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Lady Baltimore-Part40_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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age, save in corners where it has not yet been uprooted. John's silence

to me was something that I liked very much, and he must have found that



it was not misplaced.

The first externalsplash of the few that I have to narrate was a



negative manifestation, and occurred at breakfast: Juno supposed if the

weddinginvitations would be out later in the day. The next splash was



somewhat louder on, was at dinner, when Juno inquired of Mrs. Trevise if

she had received any weddinginvitation. At tea time was very decided



splashing. No invitation had come to anybody. Juno had called at five of

the St. Michael houses and got in at none of them, and there was a rumor



that the Hermana had disappeared from the harbor. So far, none of the

splashing had wet me but I now came in for a light sprinkle.



"Were you not on board that boat yesterday?" Juno inquired; and to see

her look at me you might have gathered that I was suspected of sinking



the vessel.

"A most delightful occasion!" I exclaimed, filling my face with a bright



blankness.

"Isn't he awful to speak that way about Sunday!" said the up-country



bride.

This was a chance for the poetess, and she took it. "To me," she mused,



"every day seems fraught with an equal holiness."

"But I should think," observed the Briton, "that you could knock off a



hymn better on Sundays."

All this while Juno was looking at me, and I knew it, and therefore I ate



my food in a kindly sort of unconscious way, until she fired another shot

at me. "There is an absurd report that somebody fell overboard."



"Dear me!" I laughed. "So that is what it has grown to already! I did go

out on the boat boom, and I did drop off--but into a boat."



At this confession of mine the up-country bride became extraordinarily

arch on the subject of the well-knownhospitality of steam yachts, and



for this I was honestlygrateful to her; but Juno brooded still. "I hope

there is nothing wrong," she said solemnly.



Feeling that silence at this point would not be golden, I went into it

with spirit I told them of our charming party, of General Rieppe's rich



store of quotations, of the strictdiscipline on board the well-appointed

Hermana, of the great beauty of Hortense, and her evident happiness when



her lover was by her side. This talk of mine turned off any curiosity or

suspicion which the rest of the company may have begun to entertain; but



upon Juno I think it made scant impression, save causing her to set me

down as an imbecile. For there was Doctor Beaugarcon when we came into



the sitting-room, who told us before any one could even say

"How-do-you-do," that Miss Hortense Rieppe had broken her engagement with



John Mayrant, and that he had it from Mrs. Cornerly, whom he was visiting

professionally. I caught the pitying look which Juno threw at me at this



news, and I was happy to have acquitted myself so creditably in the

manipulation of my secret: nobody asked me any more questions!



There is almost nothing else to tell you of how the splashes broke on

Kings Port. Before the day when I was obliged to call in Doctor



Beaugarcon's professional services (quite a sharp attack put me to bed

for half a week) I found merely the following things: the Hermana gone to



New York, the automobiles and the Replacers had also disappeared, and people were divided

on the not strikingly important question as to whether Hortense and the



General had accompanied Charley on the yacht, or continued northward in

an automobile, or taken the train. Gone, in any case, the whole party



indubitably was, leaving, I must say, a sense of emptiness: the comedy

was over, the players departed. I never heard any one, not even Juno,



doubt that it was Hortense who had broken the engagement; this part of

the affair was conducted by the principals with great skill. Hortense had



evidently written her version to the Cornerlys, and not a word to any

other effect ever came from John's mouth, of course. One result I had not



looked for, though it was a natural one: if the old ladies had felt

indignation at Hortense for her determination to marry John Mayrant, this



indignation was doubled by her determination not to! I fear that few of

us live by logic, even in Kings Port; and then, they had all called upon



her in that garden for nothing! The sudden thought of this made me laugh

alone in my bed of sickness; and when I came out of it, had such a thing



been possible, I should have liked to congratulate Miss Josephine St.

Michael on her absence from the garden occasion. I said, however, nothing



to her, or to any of the other ladies, upon this or any subject, for I

was so unlucky as to find them not at home when I paid my round of



farewell visits. Nor (to my real distress) did I see John Mayrant again.

The boy wrote me (I received it in bed) a short, warm note of regret,



with nothing else in it save the fact that he was leaving town, having




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