Этот неподражаемый Дживс! / The Inimitable Jeeves

Perhaps there’s a younger sister or something I’ve not heard of?”

“Her name is Honoria,” bawled Bingo reverently.

“And she reminds you a tender goddess?”

“She does.”

“God bless you!” I said.

“She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes. Another bit of bread and cheese,” he said to the lad behind the bar.

“You’re keeping your strength up[89 - you're keeping your strength up – ты набираешься сил],” I said.

“This is my lunch. I’ve got to meet Oswald[90 - Oswald – Освальд] at Waterloo at one-fifteen, to catch the train back. I brought him up to town to see the dentist.”

“Oswald? Is that the kid?”

“Yes. Very pestilential.”

“Pestilential! That reminds me, I’m lunching with my Aunt Agatha. I’ll have to run away, or I’ll be late.”

I hadn’t seen Aunt Agatha since that little affair of the pearls; and, while I didn’t anticipate any great pleasure from eating something in her society, I must say that there was one topic of conversation I felt confident she wouldn’t touch on, and that was the subject of my matrimonial future.

But I don’t understand women. At all. We’d hardly exchanged a word about the weather, when she told me:

“Bertie,” she said, “I’ve been thinking again about you and how necessary it is that you should get married. I admit that I was dreadfully mistaken in my opinion of that terrible, hypocritical girl at Roville, but this time there is no danger of an error.

By great good luck I have found the very wife for you, a girl whom I have only recently met, but whose family is above suspicion. She has plenty of money, too, though that does not matter in your case. The great point is that she is strong, self-reliant and sensible, and will counterbalance the deficiencies and weaknesses of your character. She has met you; and, while there is naturally much in you of which she disapproves, she does not dislike you. I know this, for I have talked to her—guardedly, of course—and I am sure you have only to make the first advance—”

“Who is it?” I would have said it long before, but the shock had made me swallow a bit of roll the wrong way. “Who is it?”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».