介绍:
A month later Jennie was able to announce that Lester intended to marry her. His visits had of course paved the way for this, and it seemed natural enough. Only Gerhardt seemed a little doubtful. He did not know just how this might be. Perhaps it was all right. Lester seemed a fine enough man in all conscience, and really, after Brander, why not? If a United States Senator could fall in love with Jennie, why not a business man? There was just one thing—the child. “Has she told him about Vesta?” he asked his wife.
“No,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, “not yet.”
“Not yet, not yet. Always something underhanded（秘密的;阴险的;）. Do you think he wants her if he knows? That’s what comes of such conduct in the first place. Now she has to slip around like a thief. The child cannot even have an honest name.”
Gerhardt went back to his newspaper reading and brooding(焦虑，忧思). His life seemed a complete failure to him and he was only waiting to get well enough to hunt up another job as watchman. He wanted to get out of this mess of deception and dishonesty.
A week or two later Jennie confided(吐露或倾诉) to her mother that Lester had written her to join him in Chicago. He was not feeling well, and could not come to Cleveland. The two women explained to Gerhardt that Jennie was going away to be married to Mr. Kane. Gerhardt flared up at this, and his suspicions were again aroused. But he could do nothing but grumble over the situation; it would lead to no good end, of that he was sure.
When the day came for Jennie’s departure she had to go without saying farewell to her father. He was out looking for work until late in the afternoon, and before he had returned she had been obliged to leave for the station. “I will write a note to him when I get there,” she said. She kissed her baby over and over. “Lester will take a better house for us soon,” she went on hopefully. “He wants us to move.” The night train bore her to Chicago; the old life had ended and the new one had begun.
