26上 | 看你离开，有话说不出来

祸不单行，就是同样的一个晚上！Miss Kenton的约会对象找上门来了，而且求婚了！而且Kenton答应了！就在她最后一次试着跟Stevens去沟通这个事情，告诉他自己跟未婚夫走了。可是Stevens居然又说：祝贺你！但是这个房子里在发生国际大事，我要去忙了…

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she said, "that after the many years of service I have given in this house, you have no more words to greet the news of my possible departure than those you have just uttered?"
"Did you know, Mr Stevens, that you have been a very important figure for my acquaintance and I?"
We often pass the time amusing ourselves with anecdotes about you. For instance, my acquaintance is always wanting me to show him the way you pinch your nostrils together when you put pepper on your food. That always gets him laughing."

The only thing that can save him from despair is that consolation of having done his job as a butler well, so he stubbornly clings to this thought as a drowning man would cling to a piece of driftwood. 

The light in the room was extremely gloomy on account of the rain, and so we moved two armchairs up close to the bay window. And that was how Miss Kenton and I talked for the next two hours or so, there in the pool of grey light while the rain continued to fall steadily on the square outside. 

She had, naturally, aged somewhat, but to my eyes at least, she seemed to have done so very gracefully. Her figure remained slim, her posture as upright as ever. She had maintained, too, her old way of holding her head in a manner that verged on the defiant. Of course, with the bleak light falling on her face, I could hardly help but notice the lines that had appeared here and there. But by and large the Miss Kenton I saw before me looked surprisingly similar to the person who had inhabited my memory over these years. That is to say, it was, on the whole, extremely pleasing to see her again.

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