The Keiths arrived to find the Morrells' informal party in full blast. The front parlour was filled with a number of people making a great noise. Out of the confusion Mrs. Morrell arose and came to them, as they stood where the China-man had abandoned them.
"Mimi" Morrell was a tall woman, not fat, but amply built, with a full bust1 and hips2. Her hair was of the peculiar3 metallic4 golden blond that might or might not have been natural; her skin smooth and white, but coarse in grain, would look better at night than by daylight. Her handsome, regular features were rather hard and set in their expression when in absolute repose5, but absolute repose was rare to them. In action they softened7 to a very considerable feminine allurement8. She moved with decision, and possibly her general attitude smacked9 the least bit of running things. She gave the impression of keeping an eye open for everything going on about her. To Nan she seemed tremendous, overwhelming, and a little magnificent.
Immediately, without introductions, the whole party moved through the double doors into the dining-room. There they took their places at a table set out lavishly10 with food and drink in great quantity. Mrs. Morrell explained in her high level voice that servants and service were always dispensed11 with at her Sunday nights. She rather carelessly indicated a seat to Mrs. Keith, and remarked to Keith that he was to sit next herself. Otherwise the party distributed itself. Ben Sansome promptly12 annexed13 the chair next to Nan, and started in to make himself agreeable.
A complete freemasonry obtained among all the party. There was a great deal of shouting back and forth14, from one end of the table to the other. Each seemed to have a nickname. One young man was known exclusively as "Popsy," another answered as "Zou-zou," a third was called "Billy Goat"; a very vivid, flashing young woman was "Teeny," and so on. They conversed15, or rather shouted, to a great extent by means of catch words or phrases, alluding16 evidently to events the purport17 of which the Keiths could by no possibility guess. There were a great many private jokes, the points of which were obvious to only one or two. Every once in a while some one would say "Number Seven!" and everybody would go off into convulsions of laughter. The vivid young woman called Teeny suddenly shrieked19, "How about Friday, the twenty-third?" at Popsy, to Popsy's obvious consternation20 and confusion. Immediately every one turned on either Popsy or Teeny, demanding the true inwardness of the remark. Popsy defended himself, rather pink and embarrassed. The young woman, a devilish knowing glint in her eyes, her red underlip caught between her teeth, refused to answer.
Keith warmed to this free and easy atmosphere. He was friendly and sympathetic with the lively crowd. But in vain he tried for a point of contact. All this badinage21 depended on a previous knowledge and intimacy22, and that, of course, he lacked. Mrs. Morrell, sitting beside him very straight and commanding, delivered her general remarks in a high, clear voice, turning her attention impartially23 now to one part of the noisy table, now to another.
Suddenly she abandoned the company to its own devices, and leaning her left elbow on the table, she turned squarely to Keith, enveloping24 him with a magnetic all-for-you look.
"Do you know," she said abruptly26, "something tells me you are musical."
"Why, I am, a little," admitted Keith, surprised. "But how could you tell?"
"La, now, I was sure you had a voice the first time I heard you speak. I adore music, and I can always tell."
"Do you sing, too?" asked Keith.
"I? No, unfortunately. I have no more voice than a crow. I strum a bit, but even that has been a good deal neglected lately. There's no temptation to keep up one's music here. I don't know a single soul in all this city who cares a snap of their finger for it."
"We'll have to have some music together," suggested Keith.
"I'd adore it. Isn't it lucky we're neighbours? I've been so interested"-- she said it as though she had almost intended to say "amused"--"in watching you this past week. You are the most domestic man I know. I never saw a man work so singlemindedly at his house and home. Domesticity is a rare outworn virtue27 here, I assure you. It is really quite touching28 to see a man so devoted29 these days."
She said these things idly, a little disjointedly, looking at him steadily30 all the while. Her manner was detached, and yet somehow it impelled31 him strongly to protest that he was really not a bit domestic.
"Have you met any of the people of the place?" she shifted suddenly,
"Well--I really haven't had much chance yet--a few of the men."
"Well--you'll find things pretty mixed. Don't expect much; one has to take things pretty much as one finds them."
To this simple speech was appended one gesture only--a slight raising of the eyebrows32. Yet the effect was to sweep Keith into the intimacy of an inner circle, to suggest that she, too, found society mixed, and to imply-- very remotely--that at least certain members of the present company itself were not quite what he--or she--would choose in another environment. In unconscious response to this unspoken thought, Keith glanced about the table. There was a good deal of drinking going on; and the fun was becoming even more obvious and noisy. Mrs. Morrell occasionally sipped33 at her champagne34. She emitted a slight but rather disturbing perfume.
"Why did you come out here, anyway?" she asked him. "I can't make out. I'm curious."
"Why shouldn't I?" demanded Keith.
"Well, men come here either for money, for adventure, or to make a career." She marked each on the tablecloth35 with the end of a fork. "Which is it?"
"Guess," laughed Keith.
"You don't need money--or else you have a wonderful nerve to take the Boyle house. I believe you have the nerve, all right. Men with your sort of close curly hair are never--bashful!" she laughed shortly.
"Boyle's rent is safe--for a while," admitted Keith.
"Career?" she went on, looking him in the eyes speculatively36, and allowing her gaze to sink deep into his. He noticed that her eyes were a gray green, like semi-precious stones of some sorts, with surface lights, but also with grayer radiations that seemed to go below the surface to smouldering depths--disturbing eyes, like the perfume. "Career?" she repeated. "I think you hold yourself better--a career in the riff-raff of this town." She shook her head archly. "But adventure! Oh, la! There's plenty of that--all sorts!" She gave the impression of meaning a great deal more than she said. "I wish I were a man!" she exclaimed, and laughed.
"I'm glad you're not," rejoined Keith sincerely.
She tapped him lightly on the arm with her fan.
"Oh, la!" she cried.
Keith laughed meaningly and mischievously37. He was feeling entirely38 at home --in his mental shirtsleeves--thoroughly at ease.
"You're a lawyer, are you not?" she asked him.
"Try to be."
"Going to practise?"
"If any practice comes my way."
She looked at him, smiling slowly.
"Oh, it'll come fast enough." She seized her glass and held it to him. "Here's to your career!" she cried. "Bottoms up!"
They clinked glasses and drank.
"You must meet people--influential people," she told him. "We must see what we can do; I'll have some of them in."
"You're simply fine to take all this trouble for me!"
She tapped him again on the arm.
"Silly! We take care of our own people, of _course!_ Let's plan it. Have you any connections in town at all?"
"Well, I've met quite a few people about town, and I have some letters."
"Casual acquaintances are well enough, but your letters?"
"I have one to Calhoun Bennett, and to Mr. Dempster, and Mr. Farwell, and Truett--"
But she was making a wry39 face.
"What's the matter with, them?" he demanded.
"Cal Bennett's all right--but the others--oh, I suppose they're all right in a business way--but--"
"But, what?"
She made a helpless little gesture.
"I can't describe it--you know--the sort that are always so keen on doing their _duty!_"
She laughed; and to his subconscious40 surprise Keith found himself saying sympathetically:
"I know the sort of people who always pay their debts!"
They looked into each other's eyes and laughed in comradeship. In sober life Keith did his duty reasonably well, and was never far behind financially.
She fell silent for a moment; then with a muttered "excuse me," she leaned directly across his shoulder to impart something low-voiced and giggly41 to the woman on his right. To do this she leaned her breast against his arm and shoulder. The conversation lasted some seconds. Keith could not hear a word of it; but he was disturbingly aware of her perfume, the softness of her body, and the warmth that struck even through the intervening clothing. She drew back with a half apology.
"Feminine nonsense," she told him. "Mere42 man couldn't be expected to understand." She was herself a little flushed from leaning over, but she appeared not to notice Keith's rather breathless state. He muttered something, and gulped43 at his champagne.
"Do you know Mrs. Sherwood?" he asked, merely to say something,
But to his surprise Mrs, Morrell answered him shortly, her manner changing:
"No, I don't. We draw the line _somewhere_!"
Again she addressed the woman on the right, but this time without leaning across:
"Oh, Amy, the fair Patricia has another victim!" and laughed rather shrilly45. Suddenly she rapped the table with the handle of a knife. "Stop it!" she cried to the company at large. "You're making too much noise!"
They all turned to her except one youth who was too noisily busy with his partner to have heard her. Failing in another attempt to get his attention, Mrs. Morrell picked up a chunk46 of French bread and hurled47 it at him.
"Good shot!" "Bravo!" "Encore!" came a burst of applause, as the bread, largely by accident, took him squarely between the eyes.
The youth, though astonished, was game. He retaliated48 in kind. Keith whipped up an empty plate and intercepted49 it. The youth's partner came to his assistance. Keith, a plate in either hand, deftly50 protected Mrs. Morrell from the flying missiles. The implied challenge was instantly accepted by all. The air was full of bread. Keith's dexterity51 was tested to the utmost, but he came through the battle with flying colours. Everybody threw bread. There was much explosive laughter, that soon became fairly exhausting. The battle ceased, both because the combatants were out of ammunition52, and because they were too weak from mirth to proceed. Keith with elaborate mock gallantry turned and presented Mrs. Morrell with the two plates.
"The spoils of war!" he told her.
"He should be decorated for conspicuous53 gallantry on the field of battle!" cried some one.
The idea took. But they could find nothing appropriate until Teeny McFarlane deliberately54 stepped up on the table and broke from the glass chandelier one of its numerous dangling55 prisms. This called forth a mild protest from Morrell--"Oh, I say!"--which was drowned in a wild shriek18 of delight. The process of stepping down from the table tilted56 Teeny's wide skirts so that for an instant a slim silken leg was plainly visible as far as the knee. "Oh! oh!" cried every one. Some pretended to be shocked, and covered their faces with spread fingers; others feigned57 to try for another look. Teeny was quite unperturbed.
Keith was the centre of attention and a great success. But there were no more tete-a-tetes. Mrs. Morrell managed to convey the idea that she was displeased58, and Keith was of a sufficiently59 generous and ingenuous60 disposition61 to be intrigued62 by the fact. He had no chance to probe the matter. In a moment or so Mrs. Morrell rose and strolled toward the drawing-room. The others straggled after her. She rather liked thus to emphasize her lack of convention as a hostess, making a pose of never remembering the proper thing to do. Now she moved here and there, laughing her shrill44 rather mirthless laugh, calling everybody "dearie," uttering abrupt25 little platitudes63. Keith found himself left behind, and rather out in the cold. The company had quite frankly64 segregated65 itself into couples. The room was well adapted to this, filled as it was with comfortable chairs arranged with apparent carelessness two by two. The men lighted cigars. Keith saw Nan's eyes widen at this. She was sitting near the fire, and Sansome had penned her in beyond the possibility of invasion by a third. At this date smoking was a more or less doubtfully considered habit, and in the best society men smoked only in certain rigidly66 specified67 circumstances. In a drawing-room such an action might be considered the fair equivalent to powdering the feminine nose.
In such a condition, Keith was left rather awkwardly alone, and was fairly thrust upon a fictitious68 interest in a photograph album, at which he glowered69 for some moments. Then by a well-planned and skilfully70 executed flank movement he caught Mrs. Morrell.
"Look here," he demanded; "what has the standing71 army done to deserve abandonment in a hostile country?"
But she looked at him directly, without response to his playful manner.
"My friend," she said, "this is a pretty free and easy town, as no doubt you have observed, and society is very mixed. But we haven't yet come to receiving women like Mrs. Sherwood, or relishing72 their being mentioned to us."
"Why, what's the matter with her?" demanded Keith, astonished. "Is she as far from respectability as all that?"
"Respectable! That word isn't understood in San Francisco." She appeared suddenly to soften6. "You're a dear innocent boy, so you are, and you've got a dear innocent little wife, and I'll have to look out for you."
Before the deliberate and superior mockery in her eyes as well as in her voice, Keith felt somehow like a small boy. He was stung to a momentary73 astonishing fury.
"By God--" he began, and checked himself with difficulty.
She smiled at him slowly.
"Perhaps I didn't mean all of that," she said; "perhaps only half of it," she added with significance. "My personal opinion is that you are likely to be a curly haired little devil; and when you look at me like that, I'm glad we're not alone."
She looked at him an enigmatic moment, then turned away from the table near which they had been standing. "Come, help me break up some of this 'twosing,'" she said.
Shortly after this the party dispersed74. Mrs. Morrell said good-bye to them carelessly, or not at all, according as it happened.
"You must come again, come often," she told the Keiths. "It's pretty dull unless you make your own fun." She was half sleepily conventional, her lids heavy. "Perhaps we can have some music soon," she added. The words were careless, but she shot Keith an especial gleam.
The Keiths walked sociably75 home together, almost in silence. Keith, after his habit, super-excited with all the fun, the row, and the half-guilty boyish feeling of having done a little something he ought not to have done, did not want to seem too enthusiastic.
"Jolly crowd," he remarked.
"They were certainly noisy enough," said Nan indifferently; then after a moment, "Where _do_ you suppose some of them get their clothes?"
Keith's mind was full of the excitement of the evening. He found himself reviewing the company, appraising76 it, wondering about it. Was Teeny McFarlane as gay as she appeared? He had never seen women smoke before; but that dark girl with the red thing in her hair puffed77 a cigarette. Perhaps she was Spanish--he had not met her. And Mrs. Morrell--hanged if he quite dared make her out--it wouldn't do to jump to conclusions nor too hastily to apply Eastern standards; this was a new country, fatal to make a fool mistake; well-built creature, by gad--
Nan interrupted his thoughts. He came to with a start.
"I think we'd better put the big armchair in the front room, after all," she was saying.
收听单词发音 |
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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allurement
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| n.诱惑物 | |
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smacked
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| 拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lavishly
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| adv.慷慨地，大方地 | |
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dispensed
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| v.分配( dispense的过去式和过去分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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annexed
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| [法] 附加的，附属的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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purport
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| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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badinage
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| n.开玩笑，打趣 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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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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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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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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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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tablecloth
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| n.桌布，台布 | |
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speculatively
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| adv.思考地，思索地；投机地 | |
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mischievously
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| adv.有害地；淘气地 | |
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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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wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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giggly
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| adj.傻笑的，吃吃笑的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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chunk
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| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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48
retaliated
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| v.报复，反击( retaliate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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intercepted
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| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
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deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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dexterity
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| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
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52
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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53
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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55
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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56
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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intrigued
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| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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63
platitudes
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| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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segregated
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| 分开的； 被隔离的 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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glowered
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| v.怒视( glower的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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71
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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72
relishing
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| v.欣赏( relish的现在分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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73
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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74
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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75
sociably
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| adv.成群地 | |
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76
appraising
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| v.估价( appraise的现在分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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77
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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