They rode on to Cosham and lunched lightly but expensively there. Jessie went out and posted her letter to her school friend. Then the green height of Portsdown Hill tempted1 them, and leaving their machines in the village they clambered up the slope to the silent red-brick fort that crowned it. Thence they had a view of Portsmouth and its cluster of sister towns, the crowded narrows of the harbour, the Solent and the Isle2 of Wight like a blue cloud through the hot haze3. Jessie by some miracle had become a skirted woman in the Cosham inn. Mr. Hoopdriver lounged gracefully4 on the turf, smoked a Red Herring cigarette, and lazily regarded the fortified5 towns that spread like a map away there, the inner line of defence like toy fortifications, a mile off perhaps ; and beyond that a few little fields and then the beginnings of Landport suburb and the smoky cluster of the multitudinous houses. To the right at the head of the harbour shallows the town of Porchester rose among the trees. Mr. Hoopdriver's anxiety receded6 to some remote corner of his brain and that florid half-voluntary imagination of his shared the stage with the image of Jessie. He began to speculate on the impression he was creating. He took stock of his suit in a more optimistic spirit, and reviewed, with some complacency, his actions for the last four and twenty hours. Then he was dashed at the thought of her infinite perfections.
She had been observing him quietly, rather more closely during the last hour or so. She did not look at him directly because he seemed always looking at her. Her own troubles had quieted down a little, and her curiosity about the chivalrous7, worshipping, but singular gentleman in brown, was awakening8. She had recalled, too, the curious incident of their first encounter. She found him hard to explain to herself. You must understand that her knowledge of the world was rather less than nothing, having been obtained entirely9 from books. You must not take a certain ignorance for foolishness.
She had begun with a few experiments. He did not know French except 'sivver play,' a phrase he seemed to regard as a very good light table joke in itself. His English was uncertain, but not such as books informed her distinguished10 the lower classes. His manners seemed to her good on the whole, but a trifle over-respectful and out of fashion. He called her I Madam' once. He seemed a person of means and leisure, but he knew nothing of recent concerts, theatres, or books. How did he spend his time? He was certainly chivalrous, and a trifle simpleminded. She fancied (so much is there in a change of costume) that she had never met with such a man before. What COULD he be?
"Mr. Benson," she said, breaking a silence devoted11 to landscape.
He rolled over and regarded her, chin on knuckles12.
"At your service."
"Do you paint? Are you an artist?"
"Well." Judicious13 pause. "I should hardly call myself a Nartist." you know. I DO paint a little. And sketch14, you know--skitty kind of things."
He plucked and began to nibble15 a blade of grass. It was really not so much lying as his quick imagination that prompted him to add, "In Papers, you know, and all that."
"I see," said Jessie, looking at him thoughtfully. Artists were a very heterogeneous16 class certainly, and geniuses had a trick of being a little odd. He avoided her eye and bit his grass. "I don't do MUCH, you know."
"It's not your profession?
"Oh, no," said Hoopdriver, anxious now to hedge. "I don't make a regular thing of it, you know. jest now and then something comes into my head and down it goes. No--I'm not a regular artist."
"Then you don't practise any regular profession? Mr. Hoopdriver looked into her eyes and saw their quiet unsuspicious regard. He had vague ideas of resuming the detective role. "It's like this," he said, to gain time. "I have a sort of profession. Only there's a kind of reason--nothing much, you know "
"I beg your pardon for cross-examining you."
"No trouble," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "Only I can't very well--I leave it to you, you know. I don't want to make any mystery of it, so far as that goes." Should he plunge17 boldly and be a barrister? That anyhow was something pretty good. But she might know about barristry.
"I think I could guess what you are."
"Well--guess," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
"You come from one of the colonies?"
"Dear me!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, veering18 round to the new wind. "How did you find out THAT?" (the man was born in a London suburb, dear Reader.)
"I guessed," she said.
He lifted his eyebrows19 as one astonished, and clutched a new piece of grass.
"You were educated up country."
"Good again," said Hoopdriver, rolling over again into her elbow. "You're a CLAIRVOY ant." He bit at the grass, smiling. "Which colony was it?"
"That I don't know."
"You must guess," said Hoopdriver.
"South Africa," she said. "I strongly incline to South Africa."
"South Africa's quite a large place," he said.
"But South Africa is right?"
"You're warm," said Hoopdriver, "anyhow," and the while his imagination was eagerly exploring this new province.
"South Africa IS right?" she insisted.
He turned over again and nodded, smiling reassuringly20 into her eyes.
"What made me think of South Africa was that novel of Olive Schreiner's, you know--The Story of an African Farm.' Gregory Rose is so like you."
"I never read 'The Story of an African Farm,'" said Hoopdriver. "I must. What's he like?"
"You must read the book. But it's a wonderful place, with its mixture of races, and its brand-new civilisation21 jostling the old savagery22. Were you near Khama?"
"He was a long way off from our place," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "We had a little ostrich23 farm, you know--Just a few hundred of 'em, out Johannesburg way."
"On the Karroo--was it called?"
"That's the term. Some of it was freehold though. Luckily. We got along very well in the old days.--But there's no ostriches24 on that farm now." He had a diamond mine in his head, just at the moment, but he stopped and left a little to the girl's imagination. Besides which it had occurred to him with a kind of shock that he was lying.
"What became of the ostriches?"
"We sold 'em off, when we parted with the farm. Do you mind if I have another cigarette? That was when I was quite a little chap, you know, that we had this ostrich farm."
"Did you have Blacks and Boers about you?"
"Lots," said Mr. Hoopdriver, striking a match on his instep and beginning to feel hot at the new responsibility he had brought upon himself.
"How interesting! Do you know, I've never been out of England except to Paris and Mentone and Switzerland."
"One gets tired of travelling (puff) after a bit, of course."
"You must tell me about your farm in South Africa. It always stimulates25 my imagination to think of these places. I can fancy all the tall ostriches being driven out by a black herd--to graze, I suppose. How do ostriches feed?"
"Well," said Hoopdriver. "That's rather various. They have their fancies, you know. There's fruit, of course, and that kind of thing. And chicken food, and so forth26. You have to use judgment27."
"Did you ever see a lion?" "They weren't very common in our district," said Hoopdriver, quite modestly. "But I've seen them, of course. Once or twice."
"Fancy seeing a lion! Weren't you frightened?"
Mr. Hoopdriver was now thoroughly28 sorry he had accepted that offer of South Africa. He puffed29 his cigarette and regarded the Solent languidly as he settled the fate on that lion in his mind. "I scarcely had time," he said. "It all happened in a minute."
"Go on," she said.
"I was going across the inner paddock where the fatted ostriches were."
"Did you EAT ostriches, then? I did not know--"
"Eat them!--often. Very nice they ARE too, properly stuffed. Well, we--I, rather--was going across this paddock, and I saw something standing30 up in the moonlight and looking at me." Mr. Hoopdriver was in a hot perspiration31 now. His invention seemed to have gone limp. "Luckily I had my father's gun with me. I was scared, though, I can tell you. (Puff.) I just aimed at the end that I thought was the head. And let fly. (Puff.) And over it went, you know."
"Dead?"
"AS dead. It was one of the luckiest shots I ever fired. And I wasn't much over nine at the time, neither."
"_I_ should have screamed and run away."
"There's some things you can't run away from," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "To run would have been Death."
"I don't think I ever met a lion-killer before," she remarked, evidently with a heightened opinion of him.
There was a pause. She seemed meditating32 further questions. Mr. Hoopdriver drew his watch hastily. "I say," said Mr. Hoopdriver, showing it to her, "don't you think we ought to be getting on?"
His face was flushed, his ears bright red. She ascribed his confusion to modesty33. He rose with a lion added to the burthens of his conscience, and held out his hand to assist her. They walked down into Cosham again, resumed their machines, and went on at a leisurely34 pace along the northern shore of the big harbour. But Mr. Hoopdriver was no longer happy. This horrible, this fulsome35 lie, stuck in his memory. Why HAD he done it? She did not ask for any more South African stories, happily--at least until Porchester was reached--but talked instead of Living One's Own Life, and how custom hung on people like chains. She talked wonderfully, and set Hoopdriver's mind fermenting36. By the Castle, Mr. Hoopdriver caught several crabs37 in little shore pools. At Fareham they stopped for a second tea, and left the place towards the hour of sunset, under such invigorating circumstances as you shall in due course hear.
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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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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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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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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knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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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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nibble
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| n.轻咬，啃；v.一点点地咬，慢慢啃，吹毛求疵 | |
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heterogeneous
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| adj.庞杂的；异类的 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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veering
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| n.改变的；犹豫的；顺时针方向转向；特指使船尾转向上风来改变航向v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的现在分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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ostrich
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| n.鸵鸟 | |
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ostriches
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| n.鸵鸟( ostrich的名词复数 )；逃避现实的人，不愿正视现实者 | |
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stimulates
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| v.刺激( stimulate的第三人称单数 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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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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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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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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33
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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fulsome
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| adj.可恶的，虚伪的，过分恭维的 | |
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fermenting
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| v.（使）发酵( ferment的现在分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰 | |
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crabs
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| n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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