Mary Cary had drawn2 the curtains, straightened chairs and books, rearranged the flowers, refilled the inkstand on her open desk, brushed the bits of charred3 wood under the logs on the andirons, turned on every light, and then, seeing nothing else to do that would permit of movement, had taken her seat near the table.
John Maxwell, standing4 by the mantelpiece, watched her with eyes half amused, half impatient, but with no comment, and for some minutes neither had spoken. When she was seated, however, a magazine in her lap, he walked around the room and turned off all lights except that of the lamp; then came back and took the chair opposite hers.
"This is such an interesting number," she said, opening the magazine and shuffling5 its pages as if they were cards. "I suppose you have seen it?"
"No. I haven't seen it." He leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes holding her steadily6. "Don't you think, Mary, this foolishness between us has gone on long enough?"
"What foolishness?" She put the magazine on the table and tapped it with her fingers, looking away from him and into the leaping flames. "Has there been any foolishness between us? I didn't know it."
"What would you call it?"
"I wouldn't—" she took up her handkerchief and examined the initial on it with critical intentness—"I wouldn't call it anything. We are very good friends."
"Are we?"
"I've always thought so. If I'm mistaken—" She bit her lip nervously7. "At least we used to be. But friendship is so insecure. That of years is killed in a moment and—"
"A thousand evidences forgotten if there be one imaginary failure, one seeming neglect. But I'm not speaking of friendship."
A step behind made him turn, and as Hedwig came in he got up and took the telegram she handed him with only half-concealed irritation8. Mary Cary, too, stood up, and as Hedwig left the room the bit of yellow paper was handed her.
"So Mr. Bartlett is coming himself," she said, reading and handing the paper back. "That is much the best. I thought he was too busy. Does Miss Gibbie know?"
"Not yet." The telegram was put in his pocket. "Whether she wants to or not, Miss Gibbie will have to let Yorkburg know who its friend is. I don't doubt she meant well. To do things as nobody else does them is to her irresistible9. But how a woman of her sense and understanding of human nature could fail to see the complications of a situation in which secrecy10 and mystery were elemental parts is beyond my comprehension."
"But that's because you're a man." She nodded toward him with something of the old bantering11 air. She and I were just women, and women don't see clearly—like men. After mistakes are out on the table, even a woman can see them, but it takes a man to see them before they are made. Of course, it was a queer way of doing things, but it was her way. Everybody is queer."
"I don't deny it."
"And if she didn't want her left hand to know what the right was doing, why tell it? Everybody has a pet something they take literally12 in the Bible. Miss Gibbie likes the sixth chapter of Matthew. A great many people seem never to have read it."
"And a great many people who try to practically apply the teachings of their Master are called cranks and crazy. Until human nature is born again, human tongues will talk and human noses sniff13 and human ears listen for what is ugly and unkind. The partnership14 into which you and Miss Gibbie entered was all right in purpose and intent, but you forgot in your calculations the perversities of the people you were trying to help. People will pardon anything sooner than a secret."
"I suppose I will have to tell how Tree Hill was given me, and about the bonds and the fifty thousand dollars and the baths and the tired and sick people sent away. How do you suppose it can be told—in the way she will mind least, I mean?"
John, leaning against his end of the mantel, looked at the girl at hers, and laughed in her troubled eyes.
"The decision will hardly rest with us. Mr. Bartlett comes to-morrow to meet Mr. Moon and several other gentlemen invited for the purpose. The money deposited with his company to be used for Yorkburg in coming years will be staggering to Mr. Walstein. Miss Gibbie is a wizard in some things, and in business a genius, yet of this little scheme she made a mess and put you in a—How to let Yorkburg know who its unknown friend is will be settled by Mrs. McDougal, I imagine. I had a little talk with her this morning. She has understood all the time who was putting up the money, but she had sense enough to keep her understanding to herself. I told her she could let it out. She flew home for eggs, and there'll be few of her customers who won't have a visit from her to-day. You won't have to tell the name of Yorkburg's friend."
For a moment there was silence. Then abruptly15 he crossed over to her, took her hands in his, and held them with an intensity16 that hurt.
"Mary! Mary!" In his arms he gathered her, crushed her, lifted her face to his and kissed it, kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair. "We will come back for Christmas, but we are to be married at once."
She struggled to draw away, but his strong arms held her until breath came unsteadily; then, as again she tried to free herself, he held her off, gripping her hands.
"Is there nothing to tell me, Mary?"
"That you—love me." His faced whitened. "For my much love is there not even a little, Mary?"
She shook her head, her eyes still upon the rug. Then she looked up. "I never love—a little. For your much love I have— Oh, John, John, don't leave me any more! Don't leave me here alone!"
"I suppose"—she punched the cushion on the sofa beside her into first one shape and then another—"I suppose there must always be something we wish there wasn't. I don't like your world. I don't want to marry in it. It's so queer how things get mixed up and twisted in life. I believe in the old-fashioned things, and do not want that which the men and women of your world want. What would mere20 externals mean if your heart was not happy, or if one's life was spent on parade with no one to care for you—just for yourself."
"In this particular case"—he smiled in the brilliant, anxious eyes—"there is some one to care for you—just for yourself."
"I know, but—" She drew away. "I can't talk if— You really mustn't, John! I think I'd better sit in that chair."
"I think you hadn't. Go on. But what?"
"I don't like your kind of life. I mean the kind the people you know lead. When I used to visit Geraldine French I was always finding points of likeness21 in it to my early training. We had to do so many things we didn't want to, just because other people did them. Everything was cut according to a pattern. I don't like rules and regulations. I like Yorkburg. Here love counts."
"Love counts everywhere. Unfortunately, it's the rules and regulations that don't count in many worlds. Custom controls, I admit. But it's because love counts I need you, Mary. All of us get tired of it, the cap and bells, the sham22 and show, and underneath23 we know are eternal verities24 we pretend to forget. Eternal verities don't let you forget. Don't you see what you have done? You have made me understand what life could mean. In what you call my world are many who do not seem to know. There is something very terribly needing to be done there."
"What is there needing to be done?"
"To marry for love— Oh, I don't mean there is no marrying for love." He laughed in the shocked, wide-opened eyes. "I mean there is nothing so deceptive25 as love's counterfeit26, and other considerations masquerade under it unguessed, perhaps. Many men and women are, doubtless, honest in thinking when they marry that they love each other, but if they live long enough a large proportion find out their mistake."
"Oh no! I don't believe it! I know too many happy marriages to believe a thing like that. The trouble is—"
He looked in the protesting eyes. "The trouble is what?"
"That people imagine what they start with will last through life. As if love alone stood still, did not grow more or become less. I do not wonder at the unhappy marriages. I wonder there are not more of them."
"More of them? Were I to count the enviably happy couples I know there would barely be a dozen."
"A dozen?" She turned toward him in pretended unbelief. "In you world, do you know a dozen?"
"In you world, do you know more?"
"Many more."
"Could you name them? Not the outwardly, the seemingly happy ones, but those who are happier with each other under any circumstances than they would be apart under any conditions. Do you know many married people who come under this head?"
For a moment she did not answer, then turned to him questioning, troubled eyes. "Why do you ask such things, John? Our ideals of happiness may not be those of others. I know many happily married people. I've always believed in love, am always going to believe in it, and if unhappiness follows many marriages it is because there is not love enough. Happiness is such a tender thing!" She drew her hands away and clasped them tightly. "One should so carefully guard it, and instead—"
His eyes were missing no throb27 of the heart that sent recurring28 waves of color to her quivering face. "Instead?"
"It is taken as a right, rather than an award. And then there is weeping or storming or sneering29 when it is lost."
"Then we shall take it"—he lifted her hand to his lips—"as the award of life, and guard it. It needs guarding. In any world its hold is insecure."
Presently she again looked up and smoothed her hair. "But, John"— she shook her head doubtfully—"I shall be such a shock to your friends. I want, don't you see, to be free, to do what I want to do, not what I should be a code of custom. The Martha of me would break forth30 when most she should be quiet, and keep you always uneasy. I never know what Martha is going to say to do."
"That's why I love Martha! It's so wearing to always know what a person is going to say and do. If you were just all Mary—" He laughed, measuring her hand against his and looking carefully at its third finger. "You'll be a joy, my Mary Martha, and the more shocks you give the better for us." He took out a note-book and opened it. "What day is this? Saturday—let me see. Thanksgiving is on the twenty-sixth. You will want to be here, I suppose?"
"I certainly will!" She sat suddenly upright.
"And you want to be back for Christmas?"
"You don't suppose I'm really going—"
"I don't suppose anything about it. The matter is no longer in your hands. Three weeks from to-day will be the second of December. That will give us time, say, for a bit of Bermuda and back here for the holidays. Mary Cary"—he took her hands in his—"three weeks from to-day you are to marry me."
"But Miss Gibbie! We can't leave her here by herself. Couldn't she go, too? She'd love Bermuda. Don't you think, John, she could go, too?"
"I think not!" John's nod was decisive. "I prefer taking this trip with just my wife."
Mary leaned back on the sofa as if swept by a sudden realization32.
"I don't know what we've been thinking about. To go away and leave
Miss Gibbie like this would—"
"Make her indeed and in truth the friend of Yorkburg. To win its love she must give more than money. You have done much for her, opened her eyes to much, and she is beginning to understand. She has had a hard fight. To conquer herself, to give you up has meant—"
"Oh, John, John!" With a half-sob her hands went out to him. "For us the days ahead seem glad and beautiful. For her—To leave her, to leave my people, my little orphans33, would be more than selfish. I can't, John, I can't!"
He bent over and gathered her close to his heart, laughed unsteadily in the face he lifted to his. "You have no choice, my dear. You are mine now. Forever mine!"
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
charred
|
|
| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
shuffling
|
|
| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
steadily
|
|
| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
nervously
|
|
| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
irritation
|
|
| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
irresistible
|
|
| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
secrecy
|
|
| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
bantering
|
|
| adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
sniff
|
|
| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
partnership
|
|
| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
intensity
|
|
| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
lashes
|
|
| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
awakened
|
|
| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
likeness
|
|
| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
sham
|
|
| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
underneath
|
|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
verities
|
|
| n.真实( verity的名词复数 )；事实；真理；真实的陈述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
deceptive
|
|
| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
counterfeit
|
|
| vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
throb
|
|
| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
recurring
|
|
| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
sneering
|
|
| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
crimsoned
|
|
| 变为深红色（crimson的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
realization
|
|
| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
orphans
|
|
| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |