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Lady Baltimore-Part14_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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lot decently packed. Take orders from a colored man? Have him give you



directions, dictate you letters, discipline you if you were unpunctual? No,

indeed! And if such were my feeling, how must this young Southerner feel?



With this in my mind, I made sure that the part in my back hair was

right, and after that precaution soon found myself on my way, in a way



somewhat roundabout, to the kettle-supporter sauntering northward along

High Walk, and stopping often; the town, and the water, and the distant



shores all were so lovely, so belonged to one another, so melted into one

gentle impression of wistfulness and tenderness! I leaned upon the stone



parapet and enjoyed the quiet which every surrounding detail brought to

my senses. How could John Mayrant endure such a situation? I continued to



wonder; and I also continued to assure myself it was absurd to suppose

that the engagement was broken.



The shutting of a front door across the street almost directly behind me

attracted my attention because of its being the first sound that had hap-



pened in noiseless, empty High Walk since I had been strolling there; and

I turned from the parapet to see that I was no longer the solitary person



in the street. Two ladies, one tall and one diminutive, both in black and

with long black veils which they had put back from their faces, were



evidently coming from a visit. As the tall one bowed to me I recognized

Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, and took off my hat. It was not until they had



crossed the street and come up the stone steps near where I stood on High

Walk that the little lady also bowed to me; she was Mrs. Weguelin St.



Michael, and from something in her prim yet charming manner I gathered

that she held it to be not perfectly well-bred in a lady to greet a



gentleman across the width of a public highway, and that she could have

wished that her tall companion had not thus greeted me, a stranger likely



to comment upon Kings Port manners. In her eyes, such free deportment

evidently went with her tall companion's method of speech: hadn't the



little lady informed me during our first brief meeting that Kings Port at

times thought Mrs. Gregory St. Michael's tongue "too downright"?



The two ladies having graciously granted me permission to join them while

they took the air, Mrs. Gregory must surely have shocked Mrs. Weguelin by



saying to me, "I haven't a penny for your thoughts, but I'll exchange."

"Would you thus bargain in the dark, madam?"



"Oh, I'll risk that; and, to say truth, even your back, as we came out of

that house, was a back of thought."



"Well, I confess to some thinking. Shall I begin?"

It was Mrs. Weguelin who quickly replied, smiling: "Ladies first, you



know. At least we still keep it so in Kings Port."

"Would we did everywhere!" I exclaimed devoutly; and I was quite aware



that beneath the little lady's gentle smile a setting down had lurked, a

setting down of the most delicate nature, administered to me not in the



least because I had deserved one, but because she did not like Mrs.

Gregory's "downright" tongue, and could not stop her.



Mrs. Gregory now took the prerogative of ladies, and began. "I was

thinking of what we had all just been saying during our visit across the



way--and with which you are not going to agree--that our young people

would do much better to let us old people arrange their marriages for



them, as it Is done in Europe."

"O dear!"



"I said that you would not agree; but that is because you are so young."

"I don't know that twenty-eight is so young."



"You will know it when you are seventy-three." This observation again

came from Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, and again with a gentle and



attractive smile. It was only the second time that she had spoken; and

throughout the talk into which we now fell as we slowly walked up and



down High Walk, she never took the lead; she left that to the "downright"

tongue--but I noticed, however, that she chose her moments to follow the



lead very aptly. I also perceived plainly that what we were really going

to discuss was not at all the European principle of marriage-making, but



just simply young John and his Hortense; they were the true kernel of the

nut with whose concealing shell Mrs. Gregory was presenting me, and in



proposing an exchange of thoughts she would get back only more thoughts




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