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Lady Baltimore-Part24_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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us.

"Very expertly, I should guess," I said.



"Perfectly; invisibly," said Beverly. And he returned to his thoughts and

his chuckles.



"After all, it's simple," he presently remarked.

"Doesn't that depend on what she's here for?"



"Oh, to break it."

"Why come for that?"



He took another turn among his cogitations. I took a number of turns

among my own, but it was merely walking round and round in a circle.



"When will she announce it, then?" he demanded.

"Ah!" I murmured. "You said she was a good player."



"But a fire-eater!" he resumed. "For her. Oh, hang it! She'll let him

go!"



"Then why hasn't she?"

He hesitated. "Well, of course her game could be spoiled by--"



His speech died away into more cogitation, and I had to ask him what he

meant.



"By love getting into it somewhere."

We walked on through Worship Street, which we had reached some while



since, and the chief features of which I mechanicallypointed out to him.

"Jolly old church, that," said Beverly, as we reached my favorite corner



and brick wall. "Well, I'll not announce it!" he murmured gallantly.

"My dear man," I said, "Kings Port will do all the announcing for you



to-morrow."

XV: What She Came to See



But in this matter my prognostication was thoroughly at fault; yet

surely, knowing Kings Port's sovereign habit, as I had had good cause to



know it, I was scarce beyond reasonable bounds in supposing that the

arrival of Miss Rieppe would heat up some very general and very audible



talk about this approaching marriage, against which the prejudices of the

town were set in such compact array. I have several times mentioned that



Kings Port, to my sense, was buzzing over John Mayrant's affairs; buzzing

in the open, where one could hear it, and buzzing behind closed doors,



where one could somehow feel it; I can only say that henceforth this

buzzing ceased, dropped wholly away, as if Gossip were watching so hard



that she forgot to talk, giving place to a great stillness in her

kingdom. Such occasional words as were uttered sounded oddly and



egregiously clear in the new-established void.

The first of these words sounded, indeed, quite enormous, issuing as it



did from Juno's lips at our breakfast-table, when yesterday's meeting on

the New Bridge was investing my mind with many thoughts. She addressed me



in one of her favorite tones (I have met it, thank God! but in two or

three other cases during my whole experience), which always somehow



conveyed to you that you were personally to blame for what she was going

to tell you.



"I suppose you know that your friend, Mr. Mayrant, has resigned from the

Custom House?"



I was, of course, careful not to give Juno the pleasure of seeing that

she had surprised me. I bowed, and continued in silence to sip a little



coffee; then, setting my coffee down, I observed that it would be some

few days yet before the resignation could take effect; and, noticing that



Juno was getting ready some new remark, I branched off and spoke to her

of my excursion up the river this morning to see the azaleas in the



gardens at Live Oaks.

"How lucky the weather is so magnificent!" I exclaimed.



"I shall be interested to hear," said Juno, "what explanation he finds to

give Miss Josephine for his disrespectful holding out against her, and



his immediate yielding to Miss Rieppe."

Here I deemed it safe to ask her, was she quite sure it had been at the



instance of Miss Rieppe that John had resigned?

"It follows suspiciously close upon her arrival," stated Juno. She might



have been speaking of a murder. "And how he expects to support a wife

now--well, that is no affair of mine," Juno concluded, with a



washing-her-hands-of-it air, as if up to this point she had always done

her best for the wilful boy. She had blamed him savagely for not



resigning, and now she was blaming him because he had resigned; and I ate

my breakfast in much entertainment over this female acrobat in censure.



No more was said; I think that my manner of taking Juno's news had been

perfectly successful in disappointing her. John's resignation, if it had



really occurred, did certainly follow very close upon the arrival of




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