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The Coxon Fund-Part10_HENRY JAMES(1843-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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added: "You may turn out to have done, in bringing me this letter,

a thing you'll profoundly regret." My tone had a significance



which, I could see, did make her uneasy, and there was a moment,

after I had made two or three more remarks of studiously



bewildering effect, at which her eyes followed so hungrily the

little flourish of the letter with which I emphasised them that I



instinctively slipped Mr. Pudney's communication into my pocket.

She looked, in her embarrassed annoyance, capable of grabbing it to



send it back to him. I felt, after she had gone, as if I had

almost given her my word I wouldn't deliver the enclosure. The



passionate movement, at any rate, with which, in solitude, I

transferred the whole thing, unopened, from my pocket to a drawer



which I double-locked would have amounted, for an initiated

observer, to some such pledge.



CHAPTER XII

Mrs. Saltram left me drawing my breath more quickly and indeed



almost in pain--as if I had just perilously grazed the loss of

something precious. I didn't quite know what it was--it had a



shocking resemblance to my honour. The emotion was the livelier

surely in that my pulses even yet vibrated to the pleasure with



which, the night before, I had rallied to the rare analyst, the

great intellectualadventurer and pathfinder. What had dropped



from me like a cumbersome garment as Saltram appeared before me in

the afternoon on the heath was the disposition to haggle over his



value. Hang it, one had to choose, one had to put that value

somewhere; so I would put it really high and have done with it.



Mrs. Mulville drove in for him at a discreet hour--the earliest she

could suppose him to have got up; and I learned that Miss Anvoy



would also have come had she not been expecting a visit from Mr.

Gravener. I was perfectly mindful that I was under bonds to see



this young lady, and also that I had a letter to hand to her; but I

took my time, I waited from day to day. I left Mrs. Saltram to



deal as her apprehensions should prompt with the Pudneys. I knew

at last what I meant--I had ceased to wince at my responsibility.



I gave this supremeimpression of Saltram time to fade if it would;

but it didn't fade, and, individually, it hasn't faded even now.



During the month that I thus invited myself to stiffen again,

Adelaide Mulville, perplexed by my absence, wrote to me to ask why



I WAS so stiff. At that season of the year I was usually oftener

"with" them. She also wrote that she feared a real estrangement



had set in between Mr. Gravener and her sweet young friend--a state

of things but half satisfactory to her so long as the advantage



resulting to Mr. Saltram failed to disengage itself from the merely

nebulous state. She intimated that her sweet young friend was, if



anything, a trifle too reserved; she also intimated that there

might now be an opening for another clever young man. There never



was the slightest opening, I may here parenthesise, and of course

the question can't come up to-day. These are old frustrations now.



Ruth Anvoy hasn't married, I hear, and neither have I. During the

month, toward the end, I wrote to George Gravener to ask if, on a



special errand, I might come to see him, and his answer was to

knock the very next day at my door. I saw he had immediately



connected my enquiry with the talk we had had in the railway-

carriage, and his promptitude showed that the ashes of his



eagerness weren't yet cold. I told him there was something I felt

I ought in candour to let him know--I recognised the obligation his



friendly confidence had laid on me.

"You mean Miss Anvoy has talked to you? She has told me so



herself," he said.

"It wasn't to tell you so that I wanted to see you," I replied;



"for it seemed to me that such a communication would rest wholly

with herself. If however she did speak to you of our conversation



she probably told you I was discouraging."

"Discouraging?"



"On the subject of a present application of The Coxon Fund."

"To the case of Mr. Saltram? My dear fellow, I don't know what you



call discouraging!" Gravener cried.

"Well I thought I was, and I thought she thought I was."



"I believe she did, but such a thing's measured by the effect.

She's not 'discouraged,'" he said.



"That's her own affair. The reason I asked you to see me was that

it appeared to me I ought to tell you frankly that--decidedly!--I



can't undertake to produce that effect. In fact I don't want to!"

"It's very good of you, damn you!" my visitor laughed, red and



really grave. Then he said: "You'd like to see that scoundrel




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