SUSY and Lord Altringham sat in the little drawing-room, dividedfrom each other by a table carrying a smoky lamp and heaped withtattered school-books.
In another half hour the bonne, despatched to fetch the childrenfrom their classes, would be back with her flock; and at anymoment Geordie's imperious cries might summon his slave up tothe nursery. In the scant2 time allotted3 them, the two sat, andvisibly wondered what to say.
Strefford, on entering, had glanced about the dreary4 room, withits piano laden5 with tattered1 music, the children's toyslittering the lame6 sofa, the bunches of dyed grass and impaledbutterflies flanking the cast-bronze clock. Then he had turnedto Susy and asked simply: "Why on earth are you here?"She had not tried to explain; from the first, she had understoodthe impossibility of doing so. And she would not betray hersecret longing7 to return to Nick, now that she knew that Nickhad taken definite steps for his release. In dread8 lestStrefford should have heard of this, and should announce it toher, coupling it with the news of Nick's projected marriage, andlest, hearing her fears thus substantiated9, she should lose herself-control, she had preferred to say, in a voice that shetried to make indifferent: "The 'proceedings,' or whatever thelawyers call them, have begun. While they're going on I like tostay quite by myself .... I don't know why ...."Strefford, at that, had looked at her keenly. "Ah," hemurmured; and his lips were twisted into their old mockingsmile. "Speaking of proceedings," he went on carelessly, "whatstage have Ellie's reached, I wonder? I saw her and Vanderlynand Bockheimer all lunching cheerfully together to-day atLarue's."The blood rushed to Susy's forehead. She remembered her tragicevening with Nelson Vanderlyn, only two months earlier, andthought to herself. "In time, then, I suppose, Nick and I ....
Aloud she said: "I can't imagine how Nelson and Ellie can everwant to see each other again. And in a restaurant, of allplaces!"Strefford continued to smile. "My dear, you're incorrigiblyold-fashioned. Why should two people who've done each other thebest turn they could by getting out of each other's way at theright moment behave like sworn enemies ever afterward10? It's tooabsurd; the humbug11's too flagrant. Whatever our generation hasfailed to do, it's got rid of humbug; and that's enough toimmortalize it. I daresay Nelson and Ellie never liked eachother better than they do to-day. Twenty years ago, they'd havebeen afraid to confess it; but why shouldn't they now?"Susy looked at Strefford, conscious that under his words was theache of the disappointment she had caused him; and yet consciousalso that that very ache was not the overwhelming penetratingemotion he perhaps wished it to be, but a pang12 on a par13 with adozen others; and that even while he felt it he foresaw the daywhen he should cease to feel it. And she thought to herselfthat this certainty of oblivion must be bitterer than anycertainty of pain.
A silence had fallen between them. He broke it by rising fromhis seat, and saying with a shrug14: "You'll end by driving me tomarry Joan Senechal."Susy smiled. "Well, why not? She's lovely.""Yes; but she'll bore me.""Poor Streff! So should I--""Perhaps. But nothing like as soon--" He grinned sardonically15.
"There'd be more margin16." He appeared to wait for her to speak.
"And what else on earth are you going to do?" he concluded, asshe still remained silent.
"Oh, Streff, I couldn't marry you for a reason like that!" shemurmured at length.
"Then marry me, and find your reason afterward."Her lips made a movement of denial, and still in silence sheheld out her hand for good-bye. He clasped it, and then turnedaway; but on the threshold he paused, his screwed-up eyes fixedon her wistfully.
The look moved her, and she added hurriedly: "The only reason Ican find is one for not marrying you. It's because I can't yetfeel unmarried enough.""Unmarried enough? But I thought Nick was doing his best tomake you feel that.""Yes. But even when he has--sometimes I think even that won'tmake any difference."He still scrutinized17 her hesitatingly, with the gravest eyes shehad ever seen in his careless face.
"My dear, that's rather the way I feel about you," he saidsimply as he turned to go.
That evening after the children had gone to bed Susy sat up latein the cheerless sitting-room18. She was not thinking ofStrefford but of Nick. He was coming to Paris--perhaps he hadalready arrived. The idea that he might be in the same placewith her at that very moment, and without her knowing it, was sostrange and painful that she felt a violent revolt of all herstrong and joy-loving youth. Why should she go on suffering sounbearably, so abjectly19, so miserably20? If only she could seehim, hear his voice, even hear him say again such cruel andhumiliating words as he had spoken on that dreadful day inVenice when that would be better than this blankness, this utterand final exclusion21 from his life! He had been cruel to her,unimaginably cruel: hard, arrogant22, unjust; and had been so,perhaps, deliberately23, because he already wanted to be free.
But she was ready to face even that possibility, to humbleherself still farther than he had humbled24 her--she was ready todo anything, if only she might see him once again.
She leaned her aching head on her hands and pondered. Doanything? But what could she do? Nothing that should hurt him,interfere with his liberty, be false to the spirit of theirpact: on that she was more than ever resolved. She had made abargain, and she meant to stick to it, not for any abstractreason, but simply because she happened to love him in that way.
Yes--but to see him again, only once!
Suddenly she remembered what Strefford had said about NelsonVanderlyn and his wife. "Why should two people who've just doneeach other the best turn they could behave like sworn enemiesever after?" If in offering Nick his freedom she had indeeddone him such a service as that, perhaps he no longer hated her,would no longer be unwilling25 to see her .... At any rate, whyshould she not write to him on that assumption, write in aspirit of simple friendliness26, suggesting that they should meetand "settle things"? The business-like word "settle" (how shehated it) would prove to him that she had no secret designs uponhis liberty; and besides he was too unprejudiced, too modern,too free from what Strefford called humbug, not to understandand accept such a suggestion. After all, perhaps Strefford wasright; it was something to have rid human relations ofhypocrisy, even if, in the process, so many exquisite27 thingsseemed somehow to have been torn away with it ....
She ran up to her room, scribbled28 a note, and hurried with itthrough the rain and darkness to the post-box at the corner. Asshe returned through the empty street she had an odd feelingthat it was not empty--that perhaps Nick was already there,somewhere near her in the night, about to follow her to thedoor, enter the house, go up with her to her bedroom in the oldway. It was strange how close he had been brought by the merefact of her having written that little note to him!
In the bedroom, Geordie lay in his crib in ruddy slumber29, andshe blew out the candle and undressed softly for fear of wakinghim.
Nick Lansing, the next day, received Susy's letter, transmittedto his hotel from the lawyer's office.
He read it carefully, two or three times over, weighing andscrutinizing the guarded words. She proposed that they shouldmeet to "settle things." What things? And why should he accedeto such a request? What secret purpose had prompted her? Itwas horrible that nowadays, in thinking of Susy, he shouldalways suspect ulterior motives30, be meanly on the watch for somehidden tortuousness31. What on earth was she trying to "manage"now, he wondered.
A few hours ago, at the sight of her, all his hardness hadmelted, and he had charged himself with cruelty, with injustice,with every sin of pride against himself and her; but theappearance of Strefford, arriving at that late hour, and soevidently expected and welcomed, had driven back the rising tideof tenderness.
Yet, after all, what was there to wonder at? Nothing waschanged in their respective situations. He had left his wife,deliberately, and for reasons which no subsequent experience hadcaused him to modify. She had apparently32 acquiesced33 in hisdecision, and had utilized34 it, as she was justified35 in doing, toassure her own future.
In all this, what was there to wail36 or knock the breast betweentwo people who prided themselves on looking facts in the face,and making their grim best of them, without vain repinings? Hehad been right in thinking their marriage an act of madness.
Her charms had overruled his judgment37, and they had had theiryear ... their mad year ... or at least all but two or threemonths of it. But his first intuition had been right; and nowthey must both pay for their madness. The Fates seldom forgetthe bargains made with them, or fail to ask for compoundinterest. Why not, then, now that the time had come, pay upgallantly, and remember of the episode only what had made itseem so supremely38 worth the cost?
He sent a pneumatic telegram to Mrs. Nicholas Lansing to saythat he would call on her that afternoon at four. "That oughtto give us time," he reflected drily, "to 'settle things,' asshe calls it, without interfering39 with Strefford's afternoonvisit."
收听单词发音 |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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substantiated
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| v.用事实支持（某主张、说法等），证明，证实( substantiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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sardonically
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| adv.讽刺地，冷嘲地 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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scrutinized
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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abjectly
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| 凄惨地； 绝望地； 糟透地； 悲惨地 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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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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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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31
tortuousness
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| 曲折，弯曲 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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utilized
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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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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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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