Читать книгу Cass Timberlane - Sinclair Lewis - Страница 17
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ОглавлениеWhen the party had meandered to its quiet ending, when the older pleasure-maddened citizens had gone home to bed and the stoutly drinking remnant had moved indoors to escape the chill, Chris gave up her impersonal rule as mistress of the revels and settled down at a table with Cass, Jinny, Tracy Oleson, the inebriated Hubbses and the soused Curtiss Havock, and began to pay loving though discouraged attention to Cass.
He was alarmed. No more than any other man did he want to face the unwed lioness robbed of her wish-dream cubs, the chronic wife who resents the straying of her husband just as much when he is not yet her husband. He had hoped to slip away with Jinny, and perhaps be invited in for an incautious moment.
Curtiss belched. Hubbs said, “I agree.” “Then I’ll take you home,” said Mrs. Hubbs. Tracy rose. “Judge, I can save you a trip. I’ll drive Jinny back—I have my little bus here.”
Treacherous as all sweethearts, Jinny babbled, “Oh, thank you, Tracy. Judge, I did have such a good time. Thank you for inviting me.... Good night, Miss—uh—Miss Grau.”
Cass was alone with Chris.
“I think they all enjoyed it, don’t you, Chris?”
“Yes?”
“Due mostly to you, though. You were the perfect hostess. I was amused the way you kept steering Curtiss away from the bar.”
“Yes?”
“And I don’t know how you ever managed to coax such a beautiful supper out of the steward, and when you think——”
“Cass!”
“What is it, dear?”
“ ‘Dear’! Cass, have you fallen for that young female grasshopper, that Marshland girl, at your age?”
“What d’you mean, ‘At my age’?”
“I mean at your age!”
“I’m the second youngest district judge in Minnesota!”
“And probably you’re the youngest octogenarian. I know you can still play baseball and dance the tango, only you don’t. You like the fireside and your books and chess.”
“So I’m that picturesque figure, the venerable judge. Why don’t you put in slippers, along with the fireside and the books—you mean old books, that smell of leather!”
“Well, your books mostly do, don’t they? I just can’t see you with a gilt-and-satin copy of ‘Mademoiselle Fifi,’ or whatever it is your Virginia reads.”
“I’ll tell you what she reads! She reads Santayana and Willa Cather and, uh, and Proust! That’s what she reads!”
“Does she? I didn’t suppose she could read. She certainly doesn’t show any stains from it.”
“Just because she doesn’t go around showing off like a young highbrow——”
“Oh, Cassy—Cass, I mean—I’m sorry, I truly am. The last thing in the world I meant to do was to start scrapping with you.” They were on a couch in the club lounge. A bartender and four late bridge-players and the two female slot-machine addicts were still present, and he felt that otherwise Chris would crown her humility by kneeling before him, as she went on:
“It’s just that we started twenty years ago, when you were a veteran of twenty and I was a worshiping brat of ten, no, eleven, that could hide her reverence for you only by being saucy, and so I got the miserable habit of jabbing at you and—— Cass! Do you take this little Marshland girl seriously? An exquisite little thing she is, too, I must say, and probably fairly intelligent and even virtuous, curse her! I mean, damn her! Do you think you’re a little in love with her?”
“I think I’m a good deal in love with her. I agree with you in saying ‘damn her’! I didn’t want to be in an earthquake. You’re dead right, my dear; I do prefer quiet. But I’m simply God-smitten.”
She sighed then, sighed and was silent, and at last she talked to herself aloud:
“If I had been more brazen, if I hadn’t been so scrupulous, I could have married you several years ago, my friend. Right after Blanche. I’m the only person you’ve ever really talked to about Blanche. Isn’t that true?”
“I suppose it is.”
“And how she made fun of you and hurt you? Maybe you like to get hurt. You’re going about getting hurt again in just the right way. Now don’t tell me that your Virginia wouldn’t want to hurt anybody! I’m sure she wouldn’t—intentionally. It’s just that all you overimaginative men, who try to combine fancifulness with being clock-watching executives, are fated to be hurt, unless you love some kind-hearted, sloppy, adoring woman like me—the born mistress! Well, as Dad always said, ‘Nun, so geht’s.’ Good night.”
He would not run after her, and before he had stalked out to the automobile entrance, she had driven away, in her fast, canary-colored coupé. He stood frozen, realizing that he was free of his past.
