The Marriages(婚姻).pdf

The Marriages
The Marriages
by Henry James
1
The Marriages
CHAPTER I
"Won't you stay a little longer?" the hostess asked while she held the
girl's hand and smiled. "It's too early for every one to go-- it's too
absurd." Mrs. Churchley inclined her head to one side and looked
gracious; she flourished about her face, in a vaguely protecting sheltering
way, an enormous fan of red feathers. Everything in position, for
Adela Chart, was enormous. She had big eyes, big teeth, big shoulders,
big hands, big rings and bracelets, big jewels of every sort and many of
them. The train of her crimson dress was longer than any other; her
house was huge; her drawing-room, especially now that pany had
left it, looked vast, and it offered to the girl's eyes a collection of the
largest sofas and chairs, pictures, mirrors, clocks, that she had ever beheld.
Was Mrs. Churchley's fortune also large, to account for so many
immensities? Of this Adela could know nothing, but it struck her, while
she smiled sweetly back at their entertainer, that she had better try to find
out. Mrs. Churchley had at least a high-hung carriage drawn by the
tallest horses, and in the Row she was to be seen perched on a mighty
hunter. She was high and extensive herself, though not exactly fat; her
bones were big, her limbs were long, and her loud hurrying voice
resembled the bell of a steamboat. While she spoke to his daughter she
had the air of hiding from Colonel Chart, a little shyly, behind the wide
ostrich fan. But Colonel Chart was not a man to be either ignored or
eluded.
"Of course every one's going on to something else," he said. "I
believe there are a lot of things to-night."
"And where are YOU going?" Mrs. Churchley asked, dropping her fan
and turning her bright hard eyes on the Colonel.
"Oh I don't do that sort of thing!"--he used a tone of familiar
resentment that fell with a certain effect on his daughter's ear. She saw in it
that he thought Mrs. Churchley mi