地下墓穴（9）（在线收听）

“That’s a logical way of looking at it, certainly,” said he. “Love is a big word, and it represents a good many different shades of feeling. I liked her, and—well, you say you’ve seen her—you know how charming she could look. But still I am willing to admit, looking back, that I could never have really loved her.”

“Then, my dear Kennedy, why did you do it?”

“The adventure of the thing had a great deal to do with it.”

“What! You are so fond of adventures!”

“Where would the variety of life be without them? It was for an adventure that I first began to pay my attentions to her. I’ve chased a good deal of game in my time, but there’s no chase like that of a pretty woman. There was the piquant difficulty of it also, for, as she was the companion of Lady Emily Rood, it was almost impossible to see her alone. On the top of all the other obstacles which attracted me, I learned from her own lips very early in the proceedings that she was engaged.”

“Mein Gott! To whom?”

“She mentioned no names.”

“I do not think that anyone knows that. So that made the adventure more alluring, did it?”

“Well, it did certainly give a spice to it. Don’t you think so?”

“I tell you that I am very ignorant about these things.”

“My dear fellow, you can remember that the apple you stole from your neighbour’s tree was always sweeter than that which fell from your own. And then I found that she cared for me.”

“What—at once?”

“Oh, no, it took about three months of sapping and mining. But at last I won her over. She understood that my judicial separation from my wife made it impossible for me to do the right thing by her—but she came all the same, and we had a delightful time, as long as it lasted.”

“But how about the other man?”

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders.

“当然了，如果按照合乎逻辑的方式来看，这是个问题，”他说。“爱是个复杂的字眼，它包含许多不同的层次。

我喜欢她，哦，你见过她的，你知道她是多么迷人。不过，回想起来，我承认，我从来没有真正爱过她。”

“那么，亲爱的肯尼迪，你为什么还要那么做呢？”

“主要是因为这事有冒险色彩，”

“什么！你那么喜欢冒险！”

“没有冒险，生活还有什么乐趣？我第一次注意到她的时候就产生一种冒险的冲动。过去我追逐过许多猎物，但再没有比追逐一个漂亮女人更有趣的了。而且其中的困难特别有刺激性一一她给埃米莉路德太太做陪伴人，要单独和她见面几乎是不可能的，另外一个最吸引我的障碍是，她已经订婚了，这是我们交往初期她亲口告诉我的。

“我的天哪！跟谁？”

“她没说名字。"

“我估计这事没人知道。这使得冒险更有趣，是吗？”

嗯，确实增加情趣。你不这样认为吗？”

“我说过，我对这类事情一无所知。”

“亲爱的伙计，你应该知道，从邻居的树上偷的苹果总是比自家熟透的苹果更甜。后来，我发现她喜欢上了我。"什么一一刚认识就一一”

“哦，不，差不多下了三个月的工夫。最后总算把她弄到了手。她明白，我与妻子属于法定分居，这使我不可能娶她，但她还是投入了我的怀抱，我们共同度过了一段快乐的时光，”

“另外那个男人呢？”

肯尼迪耸了耸肩。