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Lady Baltimore-Part15_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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dignity had perversely moved me to be more flippant than I actually felt;



and I promised myself that a more chastened tone should forthwith redeem

me from the false position I had got into.



"My dear," said Mrs. Gregory to Mrs. Weguelin, "we must ask him to excuse

our provincialism."



For the second time I was not wholly dexterous. "But I like it so much!"

I exclaimed; and both ladies laughed frankly.



Mrs. Gregory brought in a fable. "You'll find us all 'country mice'

here."



This time I was happy. "At least, then, there'll be no cat!" And this

caused us all to make little bows.



But the word "cat" fell into our talk as does a drop of some acid into a

chemical solution, instantly changing the whole to an unexpected new



color. The unexpected new color was, in this instance, merely what had

been latently lurking in the fluid of our consciousness all through and



now it suddenly came out.

Mrs. Gregory stared over the parapet at the harbor. "I wonder if anybody



has visited that steam yacht?"

"The Hermana?" I said. "She's waiting, I believe, for her owner, who is



enjoying himself very much on land." It was a strong temptation to add,

"enjoying himself with the cat," but I resisted it.



"Oh!" said Mrs. Gregory. "Possibly a friend of yours?"

"Even his name is unknown to me. But I gather that he may be coming to



Kings Port--to attend Mr. John Mayrant's wedding next Wednesday week."

I hadn't gathered this; but one is at times driven to improvising. I



wished so much to know if Juno was right about the engagement being

broken, and I looked hard at the ladies as my words fairly grazed the



"cat." This time I expected them to consult each other's expressions, and

such, indeed, was their immediate proceeding.



"The Wednesday following, you mean," Mrs. Weguelin corrected.

"Postponed again? Dear me!"



Mrs. Gregory spoke this time. "General Rieppe. Less well again, it

seems."



It would be like Juno to magnify a delay into a rupture. Then I had a

hilarious thought, which I instantly put to the ladies. "If the poor Gen-



eral were to die completely, would the wedding be postponed completely?"

"There would not be the slightest chance of that," Mrs. Gregory declared.



And then she pronounced a sentence that was truly oracular: "She's coming

at once to see for herself."



To which Mrs. Weguelin added with deeper condemnation than she had so far

employed at all: "There is a rumor that she is actually coming in an



automobile."

My silence upon these two remarks was the silence of great and sudden



interest; but it led Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael to do my perceptions a

slight injustice, and she had no intention that I should miss the quality



of her opinion regarding the vehicle in which Hortense was reported to be

travelling.



"Miss Rieppe has the extraordinary taste to come here in an automobile,"

said Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, with deepened severity.



Though I understood quite well, without this emphasizing, that the little

lady would, with her unbending traditions, probably think it more re-



spectable to approach Kings Port in a wheelbarrow, I was absorbed by the

vague but copiousimport of Mrs. Gregory's announcement. The oracles,



moreover, continued.

"But she is undoubtedly very clever to come and see for herself," was



Mrs. Weguelin's next comment.

Mrs. Gregory's face, as she replied to her companion, took on a



censorious and superior expression. "You'll remember, Julia, that I told

Josephine St. Michael it was what they had to expect."



"But it was not Josephine, my dear, who at any time approved of taking

such a course. It was Eliza's whole doing."



It was fairly raining oracles round me, and they quite resembled, for all

the help and light they contained, their Delphic predecessors.



"And yet Eliza," said Mrs. Gregory, "in the face of it, this very

morning, repeated her eternalassertion that we shall all see the



marriage will not take place."

"Eliza," murmured Mrs. Weguelin, "rates few things more highly than her



own judgment."

Mrs. Gregory mused. "Yet she is often right when she has no right to be



right."

I could not bear it any longer, and I said, "I heard to-day that Miss






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