【英文原著类】The Lesson of the Master(主人的教训).pdf

The Lesson of the Master
The Lesson of the Master
1
The Lesson of the Master
CHAPTER I
He had been told the ladies were at church, but this was corrected by
what he saw from the top of the steps - they descended from a great height
in two arms, with a circular sweep of the most charming effect - at the
threshold of the door which, from the long bright gallery, overlooked the
immense lawn. Three gentlemen, on the grass, at a distance, sat under
the great trees, while the fourth figure showed a crimson dress that told as
a "bit of colour" amid the fresh rich green. The servant had so far
panied Paul Overt as to introduce him to this view, after asking him
if he wished first to go to his room. The young man declined that
privilege, conscious of no disrepair from so short and easy a journey and
always liking to take at once a general perceptive possession of a new
scene. He stood there a little with his eyes on the group and on the
admirable picture, the wide grounds of an old country-house near London
- that only made it better - on a splendid Sunday in June. "But that lady,
who's SHE?" he said to the servant before the man left him.
"I think she's Mrs. St. e, sir."
"Mrs. St. e, the wife of the distinguished - " Then Paul Overt
checked himself, doubting if a footman would know.
"Yes, sir - probably, sir," said his guide, who appeared to wish to
intimate that a person staying at Summersoft would naturally be, if only
by alliance, distinguished. His tone, however, made poor Overt himself
feel for the moment scantly so.
"And the gentlemen?" Overt went on.
"Well, sir, one of them's General Fancourt."
"Ah yes, I know; thank you." General Fancourt was distinguished,
there was no doubt of that, for something he had done, or perhaps even
hadn't done - the young man couldn't remember which - some years before
in India. The servant went away, leaving the glass doors open into the
gallery, and Paul Overt remained at the head of the wide d