“I met the Miser1: how has he been to-day? Rating you, eh?” said Lord Brancepeth when he had been ten minutes or more ensconced in the cosiest2 corner by the boudoir fire. He was a very well-featured and well-built young man, with a dark oval face, pensive3 brows, and great dreamy dark brown eyes; his physiognomy, which was poetic4 and melancholy5, did not accord with his conversation, which was slipshod and slangy, or his life which was idiotic6, after the manner of his generation.
Mouse was standing7 behind him leaning over his shoulder to look at an ancient British coin newly attached to his watch-chain; her own eyes were soft with a fullness of admiration8 which would have been doubtless delightful9 to him if he had not been so terribly used to it.
“The Miser was out of humor as usual,” she replied; “Ronald should really live amongst some primitive10 sect11 of Shakers or Quakers, or Ranters or Roarers, whatever they are called: he has all the early Christian12 virtues13, and he thinks nobody should live upon credit.”
“He certainly shouldn’t live amongst us,” said Brancepeth, with a self-satisfied laugh, as if chronic14 debt were a source of especial felicitation. “How he hates me, by the way, Mousie.”
“You are not a primitive virtue,” said his friend, with her hands lying lightly on his shoulders, and her breath stirring like a soft balmy south wind amongst his close curling dark hair.
Brancepeth had ceased to be a worshipper: and he had ceased even to like being the worshipped, but habit is second nature, and it was his habit to be wherever Lady Kenilworth was, and that kind of habit becomes second nature to lazy and good-hearted men.
He was a young man who was so constantly, almost universally, adored that it bored him, and he often reflected that he should never be lastingly15 attached except[68] to a woman who should detest16 him. He had not found that woman at the date at which he was allowing his friend Mouse to hang over his shoulder and admire the ancient British coin. He always told people that he was very fond of Cocky. Cocky and he were constantly to be seen walking together, or driving together, or playing games together, outdoors and indoors; they were even sometimes seen together in the nursery of those charming little blonde-haired, black-eyed children who were taught by their nurses to pray for Cocky as papa.
“The Miser will marry some day,” said Brancepeth now, “and then he won’t be so easy to bleed.”
“I am sure he will never marry. Alan is sure he never will.” Alan was her second brother.
“Stuff!” said Brancepeth. “Alan will be out in his calculations.”
“You will marry some day, too, I am sure, Harry17,” whispered Mouse, as she leaned over his chair; her tone was the tone of a woman who says what she does not think to enjoy the pleasure of being told that what she says is absurd and impossible.
Brancepeth gave a little laugh, and kissed the hand which was resting on the back of his chair.
“When Cocky goes to glory,” he answered.
“Cocky!” said Cocky’s wife with fierce contempt. “He will never die. Men like him never do die. They drink like ducks and never show it. They eat like pigs and never feel it. They cut their own throats every hour and are all the better for it. They destroy their livers, their lungs, their stomachs and their brains, and live on just as if they had all four in perfection. Nothing ever hurts them though their blood is brandy, their flesh is absinthe, and their minds are a sink emptied into a bladder. They look like cripples and like corpses18; but they never die. The hard-working railway men die, the hard-working curates die, the pretty little children die, the men who do good all day long and have thousands weeping for them, they die; but men like Cocky live and like to live, and if by any chance they ever fall ill, they get well just because everybody is passionately19 wishing them dead!”
She spoke20 with unusual intensity21 of expression, her[69] transparent22 nostrils23 dilated24, her red lips curled, her turquoise25 eyes gleamed and glittered; Brancepeth looked at her in alarm.
“On my word, Sourisette,” he murmured, “when you look like that you frighten a fellow. I wouldn’t be in Cocky’s shoes, not for a kingdom.”
“Well, yes, of course, yes,” said Brancepeth. “Only you positively27 alarm me when you talk like this. I’m not such an over-and-above correct-living fellow myself, and Cocky isn’t so out-and-out bad as all that, you know. After all, he’s got some excuse.”
“Some excuse!” she repeated, her delicate complexion28 flushing red. “Some excuse! You—you, Harry—you dare to say that to me?”
“Well, it’s the truth,” murmured Brancepeth sulkily. “And don’t make me a scene, Mouse; my nerves can’t stand it; I’m taking cocaine29 and I ought to keep quiet, I ought indeed.”
“Why do you take cocaine?” asked Lady Kenilworth, changing to inquietude and interrogating30 his countenance31 anxiously.
“All sorts of reasons,” said her friend, sulkily still. “Oh, yes, I look well enough, I dare say; people often look well when they are half dead. Don’t make me scenes, Topinetta; I can’t bear them.”
“I never make you scenes, darling; not even when you give me reason!”
“Humph!” said Brancepeth, very doubtfully, “when do I give you reason? There never was anybody who stood your bullying32 as I stand it.”
“Bullying! Oh, Harry!”
“Yes, bullying. Cocky don’t stand it; he licks you; I cave in.”
With those unpoetic words Lord Brancepeth laid his poetic head back on the cushions of his chair, and closed his eyelids33 till their long thick lashes34 rested on his cheeks, with an air of martyrdom and exhaustion35. She looked at him anxiously.
“You really do not look well, love,” she whispered, as she hung over his chair. “It is—is it—that you care for[70] any other woman? I would rather know the truth, Harry.”
“Women be hanged,” said Brancepeth with a sigh, his eyes still closed. “It’s the cocaine; cures a fellow, you know, but kills him. That’s what all the new medicines do.”
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收听单词发音
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1
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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cosiest
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| adj.温暖舒适的( cosy的最高级 )；亲切友好的 | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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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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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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lastingly
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| [医]有残留性，持久地，耐久地 | |
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detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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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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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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turquoise
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| n.绿宝石；adj.蓝绿色的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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cocaine
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| n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂） | |
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interrogating
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| n.询问技术v.询问( interrogate的现在分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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lashes
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| 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 | |
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35
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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