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The drawing-room at the Hotel de la Fleur was a small room, with a cottage piano, and a suite of mahogany furniture, covered in stamped velvet, neatly arranged around the walls. On round tables were photograph albums, and on the walls enlarged photographs of Tiare and her first husband, Captain Johnson. Still, though Tiare was old and fat, on occasion we rolled back the Brussels carpet, brought in the maids and one or two friends of Tiare's, and danced, though now to the wheezy music of a gramaphone. On the verandah the air was scented with the heavy perfume of the tiare, and overhead the Southern Cross shone in a cloudless sky.
鮮花旅館的客廳并不大，擺著一架簡易式的鋼琴，沿著四邊墻整整齊齊地擺著一套菲律賓紅木家具，上面鋪著烙著花的絲絨罩子，圓桌上放著幾本照相簿，墻上掛著蒂阿瑞同她第一個丈夫約翰生船長的放大照片。雖然蒂阿瑞已經又老又胖，可是有幾次我們還是把布魯塞爾地毯卷起來，請來在旅館里干活的女孩子同蒂阿瑞的兩個朋友，跳起舞來，只不過伴奏的是由一臺象害了氣喘病似的唱機放出的音樂而已。露臺上，空氣里彌漫著蒂阿瑞花的濃郁香氣，頭頂上，南十字座星在萬里無云的天空上閃爍發光。
Tiare smiled indulgently as she remembered the gaiety of a time long passed.
蒂阿瑞回憶起很久以前的那次盛會，臉上不禁顯出迷醉的笑容來。
"We kept it up till three, and when we went to bed I don't think anyone was very sober. I had told them they could have my trap to take them as far as the road went, because after that they had a long walk. Ata's property was right away in a fold of the mountain. They started at dawn, and the boy I sent with them didn't come back till next day.
“那天我們一直玩到半夜三點鐘，上床的時候沒有一個人不喝得醉醺醺的。我早就同他們講好，他們可以乘我的小馬車走，一直到大路通不過去的地方。那以后，他們還要走很長的一段路。愛塔的產業在很遠很遠的一處山巒疊抱的地方。他們天一亮就動身了，我派去送他們的仆人直到第二天才回來。
"Yes, that's how Strickland was married."
“不錯，思特里克蘭德就這樣結婚了。”
