章节正文
they go to the best dinner parties."
"I daresay you are right. I can't say I know many of them."
"It's a pity you don't," Bessie Alden declared.
"It would do you good."
"I daresay it would," said Lord Lambeth very humbly.
"But I must say I don't like the looks of some of them."
"Neither do I--of some of them. But there are all kinds,
and many of them are charming."
"I have talked with two or three of them," the young man went on,
"and I thought they had a kind of fawning manner."
"Why should they fawn?" Bessie Alden demanded.
"I'm sure I don't know. Why, indeed?"
"Perhaps you only thought so," said Bessie.
"Well, of course," rejoined her companion, "that's a kind of thing
that can't be proved."
"In America they don't fawn," said Bessie.
"Ah, well, then, they must be better company."
Bessie was silent a moment. "That is one of the things I don't like
about England," she said; "your keeping the distinguished people apart."
"How do you mean apart?"
"Why, letting them come only to certain places.
You never see them."
Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. "What people do you mean?"
"The eminent people--the authors and artists--the clever people."
"Oh, there are other eminent people besides those," said Lord Lambeth.
"Well, you certainly keep them apart," repeated the young girl.
"And there are other clever people," added Lord Lambeth simply.
Bessie Alden looked at him, and she gave a light laugh.
"Not many," she said.
On another occasion--just after a dinner party--she told him
that there was something else in England she did not like.
"Oh, I say!" he cried, "haven't you abused us enough?"
"I have never abused you at all," said Bessie; "but I don't
like your PRECEDENCE."
"It isn't my precedence!" Lord Lambeth declared, laughing.
"Yes, it is yours--just exactly yours; and I think it's odious," said Bessie.
"I never saw such a young lady for discussing things!
Has someone had the impudence to go before you?"
asked his lordship.
"It is not the going before me that I object to," said Bessie;
"it is their thinking that they have a right to do it-- a right that I recognize>."
"I never saw such a young lady as you are for not 'recognizing.'
I have no doubt the thing is BEASTLY, but it saves a lot of trouble."
"It makes a lot of trouble. It's horrid," said Bessie.
"But how would you have the first people go?" asked Lord Lambeth.
"They can't go last."
"Whom do you mean by the first people?"
"Ah, if you mean to question first principles!" said Lord Lambeth.
"If those are your first principles, no wonder some of your arrangements
are horrid," observed Bessie Alden with a very pretty ferocity.
"I am a young girl, so of course I go last; but imagine what Kitty must
feel on being informed that she is not at liberty to budge until certain
other ladies have passed out."
"Oh, I say, she is not 'informed!'" cried Lord Lambeth.
"No one would do such a thing as that."
"She is made to feel it," the young girl insisted--"as if they were afraid
she would make a rush for the door. No; you have a lovely country,"
said Bessie Alden, "but your precedence is horrid."
"I certainly shouldn't think your sister would like it,"
rejoined Lord Lambeth with even exaggerated gravity.
But Bessie Alden could induce him to enter no formal protest
against this repulsive custom, which he seemed to think
an extreme convenience.
Percy Beaumont all this time had been a very much less
frequent visitor at Jones's Hotel than his noble kinsman;
he had, in fact, called but twice upon the two American ladies.
Lord Lambeth, who often saw him, reproached him with his neglect
and declared that, although Mrs. Westgate had said nothing
about it, he was sure that she was secretly wounded by it.
"She suffers too much to speak," said Lord Lambeth.
"That's all gammon," said Percy Beaumont; "there's a limit
to what people can suffer!" And, though sending no apologies
to Jones's Hotel, he undertook in a manner to explain his absence.
"You are always there," he said, "and that's reason enough
for my not going."
"I don't see why. There is enough for both of us."
"I don't care to be a witness of your--your reckless passion,"
said Percy Beaumont.
Lord Lambeth looked at him with a cold eye and for a moment said nothing.
"It's not so obvious as you might suppose," he rejoined dryly,
"considering what a demonstrative beggar I am."
"I don't want to know anything about it--nothing whatever,"
said Beaumont. "Your mother asks me everytime she sees me whether
I believe you are really lost--and Lady Pimlico does the same.
I prefer to be able to answer that I know nothing about it--
that I never go there. I stay away for consistency's sake.
As I said the other day, they must look after you themselves."
"You are devilish considerate," said Lord Lambeth.
"They never question me."
"They are afraid of you. They are afraid of irritating you and making
you worse. So they go to work very cautiously, and, somewhere or other,
they get their information. They know a great deal about you.
They know that you have been with those ladies to the dome of St. Paul's and--
where was the other place?--to the Thames Tunnel."
"If all their knowledge is as accurate as that, it must be very valuable,"
said Lord Lambeth.
"Well, at any rate, they know that you have been visiting
the 'sights of the metropolis.' They think--very naturally,
as it seems to me--that when you take to visiting the sights
of the metropolis with a little American girl, there is serious
cause for alarm." Lord Lambeth responded to this intimation
by scornfullaughter, and his companion continued, after a pause:
"I said just now I didn't want to know anything about the affair;
but I will confess that I am curious to learn whether you
propose to marry Miss Bessie Alden."
On this point Lord Lambeth gave his interlocutor no immediate satisfaction;
he was musing, with a frown. "By Jove," he said, "they go rather too far.
They SHALL find me dangerous--I promise them."
Percy Beaumont began to laugh. "You don't redeem your promises.
You said the other day you would make your mother call."
Lord Lambeth continued to meditate. "I asked her to call,"
he said simply.
"And she declined?"
"Yes; but she shall do it yet."
"Upon my word," said Percy Beaumont, "if she gets much more frightened
I believe she will." Lord Lambeth looked at him, and he went on.
"She will go to the girl herself."
"How do you mean she will go to her?"
"She will beg her off, or she will bribe her. She will take strong measures."
Lord Lambeth turned away in silence, and his companion
watched him take twenty steps and then slowly return.
"I have invited Mrs. Westgate and Miss Alden to Branches,"
he said, "and this evening I shall name a day."
"And shall you invite your mother and your sisters to meet them?"
"Explicitly!"
"That will set the duchess off," said Percy Beaumont.
"I suspect she will come."
"She may do as she pleases."
Beaumont looked at Lord Lambeth. "You do really propose to marry
the little sister, then?"
"I like the way you talk about it!" cried the young man.
"She won't gobble me down; don't be afraid."
"She won't leave you on your knees," said Percy Beaumont.
"What IS the inducement?"
"You talk about proposing: wait till I HAVE proposed,"
Lord Lambeth went on.
"That's right, my dear fellow; think about it," said Percy Beaumont.
"She's a charming girl," pursued his lordship.
"Of course she's a charming girl. I don't know a girl
more charming, intrinsically. But there are other charming
girls nearer home."
"I like her spirit," observed Lord Lambeth, almost as if he were trying
to torment his cousin.
"What's the peculiarity of her spirit?"
"She's not afraid, and she says things out, and she thinks
herself as good as anyone. She is the only girl I have ever
seen that was not dying to marry me."
"How do you know that, if you haven't asked her?"
"I don't know how; but I know it."
"I am sure she asked me questions enough about your property
and your titles," said Beaumont.
"She has asked me questions, too; no end of them," Lord Lambeth admitted.
"But she asked for information, don't you know."
"Information? Aye, I'll warrant she wanted it. Depend upon it
that she is dying to marry you just as much and just as little
as all the rest of them."
"I shouldn't like her to refuse me--I shouldn't like that."
"If the thing would be so disagreeable, then, both to you and to her,
in Heaven's name leave it alone," said Percy Beaumont.
Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say to her sister about the rarity
of Mr. Beaumont's visits and the nonappearance of the Duchess of Bayswater.
She professed, however, to derive more satisfaction from this latter
circumstance than she could have done from the most lavish attentions on
the part of this great lady. "It is most marked," she said--"most marked.
It is a delicious proof that we have made them miserable. The day
we dined with Lord Lambeth I was really sorry for the poor fellow."
It will have been gathered that the entertainment offered by Lord Lambeth
to his American friends had not been graced by the presence of his
anxious mother. He had invited several choice spirits to meet them;
but the ladies of his immediate family were to Mrs. Westgate's sense--
a sense possibly morbidly acute--conspicuous by their absence.
"I don't want to express myself in a manner that you dislike,"
said Bessie Alden; "but I don't know why you should have so many
theories about Lord Lambeth's poor mother. You know a great many
young men in New York without knowing their mothers."
Mrs. Westgate looked at her sister and then turned away.
"My dear Bessie, you are superb!" she said.
"One thing is certain," the young girl continued.
"If I believed I were a cause of annoyance--however unwitting--
to Lord Lambeth's family, I should insist--"
"Insist upon my leaving England," said Mrs. Westgate.
"No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery again;
I want to see Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury Cathedral.
But I should insist upon his coming to see us no more."
"That would be very modest and very pretty of you; but you wouldn't
do it now."
"Why do you say 'now'?" asked Bessie Alden. "Have I ceased to be modest?"
"You care for him too much. A month ago, when you said
you didn't, I believe it was quite true. But at present,
my dear child," said Mrs. Westgate, "you wouldn't find it
quite so simple a matter never to see Lord Lambeth again.
I have seen it coming on."
"You are mistaken," said Bessie. "You don't understand."
"My dear child, don't be perverse," rejoined her sister.
"I know him better, certainly, if you mean that," said Bessie.
"And I like him very much. But I don't like him enough to make
trouble for him with his family. However, I don't believe in that."
"I like the way you say 'however,'" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed.
"Come; you would not marry him?"
"Oh, no," said the young girl.
"I daresay you are right. I can't say I know many of them."
"It's a pity you don't," Bessie Alden declared.
"It would do you good."
"I daresay it would," said Lord Lambeth very humbly.
"But I must say I don't like the looks of some of them."
"Neither do I--of some of them. But there are all kinds,
and many of them are charming."
"I have talked with two or three of them," the young man went on,
"and I thought they had a kind of fawning manner."
"Why should they fawn?" Bessie Alden demanded.
"I'm sure I don't know. Why, indeed?"
"Perhaps you only thought so," said Bessie.
"Well, of course," rejoined her companion, "that's a kind of thing
that can't be proved."
"In America they don't fawn," said Bessie.
"Ah, well, then, they must be better company."
Bessie was silent a moment. "That is one of the things I don't like
about England," she said; "your keeping the distinguished people apart."
"How do you mean apart?"
"Why, letting them come only to certain places.
You never see them."
Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. "What people do you mean?"
"The eminent people--the authors and artists--the clever people."
"Oh, there are other eminent people besides those," said Lord Lambeth.
"Well, you certainly keep them apart," repeated the young girl.
"And there are other clever people," added Lord Lambeth simply.
Bessie Alden looked at him, and she gave a light laugh.
"Not many," she said.
On another occasion--just after a dinner party--she told him
that there was something else in England she did not like.
"Oh, I say!" he cried, "haven't you abused us enough?"
"I have never abused you at all," said Bessie; "but I don't
like your PRECEDENCE."
"It isn't my precedence!" Lord Lambeth declared, laughing.
"Yes, it is yours--just exactly yours; and I think it's odious," said Bessie.
"I never saw such a young lady for discussing things!
Has someone had the impudence to go before you?"
asked his lordship.
"It is not the going before me that I object to," said Bessie;
"it is their thinking that they have a right to do it-- a right that I recognize>."
"I never saw such a young lady as you are for not 'recognizing.'
I have no doubt the thing is BEASTLY, but it saves a lot of trouble."
"It makes a lot of trouble. It's horrid," said Bessie.
"But how would you have the first people go?" asked Lord Lambeth.
"They can't go last."
"Whom do you mean by the first people?"
"Ah, if you mean to question first principles!" said Lord Lambeth.
"If those are your first principles, no wonder some of your arrangements
are horrid," observed Bessie Alden with a very pretty ferocity.
"I am a young girl, so of course I go last; but imagine what Kitty must
feel on being informed that she is not at liberty to budge until certain
other ladies have passed out."
"Oh, I say, she is not 'informed!'" cried Lord Lambeth.
"No one would do such a thing as that."
"She is made to feel it," the young girl insisted--"as if they were afraid
she would make a rush for the door. No; you have a lovely country,"
said Bessie Alden, "but your precedence is horrid."
"I certainly shouldn't think your sister would like it,"
rejoined Lord Lambeth with even exaggerated gravity.
But Bessie Alden could induce him to enter no formal protest
against this repulsive custom, which he seemed to think
an extreme convenience.
Percy Beaumont all this time had been a very much less
frequent visitor at Jones's Hotel than his noble kinsman;
he had, in fact, called but twice upon the two American ladies.
Lord Lambeth, who often saw him, reproached him with his neglect
and declared that, although Mrs. Westgate had said nothing
about it, he was sure that she was secretly wounded by it.
"She suffers too much to speak," said Lord Lambeth.
"That's all gammon," said Percy Beaumont; "there's a limit
to what people can suffer!" And, though sending no apologies
to Jones's Hotel, he undertook in a manner to explain his absence.
"You are always there," he said, "and that's reason enough
for my not going."
"I don't see why. There is enough for both of us."
"I don't care to be a witness of your--your reckless passion,"
said Percy Beaumont.
Lord Lambeth looked at him with a cold eye and for a moment said nothing.
"It's not so obvious as you might suppose," he rejoined dryly,
"considering what a demonstrative beggar I am."
"I don't want to know anything about it--nothing whatever,"
said Beaumont. "Your mother asks me everytime she sees me whether
I believe you are really lost--and Lady Pimlico does the same.
I prefer to be able to answer that I know nothing about it--
that I never go there. I stay away for consistency's sake.
As I said the other day, they must look after you themselves."
"You are devilish considerate," said Lord Lambeth.
"They never question me."
"They are afraid of you. They are afraid of irritating you and making
you worse. So they go to work very cautiously, and, somewhere or other,
they get their information. They know a great deal about you.
They know that you have been with those ladies to the dome of St. Paul's and--
where was the other place?--to the Thames Tunnel."
"If all their knowledge is as accurate as that, it must be very valuable,"
said Lord Lambeth.
"Well, at any rate, they know that you have been visiting
the 'sights of the metropolis.' They think--very naturally,
as it seems to me--that when you take to visiting the sights
of the metropolis with a little American girl, there is serious
cause for alarm." Lord Lambeth responded to this intimation
by scornfullaughter, and his companion continued, after a pause:
"I said just now I didn't want to know anything about the affair;
but I will confess that I am curious to learn whether you
propose to marry Miss Bessie Alden."
On this point Lord Lambeth gave his interlocutor no immediate satisfaction;
he was musing, with a frown. "By Jove," he said, "they go rather too far.
They SHALL find me dangerous--I promise them."
Percy Beaumont began to laugh. "You don't redeem your promises.
You said the other day you would make your mother call."
Lord Lambeth continued to meditate. "I asked her to call,"
he said simply.
"And she declined?"
"Yes; but she shall do it yet."
"Upon my word," said Percy Beaumont, "if she gets much more frightened
I believe she will." Lord Lambeth looked at him, and he went on.
"She will go to the girl herself."
"How do you mean she will go to her?"
"She will beg her off, or she will bribe her. She will take strong measures."
Lord Lambeth turned away in silence, and his companion
watched him take twenty steps and then slowly return.
"I have invited Mrs. Westgate and Miss Alden to Branches,"
he said, "and this evening I shall name a day."
"And shall you invite your mother and your sisters to meet them?"
"Explicitly!"
"That will set the duchess off," said Percy Beaumont.
"I suspect she will come."
"She may do as she pleases."
Beaumont looked at Lord Lambeth. "You do really propose to marry
the little sister, then?"
"I like the way you talk about it!" cried the young man.
"She won't gobble me down; don't be afraid."
"She won't leave you on your knees," said Percy Beaumont.
"What IS the inducement?"
"You talk about proposing: wait till I HAVE proposed,"
Lord Lambeth went on.
"That's right, my dear fellow; think about it," said Percy Beaumont.
"She's a charming girl," pursued his lordship.
"Of course she's a charming girl. I don't know a girl
more charming, intrinsically. But there are other charming
girls nearer home."
"I like her spirit," observed Lord Lambeth, almost as if he were trying
to torment his cousin.
"What's the peculiarity of her spirit?"
"She's not afraid, and she says things out, and she thinks
herself as good as anyone. She is the only girl I have ever
seen that was not dying to marry me."
"How do you know that, if you haven't asked her?"
"I don't know how; but I know it."
"I am sure she asked me questions enough about your property
and your titles," said Beaumont.
"She has asked me questions, too; no end of them," Lord Lambeth admitted.
"But she asked for information, don't you know."
"Information? Aye, I'll warrant she wanted it. Depend upon it
that she is dying to marry you just as much and just as little
as all the rest of them."
"I shouldn't like her to refuse me--I shouldn't like that."
"If the thing would be so disagreeable, then, both to you and to her,
in Heaven's name leave it alone," said Percy Beaumont.
Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say to her sister about the rarity
of Mr. Beaumont's visits and the nonappearance of the Duchess of Bayswater.
She professed, however, to derive more satisfaction from this latter
circumstance than she could have done from the most lavish attentions on
the part of this great lady. "It is most marked," she said--"most marked.
It is a delicious proof that we have made them miserable. The day
we dined with Lord Lambeth I was really sorry for the poor fellow."
It will have been gathered that the entertainment offered by Lord Lambeth
to his American friends had not been graced by the presence of his
anxious mother. He had invited several choice spirits to meet them;
but the ladies of his immediate family were to Mrs. Westgate's sense--
a sense possibly morbidly acute--conspicuous by their absence.
"I don't want to express myself in a manner that you dislike,"
said Bessie Alden; "but I don't know why you should have so many
theories about Lord Lambeth's poor mother. You know a great many
young men in New York without knowing their mothers."
Mrs. Westgate looked at her sister and then turned away.
"My dear Bessie, you are superb!" she said.
"One thing is certain," the young girl continued.
"If I believed I were a cause of annoyance--however unwitting--
to Lord Lambeth's family, I should insist--"
"Insist upon my leaving England," said Mrs. Westgate.
"No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery again;
I want to see Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury Cathedral.
But I should insist upon his coming to see us no more."
"That would be very modest and very pretty of you; but you wouldn't
do it now."
"Why do you say 'now'?" asked Bessie Alden. "Have I ceased to be modest?"
"You care for him too much. A month ago, when you said
you didn't, I believe it was quite true. But at present,
my dear child," said Mrs. Westgate, "you wouldn't find it
quite so simple a matter never to see Lord Lambeth again.
I have seen it coming on."
"You are mistaken," said Bessie. "You don't understand."
"My dear child, don't be perverse," rejoined her sister.
"I know him better, certainly, if you mean that," said Bessie.
"And I like him very much. But I don't like him enough to make
trouble for him with his family. However, I don't believe in that."
"I like the way you say 'however,'" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed.
"Come; you would not marry him?"
"Oh, no," said the young girl.
- companion [kəm´pæniən]
n.同伴；同事；伴侣 (初中英语单词) - formal [´fɔ:məl] a.正式的；外表的 (初中英语单词)
- extreme [ik´stri:m] a.尽头的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
- visitor [´vizitə] n.访问者；来宾；参观者 (初中英语单词)
- witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)
- obvious [´ɔbviəs] a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词)
- beggar [´begə] n.乞丐 (初中英语单词)
- accurate [´ækjurət] a.准确的；精密的 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- confess [kən´fes] vt.供认；坦白；承认 (初中英语单词)
- suspect [´sʌspekt, sə´spekt] v.怀疑；觉得 n.嫌疑犯 (初中英语单词)
- charming [´tʃɑ:miŋ] a.可爱的；极好的 (初中英语单词)
- derive [di´raiv] v.得出；衍生 (初中英语单词)
- satisfaction [,sætis´fækʃən] n.满意；满足 (初中英语单词)
- delicious [di´liʃəs] a.美味的，可口的 (初中英语单词)
- miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
- entertainment [,entə´teinmənt] n.招(款)待；联欢会 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- gallery [´gæləri] n.画廊；美术馆；长廊 (初中英语单词)
- modest [´mɔdist] a.谦虚的；朴素的 (初中英语单词)
- distinguished [di´stiŋgwiʃt] a.卓越的，著名的 (高中英语单词)
- eminent [´eminənt] a.卓越的；杰出的 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- secretly [´si:kritli] ad.秘密地；隐蔽地 (高中英语单词)
- reckless [´rekləs] a.不注意的；鲁莽的 (高中英语单词)
- cautiously [´kɔ:ʃəsli] ad.小心地；谨慎地 (高中英语单词)
- redeem [ri´di:m] vt.买回；偿还；履行 (高中英语单词)
- duchess [´dʌtʃis] n.公爵夫人；女公爵 (高中英语单词)
- torment [´tɔ:ment] vt.(使)痛苦，折磨 (高中英语单词)
- peculiarity [pi,kju:li´æriti] n.特色；特性；怪癖 (高中英语单词)
- disagreeable [,disə´gri:əbl] a.令人不悦的 (高中英语单词)
- undertook [,ʌndə´tuk] undertake的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- metropolis [mi´trɔpəlis] n.首都；大城市 (英语四级单词)
- meditate [´mediteit] v.考虑；策划；反省 (英语四级单词)
- warrant [´wɔrənt] n.根据；委任书；权利 (英语四级单词)
- lavish [´læviʃ] a.慷慨的；浪费的 (英语四级单词)
- beastly [´bi:stli] a.残忍的；卑鄙的 (英语六级单词)
- devilish [´devəliʃ] a.魔鬼般的，凶恶的 (英语六级单词)
- thames [temz] n.泰晤士河 (英语六级单词)
- scornful [´skɔ:nful] a.轻蔑的，藐视的 (英语六级单词)
- gobble [´gɔbəl] v.狼吞虎咽 n.咯咯声 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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