“You look so happy it's easy to see your father's taken a good turn,” he told her.
“Yes; he has this afternoon, at least,” she said. “I might have other reasons for looking cheerful, though.”
“For instance?”
“Exactly!” she said, giving him a sweet look just enough mocked by her laughter. “For instance!”
“Well, go on,” he begged.
“Isn't it expected?” she asked.
“Of you, you mean?”
“No,” she returned. “For you, I mean!”
In this style, which uses a word for any meaning that quick look and colourful gesture care to endow it with, she was an expert; and she carried it merrily on, leaving him at liberty (one of the great values of the style) to choose as he would how much or how little she meant. He was content to supply mere4 cues, for although he had little coquetry of his own, he had lately begun to find that the only interesting moments in his life were those during which Alice Adams coquetted with him. Happily, these obliging moments extended themselves to cover all the time he spent with her. However serious she might seem, whatever appeared to be her topic, all was thou-and-I.
He planned for more of it, seeing otherwise a dull evening ahead; and reverted5, afterwhile, to a forbidden subject. “About that dance at Miss Lamb's—since your father's so much better——”
She flushed a little. “Now, now!” she chided him. “We agreed not to say any more about that.”
“Yes, but since he IS better——”
Alice shook her head. “He won't be better to-morrow. He always has a bad day after a good one especially after such a good one as this is.”
“But if this time it should be different,” Russell persisted; “wouldn't you be willing to come if he's better by to-morrow evening? Why not wait and decide at the last minute?”
She waved her hands airily. “What a pother!” she cried. “What does it matter whether poor little Alice Adams goes to a dance or not?”
“It's the simple truth,” he insisted. “I don't care a great deal about dances these days; and if you aren't going to be there——”
“You could stay away,” she suggested. “You wouldn't!”
“Unfortunately, I can't. I'm afraid I'm supposed to be the excuse. Miss Lamb, in her capacity as a friend of my relatives——”
“Oh, she's giving it for YOU! I see! On Mildred's account you mean?”
At that his face showed an increase of colour. “I suppose just on account of my being a cousin of Mildred's and of——”
“Of course! You'll have a beautiful time, too. Henrietta'll see that you have somebody to dance with besides Miss Dowling, poor man!”
“But what I want somebody to see is that I dance with you! And perhaps your father——”
“Wait!” she said, frowning as if she debated whether or not to tell him something of import; then, seeming to decide affirmatively, she asked: “Would you really like to know the truth about it?”
“If it isn't too unflattering.”
“It hasn't anything to do with you at all,” she said. “Of course I'd like to go with you and to dance with you—though you don't seem to realize that you wouldn't be permitted much time with me.”
“Oh, yes, I——”
“Never mind!” she laughed. “Of course you wouldn't. But even if papa should be better to-morrow, I doubt if I'd go. In fact, I know I wouldn't. There's another reason besides papa.”
“Is there?”
“Yes. The truth is, I don't get on with Henrietta Lamb. As a matter of fact, I dislike her, and of course that means she dislikes me. I should never think of asking her to anything I gave, and I really wonder she asks me to things SHE gives.” This was a new inspiration; and Alice, beginning to see her way out of a perplexity, wished that she had thought of it earlier: she should have told him from the first that she and Henrietta had a feud8, and consequently exchanged no invitations. Moreover, there was another thing to beset9 her with little anxieties: she might better not have told him from the first, as she had indeed told him by intimation, that she was the pampered10 daughter of an indulgent father, presumably able to indulge her; for now she must elaborately keep to the part. Veracity11 is usually simple; and its opposite, to be successful, should be as simple; but practitioners12 of the opposite are most often impulsive13, like Alice; and, like her, they become enmeshed in elaborations.
“It wouldn't be very nice for me to go to her house,” Alice went on, “when I wouldn't want her in mine. I've never admired her. I've always thought she was lacking in some things most people are supposed to be equipped with—for instance, a certain feeling about the death of a father who was always pretty decent to his daughter. Henrietta's father died just, eleven months and twenty-seven days before your cousin's dance, but she couldn't stick out those few last days and make it a year; she was there.”
Alice stopped, then laughed ruefully, exclaiming, “But this is dreadful of me!”
“Is it?”
“Blackguarding her to you when she's giving a big party for you! Just the way Henrietta would blackguard me to you—heaven knows what she WOULDN'T say if she talked about me to you! It would be fair, of course, but—well, I'd rather she didn't!” And with that, Alice let her pretty hand, in its white glove, rest upon his arm for a moment; and he looked down at it, not unmoved to see it there. “I want to be unfair about just this,” she said, letting a troubled laughter tremble through her appealing voice as she spoke14. “I won't take advantage of her with anybody, except just—you! I'd a little rather you didn't hear anybody blackguard me, and, if you don't mind—could you promise not to give Henrietta the chance?”
It was charmingly done, with a humorous, faint pathos15 altogether genuine; and Russell found himself suddenly wanting to shout at her, “Oh, you DEAR!” Nothing else seemed adequate; but he controlled the impulse in favour of something more conservative.
“Imagine any one speaking unkindly of you—not praising you!”
“Who HAS praised me to you?” she asked, quickly.
“I haven't talked about you with any one; but if I did, I know they'd——”
“No, no!” she cried, and went on, again accompanying her words with little tremulous runs of laughter. “You don't understand this town yet. You'll be surprised when you do; we're different. We talk about one another fearfully! Haven't I just proved it, the way I've been going for Henrietta? Of course I didn't say anything really very terrible about her, but that's only because I don't follow that practice the way most of the others do. They don't stop with the worst of the truth they can find: they make UP things—yes, they really do! And, oh, I'd RATHER they didn't make up things about me—to you!”
“What difference would it make if they did?” he inquired, cheerfully. “I'd know they weren't true.”
“Even if you did know that, they'd make a difference,” she said. “Oh, yes, they would! It's too bad, but we don't like anything quite so well that's had specks16 on it, even if we've wiped the specks off;—it's just that much spoiled, and some things are all spoiled the instant they're the least bit spoiled. What a man thinks about a girl, for instance. Do you want to have what you think about me spoiled, Mr. Russell?”
“Oh, but that's already far beyond reach,” he said, lightly.
“But it can't be!” she protested.
“Why not?”
“Because it never can be. Men don't change their minds about one another often: they make it quite an event when they do, and talk about it as if something important had happened. But a girl only has to go down-town with a shoe-string unfastened, and every man who sees her will change his mind about her. Don't you know that's true?”
“Not of myself, I think.”
“So you wouldn't trust me?”
“Well—I'll be awfully18 worried if you give 'em a chance to tell you that I'm too lazy to tie my shoe-strings19!”
He laughed delightedly. “Is that what they do say?” he asked.
“Just about! Whatever they hope will get results.” She shook her head wisely. “Oh, yes; we do that here!”
“But I don't mind loose shoe-strings,” he said. “Not if they're yours.”
“They'll find out what you do mind.”
“But suppose,” he said, looking at her whimsically; “suppose I wouldn't mind anything—so long as it's yours?”
She courtesied. “Oh, pretty enough! But a girl who's talked about has a weakness that's often a fatal one.”
“What is it?”
“It's this: when she's talked about she isn't THERE. That's how they kill her.”
“I'm afraid I don't follow you.”
“Don't you see? If Henrietta—or Mildred—or any of 'em—or some of their mothers—oh, we ALL do it! Well, if any of 'em told you I didn't tie my shoe-strings, and if I were there, so that you could see me, you'd know it wasn't true. Even if I were sitting so that you couldn't see my feet, and couldn't tell whether the strings were tied or not just then, still you could look at me, and see that I wasn't the sort of girl to neglect my shoe-strings. But that isn't the way it happens: they'll get at you when I'm nowhere around and can't remind you of the sort of girl I really am.”
“But you don't do that,” he complained. “You don't remind me you don't even tell me—the sort of girl you really are! I'd like to know.”
“Let's be serious then,” she said, and looked serious enough herself. “Would you honestly like to know?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, you must be careful.”
“'Careful?'” The word amused him.
“I mean careful not to get me mixed up,” she said. “Careful not to mix up the girl you might hear somebody talking about with the me I honestly try to make you see. If you do get those two mixed up—well, the whole show'll be spoiled!”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because it's——” She checked herself, having begun to speak too impulsively20; and she was disturbed, realizing in what tricky21 stuff she dealt. What had been on her lips to say was, “Because it's happened before!” She changed to, “Because it's so easy to spoil anything—easiest of all to spoil anything that's pleasant.”
“That might depend.”
“No; it's so. And if you care at all about—about knowing a girl who'd like someone to know her——”
“Just 'someone?' That's disappointing.”
“Well—you,” she said.
“Tell me how 'careful' you want me to be, then!”
“Well, don't you think it would be nice if you didn't give anybody the chance to talk about me the way—the way I've just been talking about Henrietta Lamb?”
With that they laughed together, and he said, “You may be cutting me off from a great deal of information, you know.”
“Yes,” Alice admitted. “Somebody might begin to praise me to you, too; so it's dangerous to ask you to change the subject if I ever happen to be mentioned. But after all——” She paused.
“'After all' isn't the end of a thought, is it?”
“Sometimes it is of a girl's thought; I suppose men are neater about their thoughts, and always finish 'em. It isn't the end of the thought I had then, though.”
“What is the end of it?”
She looked at him impulsively. “Oh, it's foolish,” she said, and she laughed as laughs one who proposes something probably impossible. “But, WOULDN'T it be pleasant if two people could ever just keep themselves TO themselves, so far as they two were concerned? I mean, if they could just manage to be friends without people talking about it, or talking to THEM about it?”
“I suppose that might be rather difficult,” he said, more amused than impressed by her idea.
“I don't know: it might be done,” she returned, hopefully. “Especially in a town of this size; it's grown so it's quite a huge place these days. People can keep themselves to themselves in a big place better, you know. For instance, nobody knows that you and I are taking a walk together today.”
“How absurd, when here we are on exhibition!”
“No; we aren't.”
“We aren't?”
“Not a bit of it!” she laughed. “We were the other day, when you walked home with me, but anybody could tell that had just happened by chance, on account of your overtaking me; people can always see things like that. But we're not on exhibition now. Look where I've led you!”
Amused and a little bewildered, he looked up and down the street, which was one of gaunt-faced apartment-houses, old, sooty, frame boarding-houses, small groceries and drug-stores, laundries and one-room plumbers22' shops, with the sign of a clairvoyant23 here and there.
“You see?” she said. “I've been leading you without your knowing it. Of course that's because you're new to the town, and you give yourself up to the guidance of an old citizen.”
“I'm not so sure, Miss Adams. It might mean that I don't care where I follow so long as I follow you.”
“Very well,” she said. “I'd like you to keep on following me at least long enough for me to show you that there's something nicer ahead of us than this dingy24 street.”
“Is that figurative?” he asked.
“Might be!” she returned, gaily25. “There's a pretty little park at the end, but it's very proletarian, and nobody you and I know will be more likely to see us there than on this street.”
“What an imagination you have!” he exclaimed. “You turn our proper little walk into a Parisian adventure.”
She looked at him in what seemed to be a momentary26 grave puzzlement. “Perhaps you feel that a Parisian adventure mightn't please your—your relatives?”
“Why, no,” he returned. “You seem to think of them oftener than I do.”
This appeared to amuse Alice, or at least to please her, for she laughed. “Then I can afford to quit thinking of them, I suppose. It's only that I used to be quite a friend of Mildred's—but there! we needn't to go into that. I've never been a friend of Henrietta Lamb's, though, and I almost wish she weren't taking such pains to be a friend of yours.”
“Oh, but she's not. It's all on account of——”
“On Mildred's account,” Alice finished this for him, coolly. “Yes, of course.”
“It's on account of the two families,” he was at pains to explain, a little awkwardly. “It's because I'm a relative of the Palmers, and the Palmers and the Lambs seem to be old family friends.”
“Something the Adamses certainly are not,” Alice said. “Not with either of 'em; particularly not with the Lambs!” And here, scarce aware of what impelled27 her, she returned to her former elaborations and colourings. “You see, the differences between Henrietta and me aren't entirely28 personal: I couldn't go to her house even if I liked her. The Lambs and Adamses don't get on with each other, and we've just about come to the breaking-point as it happens.”
“I hope it's nothing to bother you.”
“Why? A lot of things bother me.”
“I'm sorry they do,” he said, and seemed simply to mean it.
She nodded gratefully. “That's nice of you, Mr. Russell. It helps. The break between the Adamses and the Lambs is a pretty bothersome thing. It's been coming on a long time.” She sighed deeply, and the sigh was half genuine; this half being for her father, but the other half probably belonged to her instinctive29 rendering30 of Juliet Capulet, daughter to a warring house. “I hate it all so!” she added.
“Of course you must.”
“I suppose most quarrels between families are on account of business,” she said. “That's why they're so sordid31. Certainly the Lambs seem a sordid lot to me, though of course I'm biased32.” And with that she began to sketch33 a history of the commercial antagonism34 that had risen between the Adamses and the Lambs.
The sketching35 was spontaneous and dramatic. Mathematics had no part in it; nor was there accurate definition of Mr. Adams's relation to the institution of Lamb and Company. The point was clouded, in fact; though that might easily be set down to the general haziness36 of young ladies confronted with the mysteries of trade or commerce. Mr. Adams either had been a vague sort of junior member of the firm, it appeared, or else he should have been made some such thing; at all events, he was an old mainstay of the business; and he, as much as any Lamb, had helped to build up the prosperity of the company. But at last, tired of providing so much intelligence and energy for which other people took profit greater than his own, he had decided37 to leave the company and found a business entirely for himself. The Lambs were going to be enraged38 when they learned what was afoot.
Such was the impression, a little misted, wrought39 by Alice's quick narrative40. But there was dolorous41 fact behind it: Adams had succumbed42.
His wife, grave and nervous, rather than triumphant43, in success, had told their daughter that the great J. A. would be furious and possibly vindictive44. Adams was afraid of him, she said.
“But what for, mama?” Alice asked, since this seemed a turn of affairs out of reason. “What in the world has Mr. Lamb to do with papa's leaving the company to set up for himself? What right has he to be angry about it? If he's such a friend as he claims to be, I should think he'd be glad—that is, if the glue factory turns out well. What will he be angry for?”
Mrs. Adams gave Alice an uneasy glance, hesitated, and then explained that a resignation from Lamb's had always been looked upon, especially by “that old man,” as treachery. You were supposed to die in the service, she said bitterly, and her daughter, a little mystified, accepted this explanation. Adams had not spoken to her of his surrender; he seemed not inclined to speak to her at all, or to any one.
Alice was not serious too long, and she began to laugh as she came to the end of her decorative45 sketch. “After all, the whole thing is perfectly46 ridiculous,” she said. “In fact, it's FUNNY! That's on account of what papa's going to throw over the Lamb business FOR! To save your life you couldn't imagine what he's going to do!”
“It takes all the romance out of ME,” she laughed. “You'll never go for a Parisian walk with me again, after I tell you what I'll be heiress to.” They had come to the entrance of the little park; and, as Alice had said, it was a pretty place, especially on a day so radiant. Trees of the oldest forest stood there, hale and serene48 over the trim, bright grass; and the proletarians had not come from their factories at this hour; only a few mothers and their babies were to be seen, here and there, in the shade. “I think I'll postpone49 telling you about it till we get nearly home again,” Alice said, as they began to saunter down one of the gravelled paths. “There's a bench beside a spring farther on; we can sit there and talk about a lot of things—things not so sticky as my dowry's going to be.”
“'Sticky?'” he echoed. “What in the world——” She laughed despairingly.
“A glue factory!”
Then he laughed, too, as much from friendliness50 as from amusement; and she remembered to tell him that the project of a glue factory was still “an Adams secret.” It would be known soon, however, she added; and the whole Lamb connection would probably begin saying all sorts of things, heaven knew what!
Thus Alice built her walls of flimsy, working always gaily, or with at least the air of gaiety; and even as she rattled51 on, there was somewhere in her mind a constant little wonder. Everything she said seemed to be necessary to support something else she had said. How had it happened? She found herself telling him that since her father had decided on making so great a change in his ways, she and her mother hoped at last to persuade him to give up that “foolish little house” he had been so obstinate52 about; and she checked herself abruptly54 on this declivity55 just as she was about to slide into a remark concerning her own preference for a “country place.” Discretion56 caught her in time; and something else, in company with discretion, caught her, for she stopped short in her talk and blushed.
They had taken possession of the bench beside the spring, by this time; and Russell, his elbow on the back of the bench and his chin on his hand, the better to look at her, had no guess at the cause of the blush, but was content to find it lovely. At his first sight of Alice she had seemed pretty in the particular way of being pretty that he happened to like best; and, with every moment he spent with her, this prettiness appeared to increase. He felt that he could not look at her enough: his gaze followed the fluttering of the graceful57 hands in almost continual gesture as she talked; then lifted happily to the vivacious58 face again. She charmed him.
After her abrupt53 pause, she sighed, then looked at him with her eyebrows59 lifted in a comedy appeal. “You haven't said you wouldn't give Henrietta the chance,” she said, in the softest voice that can still have a little laugh running in it.
He was puzzled. “Give Henrietta the chance?”
“YOU know! You'll let me keep on being unfair, won't you? Not give the other girls a chance to get even?”
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1
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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wittiest
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| 机智的，言辞巧妙的，情趣横生的( witty的最高级 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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jeered
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| v.嘲笑( jeer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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practitioners
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| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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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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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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strings
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impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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plumbers
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| n.管子工，水暖工( plumber的名词复数 )；[美][口]（防止泄密的）堵漏人员 | |
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clairvoyant
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| adj.有预见的；n.有预见的人 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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biased
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| a.有偏见的 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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haziness
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| 有薄雾，模糊； 朦胧之性质或状态； 零能见度 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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dolorous
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| adj.悲伤的；忧愁的 | |
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succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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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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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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