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Chapter 2
Miss Sarah King, M.B., stood by the table in the writing-room of the Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem,idly turning over the papers and magazines. A frown contracted her brows and she lookedpreoccupied.
The tall middle-aged1 Frenchman who entered the room from the hall watched her for a momentor two before strolling up to the opposite side of the table. When their eyes met, Sarah made alittle gesture of smiling recognition. She remembered that this man had come to help her whentravelling from Cairo and had carried one of her suitcases at a moment when no porter appeared tobe available.
‘You like Jerusalem, yes?’ asked Dr Gerard after they had exchanged greetings.
‘It’s rather terrible in some ways,’ said Sarah, and added: ‘Religion is very odd!’
The Frenchman looked amused.
‘I know what you mean.’ His English was very nearly perfect. ‘Every imaginable sectsquabbling and fighting!’
‘And the awful things they’ve built, too!’ said Sarah.
‘Yes, indeed.’
Sarah sighed.
‘They turned me out of one place today because I had on a sleeveless dress,’ she said ruefully.
‘Apparently the Almighty2 doesn’t like my arms in spite of having made them.’
Dr Gerard laughed. Then he said: ‘I was about to order some coffee. You will join me, Miss—?’
‘King, my name is. Sarah King.’
‘And mine—permit me.’ He whipped out a card. Taking it, Sarah’s eyes widened in delightedawe.
‘Dr Theodore Gerard? Oh! I am excited to meet you. I’ve read all your works, of course. Yourviews on schizophrenia are frightfully interesting.’
‘Of course?’ Gerard’s eyebrows4 rose inquisitively5.
Sarah explained rather diffidently.
‘You see—I’m by way of being a doctor myself. Just got my M.B.’
‘Ah! I see.’
Dr Gerard ordered coffee and they sat down in a corner of the lounge. The Frenchman was lessinterested in Sarah’s medical achievements than in the black hair that rippled6 back from herforehead and the beautifully shaped red mouth. He was amused at the obvious awe3 with which sheregarded him.
‘You are staying here long?’ he asked conversationally7.
‘A few days. That is all. Then I want to go to Petra.’
‘Aha! I, too, was thinking of going there if it does not take too long. You see, I have to be backin Paris on the fourteenth.’
‘It takes about a week, I believe. Two days to go, two days there and two days back again.’
‘I must go to the travel bureau in the morning and see what can be arranged.’
A party of people entered the lounge and sat down. Sarah watched them with some interest. Shelowered her voice.
‘Those people who have just come in, did you notice them on the train the other night? Theyleft Cairo the same time as we did.’
Dr Gerard screwed in an eyeglass and directed his glance across the room. ‘Americans?’
Sarah nodded.
‘Yes. An American family. But—rather an unusual one, I think.’
‘Unusual? How unusual?’
‘Well, look at them. Especially at the old woman.’
Dr Gerard complied. His keen professional glance flitted swiftly from face to face.
He noticed first a tall rather loose-boned man—age about thirty. The face was pleasant but weakand his manner seemed oddly apathetic8. Then there were two good-looking youngsters—the boyhad almost a Greek head. ‘Something the matter with him, too,’ thought Dr Gerard. ‘Yes—adefinite state of nervous tension.’ The girl was clearly his sister, a strong resemblance, and shealso was in an excitable condition. There was another girl younger still—with golden-red hair thatstood out like a halo; her hands were very restless, they were tearing and pulling at thehandkerchief in her lap. Yet another woman, young, calm, dark-haired with a creamy pallor, aplacid face not unlike a Luini Madonna. Nothing jumpy about her! And the centre of the group—‘Heavens!’ thought Dr Gerard, with a Frenchman’s candid9 repulsion. ‘What a horror of awoman!’ Old, swollen10, bloated, sitting there immovable in the midst of them—a distorted oldBuddha—a gross spider in the centre of a web!
To Sarah he said: ‘La Maman, she is not beautiful, eh?’ And he shrugged11 his shoulders.
‘There’s something rather—sinister about her, don’t you think?’ asked Sarah.
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1
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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2
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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3
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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4
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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inquisitively
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| 过分好奇地； 好问地 | |
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6
rippled
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| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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conversationally
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| adv.会话地 | |
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8
apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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9
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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10
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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11
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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