“It’s rather a delicate business,” she told Joan. She was lying on a couch in her great library, and Joan was seated by her side. “I want someone who can go into private houses and mix with educated people on their own level; and especially I want you to see one or two women: they count in France. You know French pretty well, don’t you?”
“Oh, sufficiently,” Joan answered. The one thing her mother had done for her had been to talk French with her when she was a child; and at Girton she had chummed on with a French girl, and made herself tolerably perfect.
“You will not go as a journalist,” continued Mrs. Denton; “but as a personal friend of mine, whose discretion2 I shall vouch3 for. I want you to find out what the people I am sending you among are thinking themselves, and what they consider ought to be done. If we are not very careful on both sides we shall have the newspapers whipping us into war.”
The perpetual Egyptian trouble had cropped up again and the Carleton papers, in particular, were already sounding the tocsin. Carleton’s argument was that we ought to fall upon France and crush her, before she could develop her supposed submarine menace. His flaming posters were at every corner. Every obscure French newspaper was being ransacked4 for “Insults and Pinpricks.”
“A section of the Paris Press is doing all it can to help him, of course,” explained Mrs. Denton. “It doesn’t seem to matter to them that Germany is only waiting her opportunity, and that, if Russia comes in, it is bound to bring Austria. Europe will pay dearly one day for the luxury of a free Press.”
“But you’re surely not suggesting any other kind of Press, at this period of the world’s history?” exclaimed Joan.
“Oh, but I am,” answered the old lady with a grim tightening5 of the lips. “Not even Carleton would be allowed to incite6 to murder or arson7. I would have him prosecuted8 for inciting9 a nation to war.”
“Why is the Press always so eager for war?” mused10 Joan. “According to their own account, war doesn’t pay them.”
“I don’t suppose it does: not directly,” answered Mrs. Denton. “But it helps them to establish their position and get a tighter hold upon the public. War does pay the newspaper in the long run. The daily newspaper lives on commotion11, crime, lawlessness in general. If people no longer enjoyed reading about violence and bloodshed half their occupation, and that the most profitable half would be gone. It is the interest of the newspaper to keep alive the savage12 in human nature; and war affords the readiest means of doing this. You can’t do much to increase the number of gruesome murders and loathsome14 assaults, beyond giving all possible advertisement to them when they do occur. But you can preach war, and cover yourself with glory, as a patriot15, at the same time.”
“I wonder how many of my ideals will be left to me,” sighed Joan. “I always used to regard the Press as the modern pulpit.”
“The old pulpit became an evil, the moment it obtained unlimited16 power,” answered Mrs. Denton. “It originated persecution17 and inflamed18 men’s passions against one another. It, too, preached war for its own ends, taught superstition19, and punished thought as a crime. The Press of to-day is stepping into the shoes of the medieval priest. It aims at establishing the worst kind of tyranny: the tyranny over men’s minds. They pretend to fight among themselves, but it’s rapidly becoming a close corporation. The Institute of Journalists will soon be followed by the union of Newspaper Proprietors20 and the few independent journals will be squeezed out. Already we have German shareholders21 on English papers; and English capital is interested in the St. Petersburg Press. It will one day have its International Pope and its school of cosmopolitan22 cardinals23.”
Joan laughed. “I can see Carleton rather fancying himself in a tiara,” she said. “I must tell Phillips what you say. He’s out for a fight with him. Government by Parliament or Government by Press is going to be his war cry.”
“Good man,” said Mrs. Denton. “I’m quite serious. You tell him from me that the next revolution has got to be against the Press. And it will be the stiffest fight Democracy has ever had.”
The old lady had tired herself. Joan undertook the mission. She thought she would rather enjoy it, and Mrs. Denton promised to let her have full instructions. She would write to her friends in Paris and prepare them for Joan’s coming.
Joan remembered Folk, the artist she had met at Flossie’s party, who had promised to walk with her on the terrace at St. Germain, and tell her more about her mother. She looked up his address on her return home, and wrote to him, giving him the name of the hotel in the Rue13 de Grenelle where Mrs. Denton had arranged that she should stay. She found a note from him awaiting her when she arrived there. He thought she would like to be quiet after her journey. He would call round in the morning. He had presumed on the privilege of age to send her some lilies. They had been her mother’s favourite flower. “Monsieur Folk, the great artist,” had brought them himself, and placed them in her dressing-room, so Madame informed her.
It was one of the half-dozen old hotels still left in Paris, and was built round a garden famous for its mighty24 mulberry tree. She breakfasted underneath25 it, and was reading there when Folk appeared before her, smiling and with his hat in his hand. He excused himself for intruding26 upon her so soon, thinking from what she had written him that her first morning might be his only chance. He evidently considered her remembrance of him a feather in his cap.
“We old fellows feel a little sadly, at times, how unimportant we are,” he explained. “We are grateful when Youth throws us a smile.”
“You told me my coming would take you back thirty-three years,” Joan reminded him. “It makes us about the same age. I shall treat you as just a young man.”
He laughed. “Don’t be surprised,” he said, “if I make a mistake occasionally and call you Lena.”
Joan had no appointment till the afternoon. They drove out to St. Germain, and had déjeuner at a small restaurant opposite the Château; and afterwards they strolled on to the terrace.
“What was my mother doing in Paris?” asked Joan,
“She was studying for the stage,” he answered. “Paris was the only school in those days. I was at Julien’s studio. We acted together for some charity. I had always been fond of it. An American manager who was present offered us both an engagement, and I thought it would be a change and that I could combine the two arts.”
“And it was here that you proposed to her,” said Joan.
“Just by that tree that leans forward,” he answered, pointing with his cane27 a little way ahead. “I thought that in America I’d get another chance. I might have if your father hadn’t come along. I wonder if he remembers me.”
“Did you ever see her again, after her marriage?” asked Joan.
“No,” he answered. “We used to write to one another until she gave it up. She had got into the habit of looking upon me as a harmless sort of thing to confide28 in and ask advice of—which she never took.”
“Forgive me,” he said. “You must remember that I am still her lover.” They had reached the tree that leant a little forward beyond its fellows, and he had halted and turned so that he was facing her. “Did she and your father get on together. Was she happy?”
“I don’t think she was happy,” answered Joan. “She was at first. As a child, I can remember her singing and laughing about the house, and she liked always to have people about her. Until her illness came. It changed her very much. But my father was gentleness itself, to the end.”
They had resumed their stroll. It seemed to her that he looked at her once or twice a little oddly without speaking. “What caused your mother’s illness?” he asked, abruptly29.
The question troubled her. It struck her with a pang30 of self-reproach that she had always been indifferent to her mother’s illness, regarding it as more or less imaginary. “It was mental rather than physical, I think,” she answered. “I never knew what brought it about.”
Again he looked at her with that odd, inquisitive31 expression. “She never got over it?” he asked.
“Oh, there were times,” answered Joan, “when she was more like her old self again. But I don’t think she ever quite got over it. Unless it was towards the end,” she added. “They told me she seemed much better for a little while before she died. I was away at Cambridge at the time.”
“Poor dear lady,” he said, “all those years! And poor Jack32 Allway.” He seemed to be talking to himself. Suddenly he turned to her. “How is the dear fellow?” he asked.
Again the question troubled her. She had not seen her father since that week-end, nearly six months ago, when she had ran down to see him because she wanted something from him. “He felt my mother’s death very deeply,” she answered. “But he’s well enough in health.”
“Remember me to him,” he said. “And tell him I thank him for all those years of love and gentleness. I don’t think he will be offended.”
He drove her back to Paris, and she promised to come and see him in his studio and let him introduce her to his artist friends.
“I shall try to win you over, I warn you,” he said. “Politics will never reform the world. They appeal only to men’s passions and hatreds33. They divide us. It is Art that is going to civilize34 mankind; broaden his sympathies. Art speaks to him the common language of his loves, his dreams, reveals to him the universal kinship.”
Mrs. Denton’s friends called upon her, and most of them invited her to their houses. A few were politicians, senators or ministers. Others were bankers, heads of business houses, literary men and women. There were also a few quiet folk with names that were historical. They all thought that war between France and England would be a world disaster, but were not very hopeful of averting35 it. She learnt that Carleton was in Berlin trying to secure possession of a well-known German daily that happened at the moment to be in low water. He was working for an alliance between Germany and England. In France, the Royalists had come to an understanding with the Clericals, and both were evidently making ready to throw in their lot with the war-mongers, hoping that out of the troubled waters the fish would come their way. Of course everything depended on the people. If the people only knew it! But they didn’t. They stood about in puzzled flocks, like sheep, wondering which way the newspaper dog was going to hound them. They took her to the great music halls. Every allusion37 to war was greeted with rapturous applause. The Marseillaise was demanded and encored till the orchestra rebelled from sheer exhaustion38. Joan’s patience was sorely tested. She had to listen with impassive face to coarse jests and brutal39 gibes40 directed against England and everything English; to sit unmoved while the vast audience rocked with laughter at senseless caricatures of supposed English soldiers whose knees always gave way at the sight of a French uniform. Even in the eyes of her courteous41 hosts, Joan’s quick glance would occasionally detect a curious glint. The fools! Had they never heard of Waterloo and Trafalgar? Even if their memories might be excused for forgetting Crecy and Poictiers and the campaigns of Marlborough. One evening—it had been a particularly trying one for Joan—there stepped upon the stage a wooden-looking man in a kilt with bagpipes42 under his arm. How he had got himself into the programme Joan could not understand. Managerial watchfulness43 must have gone to sleep for once. He played Scotch44 melodies, and the Parisians liked them, and when he had finished they called him back. Joan and her friends occupied a box close to the stage. The wooden-looking Scot glanced up at her, and their eyes met. And as the applause died down there rose the first low warning strains of the Pibroch. Joan sat up in her chair and her lips parted. The savage music quickened. It shrilled45 and skrealed. The blood came surging through her veins46.
And suddenly something lying hidden there leaped to life within her brain. A mad desire surged hold of her to rise and shout defiance47 at those three thousand pairs of hostile eyes confronting her. She clutched at the arms of her chair and so kept her seat. The pibroch ended with its wild sad notes of wailing48, and slowly the mist cleared from her eyes, and the stage was empty. A strange hush49 had fallen on the house.
She was not aware that her hostess had been watching her. She was a sweet-faced, white-haired lady. She touched Joan lightly on the hand. “That’s the trouble,” she whispered. “It’s in our blood.”
Could we ever hope to eradicate50 it? Was not the survival of this fighting instinct proof that war was still needful to us? In the sculpture-room of an exhibition she came upon a painted statue of Bellona. Its grotesqueness51 shocked her at first sight, the red streaming hair, the wild eyes filled with fury, the wide open mouth—one could almost hear it screaming—the white uplifted arms with outstretched hands! Appalling52! Terrible! And yet, as she gazed at it, gradually the thing grew curiously53 real to her. She seemed to hear the gathering54 of the chariots, the neighing of the horses, the hurrying of many feet, the sound of an armouring multitude, the shouting, and the braying55 of the trumpets56.
These cold, thin-lipped calculators, arguing that “War doesn’t pay”; those lank-haired cosmopolitans57, preaching their “International,” as if the only business of mankind were wages! War still was the stern school where men learnt virtue58, duty, forgetfulness of self, faithfulness unto death.
This particular war, of course, must be stopped: if it were not already too late. It would be a war for markets; for spheres of commercial influence; a sordid59 war that would degrade the people. War, the supreme60 test of a nation’s worth, must be reserved for great ideals. Besides, she wanted to down Carleton.
One of the women on her list, and the one to whom Mrs. Denton appeared to attach chief importance, a Madame de Barante, disappointed Joan. She seemed to have so few opinions of her own. She had buried her young husband during the Franco-Prussian war. He had been a soldier. And she had remained unmarried. She was still beautiful.
“I do not think we women have the right to discuss war,” she confided61 to Joan in her gentle, high-bred voice. “I suppose you think that out of date. I should have thought so myself forty years ago. We talk of ‘giving’ our sons and lovers, as if they were ours to give. It makes me a little angry when I hear pampered62 women speak like that. It is the men who have to suffer and die. It is for them to decide.”
“But perhaps I can arrange a meeting for you with a friend,” she added, “who will be better able to help you, if he is in Paris. I will let you know.”
She told Joan what she remembered herself of 1870. She had turned her country house into a hospital and had seen a good deal of the fighting.
“It would not do to tell the truth, or we should have our children growing up to hate war,” she concluded.
She was as good as her word, and sent Joan round a message the next morning to come and see her in the afternoon. Joan was introduced to a Monsieur de Chaumont. He was a soldierly-looking gentleman, with a grey moustache, and a deep scar across his face.
“Hanged if I can see how we are going to get out of it,” he answered Joan cheerfully. “The moment there is any threat of war, it becomes a point of honour with every nation to do nothing to avoid it. I remember my old duelling days. The quarrel may have been about the silliest trifle imaginable. A single word would have explained the whole thing away. But to utter it would have stamped one as a coward. This Egyptian Tra-la-la! It isn’t worth the bones of a single grenadier, as our friends across the Rhine would say. But I expect, before it’s settled, there will be men’s bones sufficient, bleaching63 on the desert, to build another Pyramid. It’s so easily started: that’s the devil of it. A mischievous64 boy can throw a lighted match into a powder magazine, and then it becomes every patriot’s business to see that it isn’t put out. I hate war. It accomplishes nothing, and leaves everything in a greater muddle65 than it was before. But if the idea ever catches fire, I shall have to do all I can to fan the conflagration66. Unless I am prepared to be branded as a poltroon67. Every professional soldier is supposed to welcome war. Most of us do: it’s our opportunity. There’s some excuse for us. But these men—Carleton and their lot: I regard them as nothing better than the Ménades of the Commune. They care nothing if the whole of Europe blazes. They cannot personally get harmed whatever happens. It’s fun to them.”
“But the people who can get harmed,” argued Joan. “The men who will be dragged away from their work, from their business, used as ‘cannon fodder68.’”
He shrugged69 his shoulders. “Oh, they are always eager enough for it, at first,” he answered. “There is the excitement. The curiosity. You must remember that life is a monotonous70 affair to the great mass of the people. There’s the natural craving71 to escape from it; to court adventure. They are not so enthusiastic about it after they have tasted it. Modern warfare72, they soon find, is about as dull a business as science ever invented.”
There was only one hope that he could see: and that was to switch the people’s mind on to some other excitement. His advices from London told him that a parliamentary crisis was pending73. Could not Mrs. Denton and her party do something to hasten it? He, on his side, would consult with the Socialist74 leaders, who might have something to suggest.
He met Joan, radiant, a morning or two later. The English Government had resigned and preparations for a general election were already on foot.
“And God has been good to us, also,” he explained.
A well-known artist had been found murdered in his bed and grave suspicion attached to his beautiful young wife.
“She deserves the Croix de Guerre, if it is proved that she did it,” he thought. “She will have saved many thousands of lives—for the present.”
Folk had fixed75 up a party at his studio to meet her. She had been there once or twice; but this was a final affair. She had finished her business in Paris and would be leaving the next morning. To her surprise, she found Phillips there. He had come over hurriedly to attend a Socialist conference, and Leblanc, the editor of Le Nouveau Monde, had brought him along.
“I took Smedley’s place at the last moment,” he whispered to her. “I’ve never been abroad before. You don’t mind, do you?”
It didn’t strike her as at all odd that a leader of a political party should ask her “if she minded” his being in Paris to attend a political conference. He was wearing a light grey suit and a blue tie. There was nothing about him, at that moment, suggesting that he was a leader of any sort. He might have been just any man, but for his eyes.
“No,” she whispered. “Of course not. I don’t like your tie.” It seemed to depress him, that.
She felt elated at the thought that he would see her for the first time amid surroundings where she would shine. Folk came forward to meet her with that charming air of protective deference76 that he had adopted towards her. He might have been some favoured minister of state kissing the hand of a youthful Queen. She glanced down the long studio, ending in its fine window overlooking the park. Some of the most distinguished77 men in Paris were there, and the immediate78 stir of admiration79 that her entrance had created was unmistakable. Even the women turned pleased glances at her; as if willing to recognize in her their representative. A sense of power came to her that made her feel kind to all the world. There was no need for her to be clever: to make any effort to attract. Her presence, her sympathy, her approval seemed to be all that was needed of her. She had the consciousness that by the mere80 exercise of her will she could sway the thoughts and actions of these men: that sovereignty had been given to her. It reflected itself in her slightly heightened colour, in the increased brilliance81 of her eyes, in the confident case of all her movements. It added a compelling softness to her voice.
She never quite remembered what the talk was about. Men were brought up and presented to her, and hung about her words, and sought to please her. She had spoken her own thoughts, indifferent whether they expressed agreement or not; and the argument had invariably taken another plane. It seemed so important that she should be convinced. Some had succeeded, and had been strengthened. Others had failed, and had departed sorrowful, conscious of the necessity of “thinking it out again.”
Guests with other engagements were taking their leave. A piquante little woman, outrageously82 but effectively dressed—she looked like a drawing by Beardsley—drew her aside. “I’ve always wished I were a man,” she said. “It seemed to me that they had all the power. From this afternoon, I shall be proud of belonging to the governing sex.”
She laughed and slipped away.
Phillips was waiting for her in the vestibule. She had forgotten him; but now she felt glad of his humble83 request to be allowed to see her home. It would have been such a big drop from her crowded hour of triumph to the long lonely cab ride and the solitude84 of the hotel. She resolved to be gracious, feeling a little sorry for her neglect of him—but reflecting with satisfaction that he had probably been watching her the whole time.
“What’s the matter with my tie?” he asked. “Wrong colour?”
She laughed. “Yes,” she answered. “It ought to be grey to match your suit. And so ought your socks.”
She touched his hand lightly.
“I want you to get used to it,” she said. “It’s part of your work. Put your brain into it, and don’t be afraid.”
“I’ll try,” he said.
He was sitting on the front seat, facing her. “I’m glad I went,” he said with sudden vehemence86. “I loved watching you, moving about among all those people. I never knew before how beautiful you are.”
Something in his eyes sent a slight thrill of fear through her. It was not an unpleasant sensation—rather exhilarating. She watched the passing street till she felt that his eyes were no longer devouring87 her.
“You’re not offended?” he asked. “At my thinking you beautiful?” he added, in case she hadn’t understood.
She laughed. Her confidence had returned to her. “It doesn’t generally offend a woman,” she answered.
He seemed relieved. “That’s what’s so wonderful about you,” he said. “I’ve met plenty of clever, brilliant women, but one could forget that they were women. You’re everything.”
He pleaded, standing36 below her on the steps of the hotel, that she would dine with him. But she shook her head. She had her packing to do. She could have managed it; but something prudent88 and absurd had suddenly got hold of her; and he went away with much the same look in his eyes that comes to a dog when he finds that his master cannot be persuaded into an excursion.
She went up to her room. There really was not much to do. She could quite well finish her packing in the morning. She sat down at the desk and set to work to arrange her papers. It was a warm spring evening, and the window was open. A crowd of noisy sparrows seemed to be delighted about something. From somewhere, unseen, a blackbird was singing. She read over her report for Mrs. Denton. The blackbird seemed never to have heard of war. He sang as if the whole world were a garden of languor89 and love. Joan looked at her watch. The first gong would sound in a few minutes. She pictured the dreary90, silent dining-room with its few scattered91 occupants, and her heart sank at the prospect92. To her relief came remembrance of a cheerful but entirely93 respectable restaurant near to the Louvre to which she had been taken a few nights before. She had noticed quite a number of women dining there alone. She closed her dispatch case with a snap and gave a glance at herself in the great mirror. The blackbird was still singing.
She walked up the Rue des Sts. Pères, enjoying the delicious air. Half way across the bridge she overtook a man, strolling listlessly in front of her. There was something familiar about him. He was wearing a grey suit and had his hands in his pockets. Suddenly the truth flashed upon her. She stopped. If he strolled on, she would be able to slip back. Instead of which he abruptly turned to look down at a passing steamer, and they were face to face.
It made her mad, the look of delight that came into his eyes. She could have boxed his ears. Hadn’t he anything else to do but hang about the streets.
He explained that he had been listening to the band in the gardens, returning by the Quai d’Orsay.
“Do let me come with you,” he said. “I kept myself free this evening, hoping. And I’m feeling so lonesome.”
Poor fellow! She had come to understand that feeling. After all, it wasn’t altogether his fault that they had met. And she had been so cross to him!
He was reading every expression on her face.
“It’s such a lovely evening,” he said. “Couldn’t we go somewhere and dine under a tree?”
It would be rather pleasant. There was a little place at Meudon, she remembered. The plane trees would just be in full leaf.
Even Mrs. Grundy herself couldn’t object to a journalist dining with a politician!
The stars came out before they had ended dinner. She had made him talk about himself. It was marvellous what he had accomplished97 with his opportunities. Ten hours a day in the mines had earned for him his living, and the night had given him his leisure. An attic98, lighted by a tallow candle, with a shelf of books that left him hardly enough for bread, had been his Alma Mater. History was his chief study. There was hardly an authority Joan could think of with which he was not familiar. Julius Caesar was his favourite play. He seemed to know it by heart. At twenty-three he had been elected a delegate, and had entered Parliament at twenty-eight. It had been a life of hardship, of privation, of constant strain; but she found herself unable to pity him. It was a tale of strength, of struggle, of victory, that he told her.
Strength! The shaded lamplight fell upon his fearless kindly99 face with its flashing eyes and its humorous mouth. He ought to have been drinking out of a horn, not a wine glass that his well-shaped hand could have crushed by a careless pressure. In a winged helmet and a coat of mail he would have looked so much more fitly dressed than in that soft felt hat and ridiculous blue tie.
She led him to talk on about the future. She loved to hear his clear, confident voice with its touch of boyish boastfulness. What was there to stop him? Why should he not climb from power to power till he had reached the end!
And as he talked and dreamed there grew up in her heart a fierce anger. What would her own future be? She would marry probably some man of her own class, settle down to the average woman’s “life”; be allowed, like a spoilt child, to still “take an interest” in public affairs: hold “drawing-rooms” attended by cranks and political nonentities100: be President, perhaps, of the local Woman’s Liberal League. The alternative: to spend her days glued to a desk, penning exhortations101 to the people that Carleton and his like might or might not allow them to read; while youth and beauty slipped away from her, leaving her one of the ten thousand other lonely, faded women, forcing themselves unwelcome into men’s jobs. There came to her a sense of having been robbed of what was hers by primitive102 eternal law. Greyson had been right. She did love power—power to serve and shape the world. She would have earned it and used it well. She could have helped him, inspired him. They would have worked together: he the force and she the guidance. She would have supplied the things he lacked. It was to her he came for counsel, as it was. But for her he would never have taken the first step. What right had this poor brainless lump of painted flesh to share his wounds, his triumphs? What help could she give him when the time should come that he should need it?
Suddenly he broke off. “What a fool I’m making of myself,” he said. “I always was a dreamer.”
She forced a laugh. “Why shouldn’t it come true?” she asked.
They had the little garden to themselves. The million lights of Paris shone below them.
“Because you won’t be there,” he answered, “and without you I can’t do it. You think I’m always like I am to-night, bragging103, confident. So I am when you are with me. You give me back my strength. The plans and hopes and dreams that were slipping from me come crowding round me, laughing and holding out their hands. They are like the children. They need two to care for them. I want to talk about them to someone who understands them and loves them, as I do. I want to feel they are dear to someone else, as well as to myself: that I must work for them for her sake, as well as for my own. I want someone to help me to bring them up.”
There were tears in his eyes. He brushed them angrily away. “Oh, I know I ought to be ashamed of myself,” he said. “It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t to know that a hot-blooded young chap of twenty hasn’t all his wits about him, any more than I was. If I had never met you, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d have done my bit of good, and have stopped there, content. With you beside me”—he looked away from her to where the silent city peeped through its veil of night—“I might have left the world better than I found it.”
The blood had mounted to her face. She drew back into the shadow, beyond the tiny sphere of light made by the little lamp.
“Men have accomplished great things without a woman’s help,” she said.
“Some men,” he answered. “Artists and poets. They have the woman within them. Men like myself—the mere fighter: we are incomplete in ourselves. Male and female created He them. We are lost without our mate.”
He was thinking only of himself. Had he no pity for her. So was she, also, useless without her mate. Neither was she of those, here and there, who can stand alone. Her task was that of the eternal woman: to make a home: to cleanse104 the world of sin and sorrow, make it a kinder dwelling-place for the children that should come. This man was her true helpmeet. He would have been her weapon, her dear servant; and she could have rewarded him as none other ever could. The lamplight fell upon his ruddy face, his strong white hands resting on the flimsy table. He belonged to an older order than her own. That suggestion about him of something primitive, of something not yet altogether tamed. She felt again that slight thrill of fear that so strangely excited her. A mist seemed to be obscuring all things. He seemed to be coming towards her. Only by keeping her eyes fixed on his moveless hands, still resting on the table, could she convince herself that his arms were not closing about her, that she was not being drawn nearer and nearer to him, powerless to resist.
Suddenly, out of the mist, she heard voices. The waiter was standing beside him with the bill. She reached out her hand and took it. The usual few mistakes had occurred. She explained them, good temperedly, and the waiter, with profuse105 apologies, went back to have it corrected.
He turned to her as the man went. “Try and forgive me,” he said in a low voice. “It all came tumbling out before I thought what I was saying.”
The blood was flowing back into her veins. “Oh, it wasn’t your fault,” she answered. “We must make the best we can of it.”
“Tell me,” he said. There was a note of fierce exultation107 in his voice. “I’ll promise never to speak of it again. If I had been a free man, could I have won you?”
She had risen while he was speaking. She moved to him and laid her hands upon his shoulders.
“Will you serve me and fight for me against all my enemies?” she asked.
“So long as I live,” he answered.
She glanced round. There was no sign of the returning waiter. She bent over him and kissed him.
“Don’t come with me,” she said. “There’s a cab stand in the Avenue. I shall walk to Sèvres and take the train.”
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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vouch
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| v.担保；断定；n.被担保者 | |
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ransacked
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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tightening
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incite
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| v.引起，激动，煽动 | |
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arson
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prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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inciting
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| 刺激的，煽动的 | |
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10
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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12
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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13
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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14
loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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15
patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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16
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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17
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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18
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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20
proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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21
shareholders
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| n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 ) | |
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22
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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23
cardinals
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| 红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 )； 红衣凤头鸟（见于北美，雄鸟为鲜红色）； 基数 | |
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24
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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25
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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26
intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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27
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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28
confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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29
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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30
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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31
inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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33
hatreds
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| n.仇恨，憎恶( hatred的名词复数 )；厌恶的事 | |
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34
civilize
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| vt.使文明，使开化 (=civilise) | |
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35
averting
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| 防止，避免( avert的现在分词 )； 转移 | |
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36
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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37
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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38
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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39
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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40
gibes
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| vi.嘲笑，嘲弄（gibe的第三人称单数形式） | |
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41
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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42
bagpipes
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| n.风笛；风笛( bagpipe的名词复数 ) | |
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43
watchfulness
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| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
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44
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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45
shrilled
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| （声音）尖锐的，刺耳的，高频率的( shrill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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47
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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48
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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49
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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50
eradicate
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| v.根除，消灭，杜绝 | |
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51
grotesqueness
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52
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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53
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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54
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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55
braying
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| v.发出驴叫似的声音( bray的现在分词 )；发嘟嘟声；粗声粗气地讲话（或大笑）；猛击 | |
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56
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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57
cosmopolitans
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| 世界性的( cosmopolitan的名词复数 )； 全球各国的； 有各国人的； 受各国文化影响的 | |
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58
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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59
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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60
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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61
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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62
pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
bleaching
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| 漂白法，漂白 | |
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64
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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65
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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66
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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67
poltroon
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| n.胆怯者；懦夫 | |
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68
fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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69
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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70
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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71
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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72
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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73
pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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74
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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75
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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76
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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77
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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78
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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79
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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80
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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81
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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82
outrageously
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| 凶残地； 肆无忌惮地； 令人不能容忍地； 不寻常地 | |
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83
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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84
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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85
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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86
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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87
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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88
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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89
languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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90
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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91
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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92
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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93
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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94
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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95
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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96
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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97
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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98
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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99
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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100
nonentities
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| n.无足轻重的人( nonentity的名词复数 )；蝼蚁 | |
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101
exhortations
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| n.敦促( exhortation的名词复数 )；极力推荐；（正式的）演讲；（宗教仪式中的）劝诫 | |
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102
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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103
bragging
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
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104
cleanse
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| vt.使清洁，使纯洁，清洗 | |
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105
profuse
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| adj.很多的，大量的，极其丰富的 | |
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106
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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107
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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