"Mercy--shall we elope?" she laughed.
“天哪——我們私奔好嗎？”她笑著說。

"If you would--"
“如果你肯——”

"You DO love me, Newland! I'm so happy."
“你確實很愛我，紐蘭！我真幸福。”

"But then--why not be happier?"
“那么——為什么不更幸福些？”

"We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?"
“可是，我們也不能像小說中的人那樣啊，對嗎？”

"Why not--why not--why not?"
“為什么不——為什么不——為什么不呢？”

She looked a little bored by his insistence. She knew very well that they couldn't, but it was troublesome to have to produce a reason. "I'm not clever enough to argue with you. But that kind of thing is rather--vulgar, isn't it?" she suggested, relieved to have hit on a word that would assuredly extinguish the whole subject.
她看上去對他的執拗有點不悅，她很清楚他們不能那樣做，不過要說清道理卻又很難。“我沒那么聰明，無法跟你爭論。可那種事有點——粗俗，不是嗎？”她暗示說，因為想出了一個肯定能結束這個話題的詞而松了口氣。

"Are you so much afraid, then, of being vulgar?"
“這么說，你是很害怕粗俗了？”

She was evidently staggered by this. "Of course I should hate it--so would you," she rejoined, a trifle irritably.
她顯然被這話嚇了一跳。“我當然會討厭了——你也會的，”她有點生氣地回答說。

He stood silent, beating his stick nervously against his boot-top; and feeling that she had indeed found the right way of closing the discussion, she went on light- heartedly: "Oh, did I tell you that I showed Ellen my ring? She thinks it the most beautiful setting she ever saw. There's nothing like it in the rue de la Paix, she said. I do love you, Newland, for being so artistic!"
他站在那兒一語不發，神經質地用手杖敲著他的靴子尖，覺得她的確找到了結束爭論的好辦法。她心情輕松地接著說：“喂，我讓埃倫看過我的戒指了，我告訴過你了嗎？她認為這是她見過的最美的鑲嵌了。她說，貝克斯大街上根本沒有能與之相比的貨色。我太愛你了，紐蘭，因為你這么有藝術眼光。”

The next afternoon, as Archer, before dinner, sat smoking sullenly in his study, Janey wandered in on him. He had failed to stop at his club on the way up from the office where he exercised the profession of the law in the leisurely manner common to well-to-do New Yorkers of his class. He was out of spirits and slightly out of temper, and a haunting horror of doing the same thing every day at the same hour besieged his brain.
第二天晚飯之前，阿切爾正心情陰郁地坐在書房里吸煙，詹尼漫步進來走到他跟前。他今天從事務所回來的路上，沒有去俱樂部逗留。他從事法律職業，對待工作像紐約他那個富有階級的其他人一樣漫不經心。他情緒低落，心煩意亂。每天在同一時間都要干同樣的事，這使他腦子里塞滿了揮之不去的痛苦。

"Sameness--sameness!" he muttered, the word running through his head like a persecuting tune as he saw the familiar tall-hatted figures lounging behind the plate- glass; and because he usually dropped in at the club at that hour he had gone home instead. He knew not only what they were likely to be talking about, but the part each one would take in the discussion. The Duke of course would be their principal theme; though the appearance in Fifth Avenue of a golden-haired lady in a small canary-coloured brougham with a pair of black cobs (for which Beaufort was generally thought responsible) would also doubtless be thoroughly gone into. Such "women" (as they were called) were few in New York, those driving their own carriages still fewer, and the appearance of Miss Fanny Ring in Fifth Avenue at the fashionable hour had profoundly agitated society. Only the day before, her carriage had passed Mrs. Lovell Mingott's, and the latter had instantly rung the little bell at her elbow and ordered the coachman to drive her home. "What if it had happened to Mrs. van der Luyden?" people asked each other with a shudder. Archer could hear Lawrence Lefferts, at that very hour, holding forth on the disintegration of society.
“千篇一律——千篇一律！”他看著玻璃板后面那些百無聊賴的戴高帽子的熟悉身影咕噥說，這話像糾纏不休的樂曲在他腦袋里不停地回響，平時這個時候他都是在俱樂部逗留，而今天他卻直接回了家。他不僅知道他們可能談論什么，而且還知道每個人在討論中站在哪一方。公爵當然會是他們談論的主題，盡管那位乘坐一對黑色矮腳馬拉的淡黃色小馬車的金發女子在第五大街的露面（此事人們普遍認為歸功于博福特）無疑也將會被他們深入的研究。這樣的“女人”（人們如此稱呼她們）在紐約還很少見，自己駕駛馬車的就更稀罕了。范妮·琳小姐在社交時間出現在第五大街，深深刺激了上流社會。就在前一天，她的馬車從洛弗爾·明戈特太太的車旁駛過，后者立即搖了搖身邊的小鈴鐺，命令車夫馬上送她回家。“這事若發生在范德盧頓太太身上，又會怎樣呢？”人們不寒而栗地相互問道。此時此刻，阿切爾甚至仿佛能聽見勞倫斯·萊弗茨正就社交界的分崩離析發表高見。

He raised his head irritably when his sister Janey entered, and then quickly bent over his book (Swinburne's "Chastelard"--just out) as if he had not seen her. She glanced at the writing-table heaped with books, opened a volume of the "Contes Drolatiques," made a wry face over the archaic French, and sighed: "What learned things you read!"
妹妹詹尼進屋的時候，他煩躁地抬起頭來，接著又迅速俯身讀他的書（斯溫伯恩的《沙特拉爾》——剛出版的），仿佛沒看見她一樣。她瞥了一眼堆滿書籍的寫字臺，打開一卷《幽默故事》，對著那些古法語愁眉苦臉地說：“你讀的東西好深奧呀！”

"Well--?" he asked, as she hovered Cassandra-like before him.
“嗯——？”他問道，只見她像卡珊德拉一樣站在面前。

"Mother's very angry."
“媽媽非常生氣呢。”

"Angry? With whom? About what?"
“生氣？跟誰？為什么？”

"Miss Sophy Jackson has just been here. She brought word that her brother would come in after dinner: she couldn't say very much, because he forbade her to: he wishes to give all the details himself. He's with cousin Louisa van der Luyden now."
“索菲·杰克遜小姐剛才來過，捎話說她哥哥晚飯后要來我們家；她不能多講，因為他不許她講，他要親自告訴我們全部細節。他現在跟路易莎·范德盧頓在一起。”