liked in respect to another person, but she was in no way committed to the other person, and her furthermore talking of Lord Mark as not young and not true were only the signs of her clear self-consciousness, were all in the line of her slightly hard, but scarce the less graceful43 extravagance. She didn't wish to show too much her consent to be arranged for, but that was a different thing from not wishing sufficiently to give it. There was something moreover, on it all, that Milly still found occasion to say, "If your aunt has been, as you tell me, put out by me, I feel that she has remained remarkably44 kind."
"Oh, but she has—whatever might have happened in that respect—plenty of use for you! You put her in, my dear, more than you put her out. You don't half see it, but she has clutched your petticoat. You can do anything—you can do, I mean, lots that we can't. You're an outsider, independent and standing45 by yourself; you're not hideously46 relative to tiers and tiers of others." And Kate, facing in that direction, went further and further; wound up, while Milly gaped47, with extraordinary words. "We're of no use to you—it's decent to tell you. You'd be of use to us, but that's a different matter. My honest advice to you would be—" she went indeed all lengths—"to drop us while you can. It would be funny if you didn't soon see how awfully48 better you can do. We've not really done for you the least thing worth speaking of—nothing you mightn't easily have had in some other way. Therefore you're under no obligation. You won't want us next year; we shall only continue to want you. But that's no reason for you, and you mustn't pay too dreadfully for poor Mrs. Stringham's having let you in. She has the best conscience in the world; she's enchanted49 with what she has done; but you shouldn't take your people from her. It has been quite awful to see you do it."
Milly tried to be amused, so as not—it was too absurd—to be fairly frightened. Strange enough indeed—if not natural enough—that, late at night thus, in a mere50 mercenary house, with Susie away, a want of confidence should possess her. She recalled, with all the rest of it, the next day, piecing things together in the dawn, that she had felt herself alone with a creature who paced like a panther. That was a violent image, but it made her a little less ashamed of having been scared. For all her scare, none the less, she had now the sense to find words. "And yet without Susie I shouldn't have had you."
It had been at this point, however, that Kate flickered51 highest. "Oh, you may very well loathe52 me yet!"
Really at last, thus, it had been too much; as, with her own least feeble flare53, after a wondering watch, Milly had shown. She hadn't cared; she had too much wanted to know; and, though a small solemnity of reproach, a sombre strain, had broken into her tone, it was to figure as her nearest approach to serving Mrs. Lowder. "Why do you say such things to me?"
This unexpectedly had acted, by a sudden turn of Kate's attitude, as a happy speech. She had risen as she spoke, and Kate had stopped before her, shining at her instantly with a softer brightness. Poor Milly hereby enjoyed one of her views of how people, wincing54 oddly, were often touched by her. "Because you're a dove." With which she felt herself ever so delicately, so considerately, embraced; not with familiarity or as a liberty taken, but almost ceremonially and in the manner of an accolade55; partly as if, though a dove who could perch56 on a finger, one were also a princess with whom forms were to be observed. It even came to her, through the touch of her companion's lips, that this form, this cool pressure, fairly sealed the sense of what Kate had just said. It was moreover, for the girl, like an inspiration: she found herself accepting as the right one, while she caught her breath with relief, the name so given her. She met it on the instant as she would have met the revealed truth; it lighted up the strange dusk in which she lately had walked. That was what was the matter with her. She was a dove. Oh, wasn't she?—it echoed within her as she became aware of the sound, outside, of the return of their friends. There was, the next thing, little enough doubt about it after Aunt Maud had been two minutes in the room. She had come up, Mrs. Lowder, with Susan—which she needn't have done, at that hour, instead of letting Kate come down to her; so that Milly could be quite sure it was to catch hold, in some way, of the loose end they had left. Well, the way she did catch was simply to make the point that it didn't now in the least matter. She had mounted the stairs for this, and she had her moment again with her younger hostess while Kate, on the spot, as the latter at the time noted, gave Susan Shepherd unwonted opportunities. Kate was in other words, as Aunt Maud engaged her friend, listening with the handsomest response to Mrs. Stringham's impression of the scene they had just quitted. It was in the tone of the fondest indulgence—almost, really, that of dove cooing to dove—that Mrs. Lowder expressed to Milly the hope that it had all gone beautifully. Her "all" had an ample benevolence57; it soothed58 and simplified; she spoke as if it were the two young women, not she and her comrade, who had been facing the town together. But Milly's answer had prepared itself while Aunt Maud was on the stair; she had felt in a rush all the reasons that would make it the most dovelike; and she gave it, while she was about it, as earnest, as candid59. "I don't think, dear lady, he's here."
It gave her straightway the measure of the success she could have as a dove: that was recorded in the long look of deep criticism, a look without a word, that Mrs. Lowder poured forth60. And the word, presently, bettered it still. "Oh, you exquisite61 thing!" The luscious62 innuendo63 of it, almost startling, lingered in the room, after the visitors had gone, like an oversweet fragrance64. But left alone with Mrs. Stringham Milly continued to breathe it: she studied again the dovelike and so set her companion to mere rich reporting that she averted65 all inquiry66 into her own case.
That, with the new day, was once more her law—though she saw before her, of course, as something of a complication, her need, each time, to decide. She should have to be clear as to how a dove would act. She settled it, she thought, well enough this morning by quite readopting her plan in respect to Sir Luke Strett. That, she was pleased to reflect, had originally been pitched in the key of a merely iridescent67 drab; and although Mrs. Stringham, after breakfast, began by staring at it as if it had been a priceless Persian carpet suddenly unrolled at her feet, she had no scruple68, at the end of five minutes, in leaving her to make the best of it. "Sir Luke Strett comes, by appointment, to see me at eleven, but I'm going out on purpose. He's to be told, please, deceptively, that I'm at home, and, you, as my representative, when he comes up, are to see him instead. He will like that, this time, better. So do be nice to him." It had taken, naturally, more explanation, and the mention, above all, of the fact that the visitor was the greatest of doctors; yet when once the key had been offered Susie slipped it on her bunch, and her young friend could again feel her lovely imagination operate. It operated in truth very much as Mrs. Lowder's, at the last, had done the night before: it made the air heavy once more with the extravagance of assent69. It might, afresh, almost have frightened our young woman to see how people rushed to meet her: had she then so little time to live that the road must always be spared her? It was as if they were helping70 her to take it out on the spot. Susie—she couldn't deny, and didn't pretend to—might, of a truth, on her side, have treated such news as a flash merely lurid71; as to which, to do Susie justice, the pain of it was all there. But, none the less, the margin72 always allowed her young friend was all there as well; and the proposal now made her what was it in short but Byzantine? The vision of Milly's perception of the propriety73 of the matter had, at any rate, quickly engulfed74, so far as her attitude was concerned, any surprise and any shock; so that she only desired, the next thing, perfectly75 to possess the facts. Milly could easily speak, on this, as if there were only one: she made nothing of such another as that she had felt herself menaced. The great fact, in fine, was that she knew him to desire just now, more than anything else, to meet, quite apart, some one interested in her. Who therefore so interested as her faithful Susan? The only other circumstance that, by the time she had quitted her friend, she had treated as worth mentioning was the circumstance of her having at first intended to keep quiet. She had originally best seen herself as sweetly secretive. As to that she had changed, and her present request was the result. She didn't say why she had changed, but she trusted her faithful Susan. Their visitor would trust her not less, and she herself would adore their visitor. Moreover he wouldn't—the girl felt sure—tell her anything dreadful. The worst would be that he was in love and that he needed a confidant to work it. And now she was going to the National Gallery.
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1
intensify
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| vt.加强；变强；加剧 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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ostensible
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| adj.(指理由)表面的，假装的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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avowedly
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| adv.公然地 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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11
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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consecrating
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| v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的现在分词 )；奉献 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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collapsing
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| 压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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auditor
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| n.审计员，旁听着 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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confrontation
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| n.对抗，对峙，冲突 | |
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induction
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| n.感应，感应现象 | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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abase
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| v.降低，贬抑 | |
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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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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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gape
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| v.张口，打呵欠，目瞪口呆地凝视 | |
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explicitly
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| ad.明确地，显然地 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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alibi
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| n.某人当时不在犯罪现场的申辩或证明；借口 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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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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hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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47
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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49
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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50
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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51
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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53
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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54
wincing
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的现在分词 ) | |
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55
accolade
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| n.推崇备至，赞扬 | |
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56
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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61
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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luscious
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| adj.美味的；芬芳的；肉感的，引与性欲的 | |
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63
innuendo
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| n.暗指，讽刺 | |
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64
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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65
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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67
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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68
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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69
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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70
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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72
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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73
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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74
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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