Silence pervaded1 the dim old aisles2 of Market Square Church; a silence which seemed to be palpable; a solemn hush4 which wavered, like the ghostly echoes of anthems5 long forgotten, among the slender columns and the high arches and the delicate tracery of the groining; the winter sun, streaming through the clerestory windows, cast, on the floor and on the vacant benches, patches of ruby6 and of sapphire7, of emerald and of topaz, these seeming only to accentuate8 the dimness and the silence.
A thin, wavering, treble note, so delicate that it seemed like a mere9 invisible cobweb of a tone, stole out of the organ loft10 and went pulsing up amid the dim arches. It grew in volume; it added a diapason; a deep, soft bass11 joined it, and then, subdued12, but throbbing13 with the passion of a lost soul, it swelled15 into one of the noble preludes16 of Bach. The organ rose in a mighty18 crescendo19 to a peal20 which shook the very edifice21; then it stopped with an abruptness22 which was uncanny, so much so that the silence which ensued was oppressive. In that silence the vestry door creaked, it opened wide, and it was as if a vision had suddenly been set there! Framed in the dark doorway23 against 2the background of the sun-flooded vestry, bathed in the golden light from the transept window, brown-haired, brown-eyed, rosy-cheeked, stood a girl who might have been one of the slender stained-glass virgins24 come to life, the golden light flaming the edges of her hair into an oriole. She stood timidly, peering into the dimness, and on her beautifully curved lips was a half questioning smile.
“Uncle Jim,” she called, and there was some quality in her low voice which was strangely attractive; and disturbing.
“By George, Gail, I forgot that you were to come for me!” said Jim Sargent, rising from amid the group of men in the dim transept. “The decorators drove us out of the vestry.”
“They drove me out, too,” laughed the vision, stepping from her frame.
“We are delighted that they drove you in here,” quoth the tall, young Reverend Smith Boyd, who had accomplished26 the rare art of bowing gracefully27 in a Prince Albert.
She smiled her acknowledgment of the compliment, and glanced uncertainly at the awe-inspiring vestry meeting, then she turned toward the door.
“My niece, Miss Gail Sargent, gentlemen,” announced Jim Sargent, with entirely28 justifiable29 pride, and, beaming until his bald spot seemed to glow with an added shine, he introduced her to each of the gentlemen present, with the exception of Smith Boyd, whom she had met that morning.
“What a pity Saint Paul didn’t see you,” remarked silver-bearded Rufus Manning, calmly appropriating the vision and ushering30 her into the pew between himself and her uncle. “He never would have said it.”
3“That women should not sit in council with the men?” she laughed, looking into the blue eyes of patriarchal Manning. “Are you sure I won’t be in the way?”
“Not at all,” round-headed old Nicholas Van Ploon immediately assured her. He had popped his eyes open with a jerk at the entrance of Gail, and had not since been able to close them to their normal almond shape. He sat now uncomfortably twisted so that he could face her, and his cheeks were reddening with the exertion31, which had wrinkled his roundly filled vest. The young rector contemplated32 her gravely. He was not quite pleased.
“We’ll be through in a few minutes, Gail,” promised Jim Sargent. “Allison, you were about to prove something to us, I think,” and he leaned forward to smile across Gail at Rufus Manning.
“Prove is the right word,” agreed the stockily built man who had evidently been addressing the vestry. He was acutely conscious of the presence of Gail, as they all were. “Your rector suggests that this is a matter of sentiment. You are anxious to have fifty million dollars to begin the erection of a cathedral; but I came here to talk business, and that only. Granting you the full normal appreciation34 of your Vedder Court property, and the normal increase of your aggregate35 rentals36, you can not have, at the end of ten years, a penny over forty-two millions. I am prepared to offer you, in cash, a sum which will, at three and a half per cent., and in ten years, produce that exact amount. To this I add two million.”
“How much did you allow for increase in the value of the property?” asked Nicholas Van Ploon, whose only knowledge for several generations had been centred 4on this one question. The original Van Ploon had bought a vast tract25 of Manhattan for a dollar an acre, and, by that stroke of towering genius, had placed the family of Van Ploon, for all eternity37, beyond the necessity of thought.
For answer, Allison passed him the envelope upon which he had been figuring, checking off an item as he did so. He noticed that Gail’s lips twitched38 with suppressed mirth. She turned abruptly39 to look back at the striking transept window, and the three vestrymen in the rear pew immediately sat straighter. Willis Cunningham, who was a bachelor, hastily smoothed his Vandyke. He was so rich, by inheritance, that money meant nothing to him.
“Not enough,” grunted40 Van Ploon, handing back the envelope, and twisting again in the general direction of Gail.
“Ample,” retorted Allison. “You can’t count anything for the buildings. While I don’t deny that they yield the richest income of any property in the city, they are the most decrepit41 tenements42 in New York. They’ll fall down in less than ten years. You have them propped43 up now.”
Jim Sargent glanced solicitously44 at Gail, but she did not seem to be bored; not a particle!
“They are passed by the building inspector45 annually,” pompously46 stated W. T. Chisholm, his mutton chops turning pink from the reddening of the skin beneath. He had spent a lifetime in resenting indignities47 before they reached him.
Four indignant vestrymen jerked forward to answer that insult.
5“Gentlemen, this is a vestry meeting,” sternly reproved the Reverend Smith Boyd, advancing a step, and seeming to feel the need of a gavel. His rich, deep baritone explained why he was rector of the richest church in the world.
Gail’s eyes were dancing, but otherwise she was demureness50 itself as she studied, in turns, the members of the richest vestry in the world. She estimated that eight of the gentlemen then present were almost close enough to the anger line to swear. They numbered just eight, and they were most interesting! And this was a vestry meeting!
“The topic of debate was money, I believe,” suggested Manning, rescuing his sense of humour from somewhere in his beard. He was the infidel member. “Suppose we return to it. Is Allison’s offer worth considering?”
“Why?” inquired the nasal voice of clean-shaven old Joseph G. Clark, who was sarcastic51 in money matters. The Standard Cereal Company had attained52 its colossal53 dimensions through rebates54; and he had invented the device! “The only reason we’d sell to Allison would be that we could get more money than by the normal return from our investment.”
The thinly spun55 treble note began once more, pulsing its timid way among the high, dim arches, as if seeking a lodgment where it might fasten its tiny thread of harmony, and grow into a masterful composition. A little old lady came slowly down the centre aisle3 of the nave56, in rich but modest black, struggling, against her infirmities, to walk with a trace of the erect33 gracefulness57 of her bygone youth. Gail, listening raptly to the delicately increasing throb14 of the music, followed, in abstraction, the slow progress of the little old lady, who 6seemed to carry with her, for just a moment, a trace of the solemn hush belonging to that perspective of slender columns which spread their gracefully pointed59 arches up into the groined twilight60, where the music hovered61 until it could gather strength to burst into full song. The little old lady turned her gaze for an instant to the group in the transept, and subconsciously62 gave the folds of her veil a touch; then she slipped into her pew, down near the altar, and raised her eyes to the exquisite63 Henri Dupres crucifix. She knelt, and bowed her forehead on her hands.
“I’ve allowed two million for the profit of Market Square Church in dealing64 with me,” stated Allison, again proffering65 the envelope which no one made a move to take. “I will not pay a dollar more.”
W. T. Chisholm was suddenly reminded that the vestry had a moral obligation in the matter under discussion. He was president of the Majestic66 Trust Company, and never forgot that fact.
“To what use would you devote the property of Market Square Church?” he gravely asked.
“The erection of a terminal station for all the municipal transportation in New York,” answered Allison; “subways, elevateds, surface cars, traction58 lines! The proposition should have the hearty67 co-operation of every citizen.”
Simple little idea, wasn’t it? Gail had to think successively to comprehend what a stupendous enterprise this was; and the man talked about it as modestly as if he were planning to sod a lawn; more so! Why, back home, if a man dreamed a dream so vast as that, he just talked about it for the rest of his life; and they put a poet’s wreath on his tombstone.
“Now you’re talking sentiment,” retorted stubby-moustached 7Jim Sargent. “You said, a while ago, that you came here strictly68 on business. So did we. This is no place for sentiment.”
Rufus Manning, with the tip of his silvery beard in his fingers, looked up into the delicate groining of the apse, where it curved gracefully forward over the head of the famous Henri Dupres crucifix, and he grinned. Gail Sargent was looking contemplatively from one to the other of the grave vestrymen.
“You’re right,” conceded Allison curtly69. “Suppose you fellows talk it over by yourselves, and let me know your best offer.”
“Very well,” assented70 Jim Sargent, with an indifference71 which did not seem to be assumed. “We have some other matters to discuss, and we may as well thrash this thing out right now. We’ll let you know to-morrow.”
Gail looked at her watch and rose energetically.
“I shall be late at Lucile’s, Uncle Jim. I don’t think I can wait for you.”
“I’m sorry,” regretted Sargent. “I don’t like to have you drive around alone.”
“I’ll be very happy to take Miss Sargent anywhere she’d like to go,” offered Allison, almost instantaneously.
“Thank you,” said Gail simply, as she stepped out of the pew.
The gentlemen of the vestry rose as one man. Old Nicholas Van Ploon even attempted to stand gracefully on one leg, while his vest bulged73 over the back of the pew in front of him.
“I think we’ll have to make you a permanent member 8of the vestry,” smiled Manning, the patriarch, as he bowed his adieus. “We’ve been needing a brightening influence for some time.”
Willis Cunningham, the thoughtful one, wedged his Vandyke between the heads of Standard Cereal Clark and Banker Chisholm.
“We hope to see you often, Miss Sargent,” was his thoughtful remark.
“I mean to attend services,” returned Gail graciously, looking up into the organ loft, where the organist was making his third attempt at that baffling run in the Bach prelude17.
“You haven’t said how you like our famous old church,” suggested the Reverend Smith Boyd with pleasant ease, though he felt relieved that she was going.
The sudden snap in Gail’s eyes fairly scintillated74. It was like the shattering of fine glass in the sunlight.
“It seems to be a remarkably75 lucrative76 enterprise,” she smiled up at him, and was rewarded by a snort from Uncle Jim and a chuckle77 from silvery-bearded Rufus Manning. Allison frankly78 guffawed79. The balance of the sedate80 vestry was struck dumb by the impertinence.
Gail felt the eyes of the Reverend Smith Boyd fixed81 steadily82 on her, and turned to meet them. They were cold. She had thought them blue; but now they were green! She stared back into them for a moment, and a little red spot came into the delicate tint83 of her oval cheeks; then she turned deliberately84 to the marvellously beautiful big transept window. It had been designed by the most famous stained-glass artist in the world, and its subject lent itself to a wealth of colour. It was Christ turning the money changers out of the temple!
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收听单词发音
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1
pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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anthems
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| n.赞美诗( anthem的名词复数 )；圣歌；赞歌；颂歌 | |
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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accentuate
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| v.着重，强调 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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preludes
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| n.开端( prelude的名词复数 )；序幕；序曲；短篇作品 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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crescendo
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| n.(音乐)渐强，高潮 | |
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peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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virgins
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| 处女，童男( virgin的名词复数 )； 童贞玛利亚（耶稣之母） | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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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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justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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ushering
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的现在分词 ) | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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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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aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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rentals
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| n.租费，租金额( rental的名词复数 ) | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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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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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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40
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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decrepit
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| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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solicitously
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| adv.热心地，热切地 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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pompously
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| adv.傲慢地，盛大壮观地；大模大样 | |
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indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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inspectors
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| n.检查员( inspector的名词复数 )；（英国公共汽车或火车上的）查票员；（警察）巡官；检阅官 | |
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49
insinuated
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| v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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50
demureness
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| n.demure（拘谨的，端庄的）的变形 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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52
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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rebates
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| n.退还款( rebate的名词复数 )；回扣；返还（退还的部份货价）；折扣 | |
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55
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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56
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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gracefulness
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traction
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| n.牵引；附着摩擦力 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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proffering
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的现在分词 ) | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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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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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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scintillated
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| v.（言谈举止中）焕发才智( scintillate的过去式和过去分词 )；谈笑洒脱；闪耀；闪烁 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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77
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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guffawed
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| v.大笑，狂笑( guffaw的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sedate
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| adj.沉着的，镇静的，安静的 | |
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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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82
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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83
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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84
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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