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Lady Baltimore-Part27_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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good as the Coosaw used to be. Better than Florida or Tennessee."



My eyes instinctively turned to where they had last seen the launch; of

course it wasn't there any more. Then I spoke to David.



"Do you know what a phosphate bed looks like? Can one see it?"

"This kind you can," he answered. "But it's not worth your trouble. Just



a kind of a square hole you dig along the river till you strike the

stuff. What you want to see is the works."



No, I didn't want to see even the works; they smelt atrociously, and I do

not care for vats, and acids, and processes: and besides, had I not seen



enough? My eyes went down the river again where that launch had gone; and

I wondered if the wedding-cake would be postponed any more.



Regent Tom? Oh, yes, to be sure! John Mayrant had pointed out to me the

house where he had lived; he had been John's uncle. So the old gentleman



had left his estate in trust! And now--! But certainly Hortense would

have won the battle of Chattanooga!



"Don't be too sure about all this," I told myself cautiously. But there

are times when cautioning one's self is quite as useless as if somebody



else had cautioned one; my reason leaped with the rapidity of intuition;

I merely sat and looked on at what it was doing. All sorts of odds and



ends, words I hadn't understood, looks and silences I hadn't interpreted,

little signs that I had thought nothing of at first, but which I had



gradually, through their multiplicity, come to know meant something, all

these broken pieces fitted into each other now, fell together and made a



clear pattern of the truth, without a crack in it--Hortense had never

believed in that story about the phosphates having failed--"pinched out,"



as they say of ore deposits. There she had stood between her two suitors,

between her affianced John and the besieging Charley, and before she



would be off with the old love and on with the new, she must personally

look into those phosphates. Therefore she had been obliged to have a sick



father and postpone the wedding two or three times, because her affairs--

very likely the necessity of making certain of Charley--had prevented her



from coming sooner to Kings Port. And having now come hither, and having

beheld her Northern and her Southern lovers side by side--had the



comparison done something to her highly controlled heart? Was love taking

some hitherto unknown liberties with that well-balanced organ? But what



an outrage had been perpetrated upon John! At that my deductions

staggered in their rapid course. How could his aunts--but then it had



only been one of them; Miss Josephine had never approved of Miss Eliza's

course; it was of that that Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael had so emphatically



reminded Mrs. Gregory in my presence when we had strolled together upon

High Walk, and those two ladies had talked oracles in my presence. Well,



they were oracles no longer!

When the boat brought us back to the wharf, there were the rest of my



flowers unbestowed, and upon whom should I bestow them? I thought first

of Eliza La Heu, but she wouldn't be at the Exchange so late as this.



Then it seemed well to carry them to Mrs. Weguelin. Something, however,

prompted me to pass her door, and continue vaguely walking on until I



came to the house where Miss Josephine and Miss Eliza lived; and here I

rang the bell and was admitted.



They were sitting as I had seen them first, the one with her embroidery,

and the other on the further side of a table, whereon lay an open letter,



which in a few moments I knew must have been the subject of the

discussion which they finished even as I came forward.



"It was only prolonging an honest mistake." That was Miss Eliza.

"And it has merely resulted in clinching what you meant it to finish."



That was Miss Josephine.

I laid my flowers upon the table, and saw that the letter was in John



Mayrant's hand. Of course.

I avoided looking at it again; but what had he written, and why had he



written? His daily steps turned to this house--unless Miss Josephine had

banished him again.



The ladies accepted my offering with gracious expressions, and while I

told them of my visit to Live Oaks, and poured out my enthusiasm, the



servant was sent for and brought water and two beautiful old china bowls,

in which Miss Eliza proceeded to arrange the flowers with her delicate



white hands. She made them look exquisite with an old lady's art, and

this little occupation went on as we talked of indifferent subjects.



But the atmosphere of that room was charged with the subject of which we

did not speak. The letter lay on the table; and even as I struggled to



sustain polite conversation, I began to know what was in it, though I

never looked at it again; it spoke out as clearly to me as the launch had



done. I had thought, when I first entered, to tell the ladies something

of my meeting with Hortense Rieppe; I can only say that I found this






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