ВУЗ:
Составители:
wonderful profile, but steeped to the gills in serious purpose. I can't give you a better idea of
the way things stood than by telling you that the book she'd given me to read was called
'Types of Ethical Theory', and that when I opened it at random I struck a page beginning:
“The postulate or common understanding involved in speech is certainly co-extensive, in the
obligation it carries, with the social organism of which language is the instrument, and the ends
of which it is an effort to subserve.”
All perfectly true, no doubt; but not the sort of thing to spring on a lad with a morning head.
I was doing my best to skim through this bright little volume when the bell rang. I crawled off
the sofa and opened the door. A kind of darkish sort of respectful Johnnie stood without.
'I was sent by the agency, sir,' he said. 'I was given to understand that you required a valet.'
I'd have preferred an undertaker; but I told him to stagger in, and he floated noiselessly
through the doorway like a healing zephyr. That impressed me from the start. Meadows
(Медоуз) had had flat feet and used to clump. This fellow didn't seem to have any feet at all. He
just streamed in. He had a grave, sympathetic face, as if he, too, knew what it was to sup with the
lads.
'Excuse me, sir,' he said gently.
Then he seemed to flicker, and wasn't there any longer. I heard him moving about in the
kitchen, and presently he came back with a glass on a tray.
'If you would drink this, sir,' he said, with a kind of bedside manner, rather like the royal
doctor shooting the bracer into the sick prince. 'It is a little preparation of my own invention. It is
the Worcester Sauce that gives it its colour. The raw egg makes it nutritious. The red pepper
gives it its bite. Gentlemen have told me they have found it extremely invigorating after a late
evening.'
I would have clutched at anything that looked like a lifeline that morning. I swallowed the
stuff. For a moment I felt as if somebody had touched off a bomb inside the old bean and was
strolling down my throat with a lighted torch, and then everything seemed suddenly to get all
right. The sun shone in through the window; birds twittered in the tree-tops; and, generally
speaking, hope dawned once more.
'You're engaged!' I said, as soon as I could say anything.
3) A MAN'S VOICE [in the darkness, subduedly, but threateningly] Sh--sh! Dont call out; or
you’ll be shot. Be good; and no harm will happen to you. [She is heard leaving her bed, and
making for the door]. Take care: it's no use trying to run away. Remember: if you raise your
voice my revolver will go off. [Commandingly]. Strike a light and let me see you. Do you hear.
[Another moment of silence and darkness as she retreats to the dressing-table. Then she lights a
candle; and the mystery is at an end. He is a man of about 35, in a deplorable plight, bespattered
with mud and blood and snow, his belt and the strap of his revolver-case keeping together the
torn ruins of the blue tunic of a Servian artillery officer. All that the candlelight and his
unwashed unkempt condition make it possible to discern is that he is of middling stature and
undistinguished appearance, with strong neck and shoulders, a roundish obstinate looking head
covered with short, crisp bronze curls; clear quick blue eyes and good brows and mouth, a
hopelessly prosaic nose like that of a strong minded baby, trim soldierlike carriage and energetic
manner, and with all his wits about him in spite of his desperate predicament: even with a sense
of the humor of it, without, however, the least intention of trifling with it or throwing away a
chance. He reckons up what he can guess about Raina--her age, her social position, her character,
the extent to which she is frightened,--at a glance, and continues, more politely but still most
determinedly] Excuse my disturbing you; but you recognize my uniform--Servian! If I'm caught
I shall be killed. [Menacingly] Do you understand that?
RAINA. Yes.
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