From nine until five-thirty Merlin Grainger asked bored old ladies in black and young men with dark circles under their eyes if they “cared for this fellow” or were interested in first editions. Did they buy novels with Arabs on the cover, or books which gave Shakespeare’s newest sonnets14 as dictated16 psychically17 to Miss Sutton of South Dakota? he sniffed18. As a matter of fact, his own taste ran to these latter, but as an employee at the Moonlight Quill he assumed for the working day the attitude of a disillusioned20 connoisseur21.
After he had crawled over the window display to pull down the front shade at five-thirty every afternoon, and said good-bye to the mysterious Mr. Moonlight Quill and the lady clerk, Miss McCracken, and the lady stenographer22, Miss Masters, he went home to the girl, Caroline. He did not eat supper with Caroline. It is unbelievable that Caroline would have considered eating off his bureau with the collar buttons dangerously near the cottage cheese, and the ends of Merlin’s necktie just missing his glass of milk — he had never asked her to eat with him. He ate alone. He went into Braegdort’s delicatessen on Sixth Avenue and bought a box of crackers23, a tube of anchovy24 paste, and some oranges, or else a little jar of sausages and some potato salad and a bottled soft drink, and with these in a brown package he went to his room at Fifty-something West Fifty-eighth Street and ate his supper and saw Caroline.
Caroline was a very young and gay person who lived with some older lady and was possibly nineteen. She was like a ghost in that she never existed until evening. She sprang into life when the lights went on in her apartment at about six, and she disappeared, at the latest, about midnight. Her apartment was a nice one, in a nice building with a white stone front, opposite the south side of Central Park. The back of her apartment faced the single window of the single room occupied by the single Mr. Grainger.
He called her Caroline because there was a picture that looked like her on the jacket of a book of that name down at the Moonlight Quill.
Now, Merlin Grainger was a thin young man of twenty-five, with dark hair and no mustache or beard or anything like that, but Caroline was dazzling and light, with a shimmering25 morass26 of russet waves to take the place of hair, and the sort of features that remind you of kisses — the sort of features you thought belonged to your first love, but know, when you come across an old picture, didn’t. She dressed in pink or blue usually, but of late she had sometimes put on a slender black gown that was evidently her especial pride, for whenever she wore it she would stand regarding a certain place on the wall, which Merlin thought most be a mirror. She sat usually in the profile chair near the window, but sometimes honored the chaise longue by the lamp, and often she leaned ‘way back and smoked a cigarette with posturings of her arms and hands that Merlin considered very graceful27.
At another time she had come to the window and stood in it magnificently, and looked out because the moon had lost its way and was dripping the strangest and most transforming brilliance28 into the areaway between, turning the motif29 of ash-cans and clothes-lines into a vivid impressionism of silver casks and gigantic gossamer30 cobwebs. Merlin was sitting in plain sight, eating cottage cheese with sugar and milk on it; and so quickly did he reach out for the window cord that he tipped the cottage cheese into his lap with his free hand — and the milk was cold and the sugar made spots on his trousers, and he was sure that she had seen him after all.
Sometimes there were callers — men in dinner coats, who stood and bowed, hat in hand and coat on arm, as they talked to Caroline; then bowed some more and followed her out of the light, obviously bound for a play or for a dance. Other young men came and sat and smoked cigarettes, and seemed trying to tell Caroline something — she sitting either in the profile chair and watching them with eager intentness or else in the chaise longue by the lamp, looking very lovely and youthfully inscrutable indeed.
Merlin enjoyed these calls. Of some of the men he approved. Others won only his grudging31 toleration, one or two he loathed32 — especially the most frequent caller, a man with black hair and a black goatee and a pitch-dark soul, who seemed to Merlin vaguely34 familiar, but whom he was never quite able to recognize.
Now, Merlin’s whole life was not “bound up with this romance he had constructed”; it was not “the happiest hour of his day.” He never arrived in time to rescue Caroline from “clutches”; nor did he even marry her. A much stranger thing happened than any of these, and it is this strange thing that will presently be set down here. It began one October afternoon when she walked briskly into the mellow interior of the Moonlight Quill.
It was a dark afternoon, threatening rain and the end of the world, and done in that particularly gloomy gray in which only New York afternoons indulge. A breeze was crying down the streets, whisking along battered36 newspapers and pieces of things, and little lights were pricking37 out all the windows — it was so desolate38 that one was sorry for the tops of sky-scrapers lost up there in the dark green and gray heaven, and felt that now surely the farce39 was to close, and presently all the buildings would collapse40 like card houses, and pile up in a dusty, sardonic41 heap upon all the millions who presumed to wind in and out of them.
At least these were the sort of musings that lay heavily upon the soul of Merlin Grainger, as he stood by the window putting a dozen books back in a row after a cyclonic42 visit by a lady with ermine trimmings. He looked out of the window full of the most distressing43 thoughts — of the early novels of H. G. Wells, of the boot of Genesis, of how Thomas Edison had said that in thirty years there would be no dwelling-houses upon the island, but only a vast and turbulent bazaar44; and then he set the last book right side up, turned — and Caroline walked coolly into the shop.
She was dressed in a jaunty45 but conventional walking costume — he remembered this when he thought about it later. Her skirt was plaid, pleated like a concertina; her jacket was a soft but brisk tan; her shoes and spats47 were brown and her hat, small and trim, completed her like the top of a very expensive and beautifully filled candy box.
Merlin, breathless and startled, advanced nervously48 toward her.
“Good-afternoon —” he said, and then stopped — why, he did not know, except that it came to him that something very portentous50 in his life was about to occur, and that it would need no furbishing but silence, and the proper amount of expectant attention. And in that minute before the thing began to happen he had the sense of a breathless second hanging suspended in time: he saw through the glass partition that bounded off the little office the malevolent51 conical head of his employer, Mr. Moonlight Quill, bent52 over his correspondence. He saw Miss McCracken and Miss Masters as two patches of hair drooping53 over piles of paper; he saw the crimson lamp overhead, and noticed with a touch of pleasure how really pleasant and romantic it made the book-store seem.
Then the thing happened, or rather it began to happen. Caroline picked up a volume of poems lying loose upon a pile, fingered it absently with her slender white hand, and suddenly, with an easy gesture, tossed it upward toward the ceiling where it disappeared in the crimson lamp and lodged54 there, seen through the illuminated55 silk as a dark, bulging56 rectangle. This pleased her — she broke into young, contagious57 laughter, in which Merlin found himself presently joining.
“It stayed up!” she cried merrily. “It stayed up, didn’t it?” To both of them this seemed the height of brilliant absurdity58. Their laughter mingled59, filled the bookshop, and Merlin was glad to find that her voice was rich and full of sorcery.
“Try another,” he found himself suggesting —“try a red one.”
At this her laughter increased, and she had to rest her hands upon the stack to steady herself.
“Try another,” she managed to articulate between spasms61 of mirth. “Oh, golly, try another!”
“Try two.”
“Yes, try two. Oh, I’ll choke if I don’t stop laughing. Here it goes.”
Suiting her action to the word, she picked up a red book and sent it in a gentle hyperbola toward the ceiling, where it sank into the lamp beside the first. It was a few minutes before either of them could do more than rock back and forth62 in helpless glee; but then by mutual63 agreement they took up the sport anew, this time in unison64. Merlin seized a large, specially33 bound French classic and whirled it upward. Applauding his own accuracy, he took a best-seller in one hand and a book on barnacles in the other, and waited breathlessly while she made her shot. Then the business waxed fast and furious — sometimes they alternated, and, watching, he found how supple65 she was in every movement; sometimes one of them made shot after shot, picking up the nearest book, sending it off, merely taking time to follow it with a glance before reaching for another. Within three minutes they had cleared a little place on the table, and the lamp of crimson satin was so bulging with books that it was near breaking.
“Silly game, basket-ball,” she cried scornfully as a book left her hand. “High-school girls play it in hideous66 bloomers.”
“Idiotic67,” he agreed.
She paused in the act of tossing a book, and replaced it suddenly in its position on the table.
“I think we’ve got room to sit down now,” she said gravely.
They had; they had cleared an ample space for two. With a faint touch of nervousness Merlin glanced toward Mr. Moonlight Quill’s glass partition, but the three heads were still bent earnestly over their work, and it was evident that they had not seen what had gone on in the shop. So when Caroline put her hands on the table and hoisted68 herself up Merlin calmly imitated her, and they sat side by side looking very earnestly at each other.
“I had to see you,” she began, with a rather pathetic expression in her brown eyes.
“I know.”
“It was that last time,” she continued, her voice trembling a little, though she tried to keep it steady. “I was frightened. I don’t like you to eat off the dresser. I’m so afraid you’ll — you’ll swallow a collar button.”
“I did once — almost,” he confessed reluctantly, “but it’s not so easy, you know. I mean you can swallow the flat part easy enough or else the other part — that is, separately — but for a whole collar button you’d have to have a specially made throat.” He was astonishing himself by the debonnaire appropriateness of his remarks. Words seemed for the first time in his life to ran at him shrieking69 to be used, gathering70 themselves into carefully arranged squads71 and platoons, and being presented to him by punctilious72 adjutants of paragraphs.
“That’s what scared me,” she said. “I knew you had to have a specially made throat — and I knew, at least I felt sure, that you didn’t have one.”
He nodded frankly73.
“I haven’t. It costs money to have one — more money unfortunately than I possess.”
He felt no shame in saying this — rather a delight in making the admission — he knew that nothing he could say or do would be beyond her comprehension; least of all his poverty, and the practical impossibility of ever extricating74 himself from it.
Caroline looked down at her wrist watch, and with a little cry slid from the table to her feet.
“It’s after five,” she cried. “I didn’t realize. I have to be at the Ritz at five-thirty. Let’s hurry and get this done. I’ve got a bet on it.”
With one accord they set to work. Caroline began the matter by seizing a book on insects and sending it whizzing, and finally crashing through the glass partition that housed Mr. Moonlight Quill. The proprietor75 glanced up with a wild look, brushed a few pieces of glass from his desk, and went on with his letters. Miss McCracken gave no sign of having heard — only Miss Masters started and gave a little frightened scream before she bent to her task again.
But to Merlin and Caroline it didn’t matter. In a perfect orgy of energy they were hurling76 book after book in all directions until sometimes three or four were in the air at once, smashing against shelves, cracking the glass of pictures on the walls, falling in bruised77 and torn heaps upon the floor. It was fortunate that no customers happened to come in, for it is certain they would never have come in again — the noise was too tremendous, a noise of smashing and ripping and tearing, mixed now and then with the tinkling78 of glass, the quick breathing of the two throwers, and the intermittent79 outbursts of laughter to which both of them periodically surrendered.
At five-thirty Caroline tossed a last book at the lamp, and gave the final impetus80 to the load it carried. The weakened silk tore and dropped its cargo81 in one vast splattering of white and color to the already littered floor. Then with a sigh of relief she turned to Merlin and held out her hand.
“Good-by,” she said simply.
“Are you going?” He knew she was. His question was simply a lingering wile82 to detain her and extract for another moment that dazzling essence of light he drew from her presence, to continue his enormous satisfaction in her features, which were like kisses and, he thought, like the features of a girl he had known back in 1910. For a minute he pressed the softness of her hand — then she smiled and withdrew it and, before he could spring to open the door, she had done it herself and was gone out into the turbid83 and ominous84 twilight85 that brooded narrowly over Forty-seventh Street.
I would like to tell you how Merlin, having seen how beauty regards the wisdom of the years, walked into the little partition of Mr. Moonlight Quill and gave up his job then and there; thence issuing out into the street a much finer and nobler and increasingly ironic86 man. But the truth is much more commonplace. Merlin Grainger stood up and surveyed the wreck87 of the bookshop, the ruined volumes, the torn silk remnants of the once beautiful crimson lamp, the crystalline sprinkling of broken glass which lay in iridescent88 dust over the whole interior — and then he went to a corner where a broom was kept and began cleaning up and rearranging and, as far as he was able, restoring the shop to its former condition. He found that, though some few of the books were uninjured, most of them had suffered in varying extents. The backs were off some, the pages were torn from others, still others were just slightly cracked in the front, which, as all careless book returners know, makes a book unsalable, and therefore second-hand89.
Nevertheless by six o’clock he had done much to repair the damage. He had returned the books to their original places, swept the floor, and put new lights in the sockets90 overhead. The red shade itself was ruined beyond redemption, and Merlin thought in some trepidation91 that the money to replace it might have to come out of his salary. At six, therefore, having done the best he could, he crawled over the front window display to pull down the blind. As he was treading delicately back, he saw Mr. Moonlight Quill rise from his desk, put on his overcoat and hat, and emerge into the shop. He nodded mysteriously at Merlin and went toward the door. With his hand on the knob he paused, turned around, and in a voice curiously92 compounded of ferocity and uncertainty93, he said:
“If that girl comes in here again, you tell her to behave.”
With that he opened the door, drowning Merlin’s meek94 “Yessir” in its creak, and went out.
Merlin stood there for a moment, deciding wisely not to worry about what was for the present only a possible futurity, and then he went into the back of the shop and invited Miss Masters to have supper with him at Pulpat’s French Restaurant, where one could still obtain red wine at dinner, despite the Great Federal Government. Miss Masters accepted.
“Wine makes me feel all tingly,” she said.
Merlin laughed inwardly as he compared her to Caroline, or rather as he didn’t compare her. There was no comparison.
II
Mr. Moonlight Quill, mysterious, exotic, and oriental in temperament95 was, nevertheless, a man of decision. And it was with decision that he approached the problem of his wrecked96 shop. Unless he should make an outlay97 equal to the original cost of his entire stock — a step which for certain private reasons he did not wish to take — it would be impossible for him to continue in business with the Moonlight Quill as before. There was but one thing to do. He promptly98 turned his establishment from an up-to-the-minute book-store into a second-hand bookshop. The damaged books were marked down from twenty-five to fifty per cent, the name over the door whose serpentine embroidery had once shone so insolently100 bright, was allowed to grow dim and take on the indescribably vague color of old paint, and, having a strong penchant101 for ceremonial, the proprietor even went so far as to buy two skull-caps of shoddy red felt, one for himself and one for his clerk, Merlin Grainger. Moreover, he let his goatee grow until it resembled the tail-feathers of an ancient sparrow and substituted for a once dapper business suit a reverence-inspiring affair of shiny alpaca.
In fact, within a year after Caroline’s catastrophic visit to the bookshop the only thing in it that preserved any semblance102 of being up to date was Miss Masters. Miss McCracken had followed in the footsteps of Mr. Moonlight Quill and become an intolerable dowd.
For Merlin too, from a feeling compounded of loyalty103 and listlessness, had let his exterior104 take on the semblance of a deserted105 garden. He accepted the red felt skull-cap as a symbol of his decay. Always a young man known, as a “pusher,” he had been, since the day of his graduation from the manual training department of a New York High School, an inveterate106 brusher of clothes, hair, teeth, and even eyebrows107, and had learned the value of laying all his clean socks toe upon toe and heel upon heel in a certain drawer of his bureau, which would be known as the sock drawer.
These things, he felt, had won him his place in the greatest splendor109 of the Moonlight Quill. It was due to them that he was not still making “chests useful for keeping things,” as he was taught with breathless practicality in High School, and selling them to whoever had use of such chests — possibly undertakers. Nevertheless when the progressive Moonlight Quill became the retrogressive Moonlight Quill he preferred to sink with it, and so took to letting his suits gather undisturbed the wispy110 burdens of the air and to throwing his socks indiscriminately into the shirt drawer, the underwear drawer, and even into no drawer at all. It was not uncommon111 in his new carelessness to let many of his clean clothes go directly back to the laundry without having ever been worn, a common eccentricity112 of impoverished113 bachelors. And this in the face of his favorite magazines, which at that time were fairly staggering with articles by successful authors against the frightful114 impudence115 of the condemned116 poor, such as the buying of wearable shirts and nice cuts of meat, and the fact that they preferred good investments in personal jewelry117 to respectable ones in four per cent saving-banks.
It was indeed a strange state of affairs and a sorry one for many worthy118 and God-fearing men. For the first time in the history of the Republic almost any negro north of Georgia could change a one-dollar bill. But as at that time the cent was rapidly approaching the purchasing power of the Chinese ubu and was only a thing you got back occasionally after paying for a soft drink, and could use merely in getting your correct weight, this was perhaps not so strange a phenomenon as it at first seems. It was too curious a state of things, however, for Merlin Grainger to take the step that he did take — the hazardous119, almost involuntary step of proposing to Miss Masters. Stranger still that she accepted him,
It was at Pulpat’s on Saturday night and over a $1.75 bottle of water diluted120 with vin ordinaire that the proposal occurred.
“Wine makes me feel all tingly, doesn’t it you?” chattered121 Miss Masters gaily122.
“Yes,” answered Merlin absently; and then, after a long and pregnant pause: “Miss Masters — Olive — I want to say something to you if you’ll listen to me.”
The tingliness of Miss Masters (who knew what was coming) increased until it seemed that she would shortly be electrocuted by her own nervous reactions. But her “Yes, Merlin,” came without a sign or flicker123 of interior disturbance124. Merlin swallowed a stray bit of air that he found in his mouth.
“I have no fortune,” he said with the manner of making an announcement. “I have no fortune at all.”
Their eyes met, locked, became wistful, and dreamy and beautiful.
“Olive,” he told her, “I love you.”
“I love you too, Merlin,” she answered simply. “Shall we have another bottle of wine?”
“Yes,” he cried, his heart beating at a great rate. “Do you mean —”
“To drink to our engagement,” she interrupted bravely. “May it be a short one!”
“No!” he almost shouted, bringing his fist fiercely down upon the table. “May it last forever!”
“What?”
“I mean — oh, I see what you mean. You’re right. May it be a short one.” He laughed and added, “My error.”
After the wine arrived they discussed the matter thoroughly125.
“We’ll have to take a small apartment at first,” he said, “and I believe, yes, by golly, I know there’s a small one in the house where I live, a big room and a sort of a dressing-room-kitchenette and the use of a bath on the same floor.”
She clapped her hands happily, and he thought how pretty she was really, that is, the upper part of her face — from the bridge of the nose down she was somewhat out of true. She continued enthusiastically:
“And as soon as we can afford it we’ll take a real swell126 apartment, with an elevator and a telephone girl.”
“And after that a place in the country — and a car.”
“I can’t imagine nothing more fun. Can you?”
Merlin fell silent a moment. He was thinking that he would have to give up his room, the fourth floor rear. Yet it mattered very little now. During the past year and a half — in fact, from the very date of Caroline’s visit to the Moonlight Quill — he had never seen her. For a week after that visit her lights had failed to go on — darkness brooded out into the areaway, seemed to grope blindly in at his expectant, uncurtained window. Then the lights had appeared at last, and instead of Caroline and her callers they stowed a stodgy127 family — a little man with a bristly mustache and a full-bosomed woman who spent her evenings patting her hips128 and rearranging bric-à-brac. After two days of them Merlin had callously129 pulled down his shade.
No, Merlin could think of nothing more fun than rising in the world with Olive. There would be a cottage in a suburb, a cottage painted blue, just one class below the sort of cottages that are of white stucco with a green roof. In the grass around the cottage would be rusty130 trowels and a broken green bench and a baby-carriage with a wicker body that sagged131 to the left. And around the grass and the baby-carriage and the cottage itself, around his whole world there would be the arms of Olive, a little stouter132, the arms of her neo-Olivian period, when, as she walked, her cheeks would tremble up and down ever so slightly from too much face-massaging. He could hear her voice now, two spoons’ length away:
“I knew you were going to say this to-night, Merlin. I could see —”
She could see. Ah — suddenly he wondered how much she could see. Could she see that the girl who had come in with a party of three men and sat down at the next table was Caroline? Ah, could she see that? Could she see that the men brought with them liquor far more potent133 than Pulpat’s red ink condensed threefold? . . .
Merlin stared breathlessly, half-hearing through an auditory ether Olive’s low, soft monologue134, as like a persistent135 honey-bee she sucked sweetness from her memorable136 hour. Merlin was listening to the clinking of ice and the fine laughter of all four at some pleasantry — and that laughter of Caroline’s that he knew so well stirred him, lifted him, called his heart imperiously over to her table, whither it obediently went. He could see her quite plainly, and he fancied that in the last year and a half she had changed, if ever so slightly. Was it the light or were her cheeks a little thinner and her eyes less fresh, if more liquid, than of old? Yet the shadows were still purple in her russet hair; her mouth hinted yet of kisses, as did the profile that came sometimes between his eyes and a row of books, when it was twilight in the bookshop where the crimson lamp presided no more.
And she had been drinking. The threefold flush in her cheeks was compounded of youth and wine and fine cosmetic137 — that he could tell. She was making great amusement for the young man on her left and the portly person on her right, and even for the old fellow opposite her, for the latter from time to time uttered the shocked and mildly reproachful cackles of another generation. Merlin caught the words of a song she was intermittently138 singing —
“Just snap your fingers at care,
Don’t cross the bridge ‘til you’re there —”
The portly person filled her glass with chill amber139. A waiter after several trips about the table, and many helpless glances at Caroline, who was maintaining a cheerful, futile140 questionnaire as to the succulence of this dish or that, managed to obtain the semblance of an order and hurried away. . . .
Olive was speaking to Merlin —
“When, then?” she asked, her voice faintly shaded with disappointment. He realized that he had just answered no to some question she had asked him.
“Oh, sometime.”
“Don’t you — care?”
A rather pathetic poignancy141 in her question brought his eyes back to her.
“As soon as possible, dear,” he replied with surprising tenderness. “In two months — in June.”
“So soon?” Her delightful142 excitement quite took her breath away.
“Oh, yes, I think we’d better say June. No use waiting.”
Olive began to pretend that two months was really too short a time for her to make preparations. Wasn’t he a bad boy! Wasn’t he impatient, though! Well, she’d show him he mustn’t be too quick with her. Indeed he was so sudden she didn’t exactly know whether she ought to marry him at all.
“June,” he repeated sternly.
Olive sighed and smiled and drank her coffee, her little finger lifted high above the others in true refined fashion. A stray thought came to Merlin that he would like to buy five rings and throw at it.
“By gosh!” he exclaimed aloud. Soon he would be putting rings on one of her fingers.
His eyes swung sharply to the right. The party of four had become so riotous143 that the head-waiter had approached and spoken to them. Caroline was arguing with this head-waiter in a raised voice, a voice so clear and young that it seemed as though the whole restaurant would listen — the whole restaurant except Olive Masters, self-absorbed in her new secret.
“How do you do?” Caroline was saying. “Probably the handsomest head-waiter in captivity145. Too much noise? Very unfortunate. Something’ll have to be done about it. Gerald”— she addressed the man on her right —“the head-waiter says there’s too much noise. Appeals to us to have it stopped. What’ll I say?”
“Sh!” remonstrated146 Gerald, with laughter. “Sh!” and Merlin heard him add in an undertone: “All the bourgeoisie will be aroused. This is where the floorwalkers learn French.”
Caroline sat up straight in sudden alertness.
“Where’s a floorwalker?” she cried. “Show me a floorwalker.” This seemed to amuse the party, for they all, including Caroline, burst into renewed laughter. The head-waiter, after a last conscientious147 but despairing admonition, became Gallic with his shoulders and retired148 into the background.
Pulpat’s, as every one knows, has the unvarying respectability of the table d’h?te. It is not a gay place in the conventional sense. One comes, drinks the red wine, talks perhaps a little more and a little louder than usual under the low, smoky ceilings, and then goes home. It closes up at nine-thirty, tight as a drum; the policeman is paid off and given an extra bottle of wine for the missis, the coat-room girl hands her tips to the collector, and then darkness crushes the little round tables out of sight and life. But excitement was prepared for Pulpat’s this evening — excitement of no mean variety. A girl with russet, purple-shadowed hair mounted to her table-top and began to dance thereon.
“Sacré nom de Dieu! Come down off there!” cried the head-waiter. “Stop that music!”
But the musicians were already playing so loud that they could pretend not to hear his order; having once been young, they played louder and gayer than ever, and Caroline danced with grace and vivacity149, her pink, filmy dress swirling150 about her, her agile151 arms playing in supple, tenuous152 gestures along the smoky air.
A group of Frenchmen at a table near by broke into cries of applause, in which other parties joined — in a moment the room was full of clapping and shouting; half the diners were on their feet, crowding up, and on the outskirts153 the hastily summoned proprietor was giving indistinct vocal154 evidences of his desire to put an end to this thing as quickly as possible.
“ . . . Merlin!” cried Olive, awake, aroused at last; “she’s such a wicked girl! Let’s get out — now!”
The fascinated Merlin protested feebly that the check was not paid.
“It’s all right. Lay five dollars on the table. I despise that girl. I can’t bear to look at her.” She was on her feet now, tagging at Merlin’s arm.
Helplessly, listlessly, and then with what amounted to downright unwillingness155, Merlin rose, followed Olive dumbly as she picked her way through the delirious157 clamor, now approaching its height and threatening to become a wild and memorable riot. Submissively he took his coat and stumbled up half a dozen steps into the moist April air outside, his ears still ringing with the sound of light feet on the table and of laughter all about and over the little world of the cafe. In silence they walked along toward Fifth Avenue and a bus,
It was not until next day that she told him about the wedding — how she had moved the date forward: it was much better that they should be married on the first of May.
III
And married they were, in a somewhat stuffy158 manner, under the chandelier of the flat where Olive lived with her mother. After marriage came elation159, and then, gradually, the growth of weariness. Responsibility descended160 upon Merlin, the responsibility of making his thirty dollars a week and her twenty suffice to keep them respectably fat and to hide with decent garments the evidence that they were.
It was decided161 after several weeks of disastrous162 and well-nigh humiliating experiments with restaurants that they would join the great army of the delicatessen-fed, so he took up his old way of life again, in that he stopped every evening at Braegdort’s delicatessen and bought potatoes in salad, ham in slices, and sometimes even stuffed tomatoes in bursts of extravagance.
Then he would trudge163 homeward, enter the dark hallway, and climb three rickety flights of stairs covered by an ancient carpet of long obliterated164 design. The hall had an ancient smell — of the vegetables of 1880, of the furniture polish in vogue165 when “Adam-and Eve” Bryan ran against William McKinley, of portieres an ounce heavier with dust, from worn-out shoes, and lint166 from dresses turned long since into patch-work quilts. This smell would pursue him up the stairs, revivified and made poignant167 at each landing by the aura of contemporary cooking, then, as he began the next flight, diminishing into the odor of the dead routine of dead generations.
Eventually would occur the door of his room, which slipped open with indecent willingness and closed with almost a sniff19 upon his “Hello, dear! Got a treat for you to-night.”
Olive, who always rode home on the bus to “get a morsel168 of air,” would be making the bed and hanging up things. At his call she would come up to him and give him a quick kiss with wide-open eyes, while be held her upright like a ladder, his hands on her two arms, as though she were a thing without equilibrium169, and would, once he relinquished170 hold, fall stiffly backward to the floor. This is the kiss that comes in with the second year of marriage, succeeding the bridegroom kiss (which is rather stagey at best, say those who know about such things, and apt to be copied from passionate171 movies).
Then came supper, and after that they went out for a walk, up two blocks and through Central Park, or sometimes to a moving picture, which taught them patiently that they were the sort of people for whom life was ordered, and that something very grand and brave and beautiful would soon happen to them if they were docile172 and obedient to their rightful superiors and kept away from pleasure.
Such was their day for three years. Then change came into their lives: Olive had a baby, and as a result Merlin had a new influx173 of material resources. In the third week of Olive’s confinement174, after an hour of nervous rehearsing, he went into the office of Mr. Moonlight Quill and demanded an enormous increase in salary.
“I’ve been here ten years,” he said; “since I was nineteen. I’ve always tried to do my best in the interests of the business.”
Mr. Moonlight Quill said that he would think it over. Next morning he announced, to Merlin’s great delight, that he was going to put into effect a project long premeditated — he was going to retire from active work in the bookshop, confining himself to periodic visits and leaving Merlin as manager with a salary of fifty dollars a week and a one-tenth interest in the business. When the old man finished, Merlin’s cheeks were glowing and his eyes full of tears. He seized his employer’s hand and shook it violently, saying over and over again:
“It’s very nice of you, sir. It’s very white of you. It’s very, very nice of you.”
So after ten years of faithful work in the store he had won out at last. Looking back, he saw his own progress toward this hill of elation no longer as a sometimes sordid175 and always gray decade of worry and failing enthusiasm and failing dreams, years when the moonlight had grown duller in the areaway and the youth had faded out of Olive’s face, but as a glorious and triumphant176 climb over obstacles which he had determinedly177 surmounted178 by unconquerable will-power. The optimistic self-delusion that had kept him from misery179 was seen now in the golden garments of stern resolution. Half a dozen times he had taken steps to leave the Moonlight Quill and soar upward, but through sheer faintheartedness he had stayed on. Strangely enough he now thought that those were times when he had exerted tremendous persistence180 and had “determined” to fight it out where he was.
At any rate, let us not for this moment begrudge181 Merlin his new and magnificent view of himself. He had arrived. At thirty he had reached a post of importance. He left the shop that evening fairly radiant, invested every penny in his pocket in the most tremendous feast that Braegdort’s delicatessen offered, and staggered homeward with the great news and four gigantic paper bags. The fact that Olive was too sick to eat, that he made himself faintly but unmistakably ill by a struggle with four stuffed tomatoes, and that most of the food deteriorated182 rapidly in an iceless ice-box: all next day did not mar35 the occasion. For the first time since the week of his marriage Merlin Grainger lived under a sky of unclouded tranquillity183.
The baby boy was christened Arthur, and life became dignified184, significant, and, at length, centered. Merlin and Olive resigned themselves to a somewhat secondary place in their own cosmos185; but what they lost in personality they regained186 in a sort of primordial187 pride. The country house did not come, but a month in an Asbury Park boarding-house each summer filled the gap; and during Merlin’s two weeks’ holiday this excursion assumed the air of a really merry jaunt46 — especially when, with the baby asleep in a wide room opening technically188 on the sea, Merlin strolled with Olive along the thronged189 board-walk puffing192 at his cigar and trying to look like twenty thousand a year.
With some alarm at the slowing up of the days and the accelerating of the years, Merlin became thirty-one, thirty-two — then almost with a rush arrived at that age which, with all its washing and panning, can only muster193 a bare handful of the precious stuff of youth: he became thirty-five. And one day on Fifth Avenue he saw Caroline.
It was Sunday, a radiant, flowerful Easter morning and the avenue was a pageant194 of lilies and cutaways and happy April-colored bonnets195. Twelve o’clock: the great churches were letting out their people — St. Simon’s, St. Hilda’s, the Church of the Epistles, opened their doors like wide mouths until the people pouring forth surely resembled happy laughter as they met and strolled and chattered, or else waved white bouquets197 at waiting chauffeurs198.
In front of the Church of the Epistles stood its twelve vestrymen, carrying out the time-honored custom of giving away Easter eggs full of face-powder to the church-going debutantes200 of the year. Around them delightedly danced the two thousand miraculously201 groomed202 children of the very rich, correctly cute and curled, shining like sparkling little jewels upon their mothers’ fingers. Speaks the sentimentalist for the children of the poor? Ah, but the children of the rich, laundered203, sweet-smelling, complexioned204 of the country, and, above all, with soft, in-door voices.
Little Arthur was five, child of the middle class. Undistinguished, unnoticed, with a nose that forever marred205 what Grecian yearnings his features might have had, he held tightly to his mother’s warm, sticky hand, and, with Merlin on his other side, moved, upon the home-coming throng190. At Fifty-third Street, where there were two churches, the congestion207 was at its thickest, its richest. Their progress was of necessity retarded208 to such an extent that even little Arthur had not the slightest difficulty in keeping up. Then it was that Merlin perceived an open landaulet of deepest crimson, with handsome nickel trimmings, glide209 slowly up to the curb210 and come to a stop. In it sat Caroline.
She was dressed in black, a tight-fitting gown trimmed with lavender, flowered at the waist with a corsage of orchids212. Merlin started and then gazed at her fearfully. For the first time in the eight years since his marriage he was encountering the girl again. But a girl no longer. Her figure was slim as ever — or perhaps not quite, for a certain boyish swagger, a sort of insolent99 adolescence213, had gone the way of the first blooming of her cheeks. But she was beautiful; dignity was there now, and the charming lines of a fortuitous nine-and-twenty; and she sat in the car with such perfect appropriateness and self-possession that it made him breathless to watch her.
Suddenly she smiled — the smile of old, bright as that very Easter and its flowers, mellower214 than ever — yet somehow with not quite the radiance and infinite promise of that first smile back there in the bookshop nine years before. It was a steelier smile, disillusioned and sad.
But it was soft enough and smile enough to make a pair of young men in cutaway coats hurry over, to pull their high hats off their wetted, iridescent hair; to bring them, flustered215 and bowing, to the edge of her landaulet, where her lavender gloves gently touched their gray ones. And these two were presently joined by another, and then two more, until there was a rapidly swelling216 crowd around the landaulet. Merlin would hear a young man beside him say to his perhaps well-favored companion:
“If you’ll just pardon me a moment, there’s some one I have to speak to. Walk right ahead. I’ll catch up.”
Within three minutes every inch of the landaulet, front, back, and side, was occupied by a man — a man trying to construct a sentence clever enough to find its way to Caroline through the stream of conversation. Luckily for Merlin a portion of little Arthur’s clothing had chosen the opportunity to threaten a collapse, and Olive had hurriedly rushed him over against a building for some extemporaneous217 repair work, so Merlin was able to watch, unhindered, the salon218 in the street.
The crowd swelled219. A row formed in back of the first, two more behind that. In the midst, an orchid211 rising from a black bouquet196, sat Caroline enthroned in her obliterated car, nodding and crying salutations and smiling with such true happiness that, of a sudden, a new relay of gentlemen had left their wives and consorts220 and were striding toward her.
The crowd, now phalanx deep, began to be augmented221 by the merely curious; men of all ages who could not possibly have known Caroline jostled over and melted into the circle of ever-increasing diameter, until the lady in lavender was the centre of a vast impromptu222 auditorium223.
All about her were faces — clean-shaven, bewhiskered, old, young, ageless, and now, here and there, a woman. The mass was rapidly spreading to the opposite curb, and, as St. Anthony’s around the corner let out its box-holders, it overflowed224 to the sidewalk and crushed up against the iron picket-fence of a millionaire across the street. The motors speeding along the avenue were compelled to stop, and in a jiffy were piled three, five, and six deep at the edge of the crowd; auto-busses, top-heavy turtles of traffic, plunged225 into the jam, their passengers crowding to the edges of the roofs in wild excitement and peering down into the centre of the mass, which presently could hardly be seen from the mass’s edge.
The crush had become terrific. No fashionable audience at a Yale-Princeton football game, no damp mob at a world’s series, could be compared with the panoply226 that talked, stared, laughed, and honked227 about the lady in black and lavender. It was stupendous; it was terrible. A quarter mile down the block a half-frantic policeman called his precinct; on the same corner a frightened civilian228 crashed in the glass of a fire-alarm and sent in a wild paean229 for all the fire-engines of the city; up in an apartment high in one of the tall buildings a hysterical230 old maid telephoned in turn for the prohibition231 enforcement agent; the special deputies on Bolshevism, and the maternity232 ward49 of Bellevue Hospital.
The noise increased. The first fire-engine arrived, filling the Sunday air with smoke, clanging and crying a brazen233, metallic234 message down the high, resounding235 walls. In the notion that some terrible calamity236 had overtaken the city, two excited deacons ordered special services immediately and set tolling238 the great bells of St. Hilda’s and St. Anthony’s, presently joined by the jealous gongs of St. Simon’s and the Church of the Epistles. Even far off in the Hudson and the East River the sounds of the commotion239 were heard, and the ferry-boats and tugs240 and ocean liners set up sirens and whistles that sailed in melancholy241 cadence242, now varied243, now reiterated244, across the whole diagonal width of the city from Riverside Drive to the gray water-fronts of the lower East Side. . . .
In the centre of her landaulet sat the lady in black and lavender, chatting pleasantly first with one, then with another of that fortunate few in cutaways who had found their way to speaking distance in the first rush. After a while she glanced around her and beside her with a look of growing annoyance245.
She yawned and asked the man nearest her if he couldn’t run in somewhere and get her a glass of water. The man apologized in some embarrassment246. He could not have moved hand or foot. He could not have scratched his own ear. . . .
As the first blast of the river sirens keened along the air, Olive fastened the last safety-pin in little Arthur’s rompers and looked up. Merlin saw her start, stiffen247 slowly like hardening stucco, and then give a little gasp248 of surprise and disapproval249.
“That woman,” she cried suddenly. “Oh!”
She flashed a glance at Merlin that mingled reproach and pain, and without another word gathered up little Arthur with one hand, grasped her husband by the other, and darted250 amazingly in a winding251, bumping canter through the crowd. Somehow people gave way before her; somehow she managed to-retain her grasp on her son and husband; somehow she managed to emerge two blocks up, battered and dishevelled, into an open space, and, without slowing up her pace, darted down a side-street. Then at last, when uproar252 had died away into a dim and distant clamor, did she come to a walk and set little Arthur upon his feet.
“And on Sunday, too! Hasn’t she disgraced herself enough?” This was her only comment. She said it to Arthur, as she seemed to address her remarks to Arthur throughout the remainder of the day. For some curious and esoteric reason she had never once looked at her husband during the entire retreat.
IV
The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve253 before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round. True, they are a merry-go-round of ill-gaited and wind-broken horses, painted first in pastel colors, then in dull grays and browns, but perplexing and intolerably dizzy the thing is, as never were the merry-go-rounds of childhood or adolescence; as never, surely, were the certain-coursed, dynamic roller-coasters of youth. For most men and women these thirty years are taken up with a gradual withdrawal254 from life, a retreat first from a front with many shelters, those myriad255 amusements and curiosities of youth, to a line with less, when we peel down our ambitions to one ambition, our recreations to one recreation, our friends to a few to whom we are anaesthetic; ending up at last in a solitary256, desolate strong point that is not strong, where the shells now whistle abominably257, now are but half-heard as, by turns frightened and tired, we sit waiting for death.
At forty, then, Merlin was no different from himself at thirty-five; a larger paunch, a gray twinkling near his ears, a more certain lack of vivacity in his walk. His forty-five differed from his forty by a like margin258, unless one mention a slight deafness in his left ear. But at fifty-five the process had become a chemical change of immense rapidity. Yearly he was more and more an “old man” to his family — senile almost, so far as his wife was concerned. He was by this time complete owner of the bookshop. The mysterious Mr. Moonlight Quill, dead some five years and not survived by his wife, had deeded the whole stock and store to him, and there he still spent his days, conversant259 now by name with almost all that man has recorded for three thousand years, a human catalogue, an authority upon tooling and binding5, upon folios and first editions, an accurate inventory260 of a thousand authors whom he could never have understood and had certainly never read.
At sixty-five he distinctly doddered. He had assumed the melancholy habits of the aged60 so often portrayed261 by the second old man in standard Victorian comedies. He consumed vast warehouses262 of time searching for mislaid spectacles. He “nagged263” his wife and was nagged in turn. He told the same jokes three or four times a year at the family table, and gave his son weird264, impossible directions as to his conduct in life. Mentally and materially he was so entirely265 different from the Merlin Grainger of twenty-five that it seemed incongruous that he should bear the same name.
He worked still In the bookshop with the assistance of a youth, whom, of course, he considered very idle, indeed, and a new young woman, Miss Gaffney. Miss McCracken, ancient and unvenerable as himself, still kept the accounts. Young Arthur was gone into Wall Street to sell bonds, as all the young men seemed to be doing in that day. This, of course, was as it should be. Let old Merlin get what magic he could from his books — the place of young King Arthur was in the counting-house.
One afternoon at four when he had slipped noiselessly up to the front of the store on his soft-soled slippers266, led by a newly formed habit, of which, to be fair, he was rather ashamed, of spying upon the young man clerk, he looked casually267 out of the front window, straining his faded eyesight to reach the street. A limousine268, large, portentous, impressive, had drawn269 to the curb, and the chauffeur199, after dismounting and holding some sort of conversation with persons in the interior of the car, turned about and advanced in a bewildered fashion toward the entrance of the Moonlight Quill. He opened the door, shuffled270 in, and, glancing uncertainly at the old man in the skull-cap, addressed him in a thick, murky271 voice, as though his words came through a fog.
“Do you — do you sell additions?”
Merlin nodded.
“The arithmetic books are in the back of the store.”
The chauffeur took off his cap and scratched a close-cropped, fuzzy head.
“Oh, naw. This I want’s a detecatif story.” He jerked a thumb back toward the limousine. “She seen it in the paper. Firs’ addition.”
Merlin’s interest quickened. Here was possibly a big sale.
“Oh, editions. Yes, we’ve advertised some firsts, but-detective stories, I-don’t-believe-What was the title?”
“I forget. About a crime.”
“About a crime. I have-well, I have ‘The Crimes of the Borgias’-full morocco, London 1769, beautifully —”
“Naw,” interrupted the chauffeur, “this was one fella did this crime. She seen you had it for sale in the paper.” He rejected several possible titles with the air of connoisseur.
“‘Silver Bones,’” he announced suddenly out of a slight pause.
“What?” demanded Merlin, suspecting that the stiffness of his sinews were being commented on.
“Silver Bones. That was the guy that done the crime.”
“Silver Bones?”
“Silver Bones. Indian, maybe.”
Merlin, stroked his grizzly272 cheeks. “Gees, Mister,” went on the prospective273 purchaser, “if you wanna save me an awful bawln’ out jes’ try an’ think. The old lady goes wile if everything don’t run smooth.”
But Merlin’s musings on the subject of Silver Bones were as futile as his obliging search through the shelves, and five minutes later a very dejected charioteer wound his way back to his mistress. Through the glass Merlin could see the visible symbols of a tremendous uproar going on in the interior of the limousine. The chauffeur made wild, appealing gestures of his innocence274, evidently to no avail, for when he turned around and climbed back into the driver’s seat his expression was not a little dejected.
Then the door of the limousine opened and gave forth a pale and slender young man of about twenty, dressed in the attenuation275 of fashion and carrying a wisp of a cane276. He entered the shop, walked past Merlin, and proceeded to take out a cigarette and light it. Merlin approached him.
“Anything I can do for you, sir?”
“Old boy,” said the youth coolly, “there are seveereal things; You can first let me smoke my ciggy in here out of sight of that old lady in the limousine, who happens to be my grandmother. Her knowledge as to whether I smoke it or not before my majority happens to be a matter of five thousand dollars to me. The second thing is that you should look up your first edition of the ‘Crime of Sylvester Bonnard’ that you advertised in last Sunday’s Times. My grandmother there happens to want to take it off your hands.”
Detecatif story! Crime of somebody! Silver Bones! All was explained. With a faint deprecatory chuckle277, as if to say that he would have enjoyed this had life put him in the habit of enjoying anything, Merlin doddered away to the back of his shop where his treasures were kept, to get this latest investment which he had picked up rather cheaply at the sale of a big collection.
When he returned with it the young man was drawing on his cigarette and blowing out quantities of smoke with immense satisfaction.
“My God!” he said, “She keeps me so close to her the entire day running idiotic errands that this happens to be my first puff191 in six hours. What’s the world coming to, I ask you, when a feeble old lady in the milk-toast era can dictate15 to a man as to his personal vices237. I happen to be unwilling156 to be so dictated to. Let’s see the book.”
Merlin passed it to him tenderly and the young man, after opening it with a carelessness that gave a momentary278 jump to the book-dealer’s heart, ran through the pages with his thumb.
“No illustrations, eh?” he commented. “Well, old boy, what’s it worth? Speak up! We’re willing to give you a fair price, though why I don’t know.”
“One hundred dollars,” said Merlin with a frown.
The young man gave a startled whistle.
“Whew! Come on. You’re not dealing279 with somebody from the cornbelt. I happen to be a city-bred man and my grandmother happens to be a city-bred woman, though I’ll admit it’d take a special tax appropriation280 to keep her in repair. We’ll give you twenty-five dollars, and let me tell you that’s liberal. We’ve got books in our attic281, up in our attic with my old play-things, that were written before the old boy that wrote this was born.”
Merlin stiffened282, expressing a rigid283 and meticulous284 horror.
“Did your grandmother give you twenty-five dollars to buy this with?”
“She did not. She gave me fifty, but she expects change. I know that old lady.”
“You tell her,” said Merlin with dignity, “that she has missed a very great bargain.”
“Give you forty,” urged the young man. “Come on now — be reasonable and don’t try to hold us up ——”
Merlin had wheeled around with the precious volume under his arm and was about to return it to its special drawer in his office when there was a sudden interruption. With unheard-of magnificence the front door burst rather than swung open, and admitted in the dark interior a regal apparition285 in black silk and fur which bore rapidly down upon him. The cigarette leaped from the fingers of the urban young man and he gave breath to an inadvertent “Damn!”— but it was upon Merlin that the entrance seemed to have the most remarkable286 and incongruous effect — so strong an effect that the greatest treasure of his shop slipped from his hand and joined the cigarette on the floor. Before him stood Caroline.
She was an old woman, an old woman remarkably287 preserved, unusually handsome, unusually erect288, but still an old woman. Her hair was a soft, beautiful white, elaborately dressed and jewelled; her face, faintly rouged289 à la grande dame290, showed webs of wrinkles at the edges of her eyes and two deeper lines in the form of stanchions connected her nose with the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were dim, ill natured, and querulous.
But it was Caroline without a doubt: Caroline’s features though in decay; Caroline’s figure, if brittle291 and stiff in movement; Caroline’s manner, unmistakably compounded of a delightful insolence292 and an enviable self assurance; and, most of all, Caroline’s voice, broken and shaky, yet with a ring in it that still could and did make chauffeurs want to drive laundry wagons293 and cause cigarettes to fall from the fingers of urban grandsons.
She stood and sniffed. Her eyes found the cigarette upon the floor.
“What’s that?” she cried. The words were not a question — they were an entire litany of suspicion, accusation294, confirmation295, and decision. She tarried over them scarcely an instant. “Stand up!” she said to her grandson, “stand up and blow that nicotine296 out of your lungs!”
The young man looked at her in trepidation.
“Blow!” she commanded.
He pursed his lips feebly and blew into the air.
“Blow!” she repeated, more peremptorily297 than before.
He blew again, helplessly, ridiculously.
“Do you realize,” she went on briskly, “that you’ve forfeited298 five thousand dollars in five minutes?”
Merlin momentarily expected the young man to fall pleading upon his knees, but such is the nobility of human nature that he remained standing299 — even blew again into the air, partly from nervousness, partly, no doubt, with some vague hope of reingratiating himself.
“Young ass11!” cried Caroline. “Once more, just once more and you leave college and go to work.”
This threat had such an overwhelming effect upon the young man that he took on an even paler pallor than was natural to him. But Caroline was not through.
“Do you think I don’t know what you and your brothers, yes, and your asinine300 father too, think of me? Well, I do. You think I’m senile. You think I’m soft. I’m not!” She struck herself with her-fist as though to prove that she was a mass of muscle and sinew. “And I’ll have more brains left when you’ve got me laid out in the drawing-room some sunny day than you and the rest of them were born with.”
“But Grandmother ——”
“Be quiet. You, a thin little stick of a boy, who if it weren’t for my money might have risen to be a journeyman barber out in the Bronx — Let me see your hands. Ugh! The hands of a barber — you presume to be smart with me, who once had three counts and a bona-fide duke, not to mention half a dozen papal titles pursue me from the city of Rome to the city of New York.” She paused, took breath. “Stand up! Blow’!”
The young man obediently blew. Simultaneously301 the door opened and an excited gentleman of middle age who wore a coat and hat trimmed with fur, and seemed, moreover, to be trimmed with the same sort of fur himself on upper lip and chin, rushed into the store and up to Caroline.
“Found you at last,” he cried. “Been looking for you all over town. Tried your house on the ‘phone and your secretary told me he thought you’d gone to a bookshop called the Moonlight —”
Caroline turned to him irritably302.
“Do I employ you for your reminiscences?” she snapped. “Are you my tutor or my broker303?”
“Your broker,” confessed the fur-trimmed man, taken somewhat aback. “I beg your pardon. I came about that phonograph stock. I can sell for a hundred and five.”
“Then do it”
“Very well. I thought I’d better —”
“Go sell it. I’m talking to my grandson.”
“Very well. I—”
“Good-by.”
“Good-by, Madame.” The fur-trimmed man made a slight bow and hurried in some confusion from the shop.
“As for you,” said Caroline, turning to her grandson, “you stay just where you are and be quiet.”
She turned to Merlin and included his entire length in a not unfriendly survey. Then she smiled and he found himself smiling too. In an instant they had both broken into a cracked but none the less spontaneous chuckle. She seized his arm and hurried him to the other side of the store. There they stopped, faced each other, and gave vent2 to another long fit of senile glee.
“It’s the only way,” she gasped304 in a sort of triumphant malignity305. “The only thing that keeps old folks like me happy is the sense that they can make other people step around. To be old and rich and have poor descendants is almost as much fun as to be young and beautiful and have ugly sisters.”
“Oh, yes,” chuckled306 Merlin. “I know. I envy you.”
She nodded, blinking.
“The last time I was in here, forty years ago,” she said, “you were a young man very anxious to kick up your heels.”
“I was,” he confessed.
“My visit must have meant a good deal to you.”
“You have all along,” he exclaimed. “I thought — I used to think at first that you were a real person — human, I mean.”
She laughed.
“Many men have thought me inhuman307.”
“But now,” continued Merlin excitedly, “I understand. Understanding is allowed to us old people — after nothing much matters. I see now that on a certain night when you danced upon a table-top you were nothing but my romantic yearning206 for a beautiful and perverse308 woman.”
Her old eyes were far away, her voice no more than the echo of a forgotten dream.
“How I danced that night! I remember.”
“You were making an attempt at me. Olive’s arms were closing about me and you warned me to be free and keep my measure of youth and irresponsibility. But it seemed like an effect gotten up at the last moment. It came too late.”
“You are very old,” she said inscrutably. “I did not realize.”
“Also I have not forgotten what you did to me when I was thirty-five. You shook me with that traffic tie-up. It was a magnificent effort. The beauty and power you radiated! You became personified even to my wife, and she feared you. For weeks I wanted to slip out of the house at dark and forget the stuffiness309 of life with music and cocktails310 and a girl to make me young. But then — I no longer knew how.”
“And now you are so very old.”
With a sort of awe108 she moved back and away from him.
“Yes, leave me!” he cried. “You are old also; the spirit withers311 with the skin. Have you come here only to tell me something I had best forget: that to be old and poor is perhaps more wretched than to be old and rich; to remind me that my son hurls312 my gray failure in my face?”
“Give me my book,” she commanded harshly. “Be quick, old man!”
Merlin looked at her once more and then patiently obeyed. He picked up the book and handed it to her, shaking his head when she offered him a bill.
“Why go through the farce of paying me? Once you made me wreck these very premises313.”
“I did,” she said in anger, “and I’m glad. Perhaps there had been enough done to ruin me.”
She gave him a glance, half disdain314, half ill-concealed uneasiness, and with a brisk word to her urban grandson moved toward the door.
Then she was gone — out of his shop — out of his life. The door clicked. With a sigh he turned and walked brokenly back toward the glass partition that enclosed the yellowed accounts of many years as well as the mellowed315, wrinkled Miss McCracken.
Merlin regarded her parched316, cobwebbed face with an odd sort of pity. She, at any rate, had had less from life than he. No rebellious317, romantic spirit popping out unbidden had, in its memorable moments, given her life a zest318 and a glory.
Then Miss McGracken looked up and spoke144 to him:
“Still a spunky old piece, isn’t she?”
Merlin started.
“Who?”
“Old Alicia Dare. Mrs. Thomas Allerdyce she is now, of course; has been, these thirty years.”
“What? I don’t understand you.” Merlin sat down suddenly in his swivel chair; his eyes were wide.
“Why, surely, Mr. Grainger, you can’t tell me that you’ve forgotten her, when for ten years she was the most notorious character in New York. Why, one time when she was the correspondent in the Throckmorton divorce case she attracted so much attention on Fifth Avenue that there was a traffic tie-up. Didn’t you read about it in the papers.”
“I never used to read the papers.” His ancient brain was whirring.
“Well, you can’t have forgotten the time she came in here and ruined the business. Let me tell you I came near asking Mr. Moonlight Quill for my salary, and clearing out.”
“Do you mean, that — that you saw her?”
“Saw. her! How could I help, it with the racket that went on. Heaven knows Mr. Moonlight Quill didn’t like it either but of course he didn’t say anything. He was daffy about her and she could twist him around her little finger. The second he opposed one of her whims319 she’d threaten to tell his wife on him. Served him right. The idea of that man falling for a pretty adventuress! Of course he was never rich enough for her even though the shop paid well in those days.”
“But when I saw her.” stammered320 Merlin, “that is, when I thought saw her, she lived with her mother.”
“Mother, trash!”. said Miss McCracken indignantly. “She had a woman there she called ‘Aunty’, who was no more related to her than I am. Oh, she was a bad one — but clever. Right after the Throckmorton divorce case she married Thomas Allerdyce, and made herself secure for life.”
“Who was she?” cried Merlin. “For God’s sake what was she — a witch?”
“Why, she was Alicia Dare, the dancer, of course. In those days you couldn’t pick up a paper without finding her picture.”
Merlin sat very quiet, his brain suddenly fatigued321 and stilled. He was an old man now indeed, so old that it was impossible for him to dream of ever having been young, so old that the glamour322 was gone out of the world, passing not into the faces of children and into the persistent comforts of warmth and life, but passing out of the range of sight and feeling. He was never to smile again or to sit in a long reverie when spring evenings wafted323 the cries of children in at his window until gradually they became the friends of his boyhood out there, urging him to come and play before the last dark came down. He was too old now even for memories.
That night he sat at supper with his wife and son, who had used him for their blind purposes. Olive said:
“Don’t sit there like a death’s-head. Say something.”
“Let him sit quiet,” growled324 Arthur. “If you encourage him he’ll tell us a story we’ve heard a hundred times before.”
Merlin went up-stairs very quietly at nine o’clock. When he was in his room and had closed the door tight he stood by it for a moment, his thin limbs trembling. He knew now that he had always been a fool.
“O Russet Witch!”
But it was too late. He had angered Providence325 by resisting too many temptations. There was nothing left but heaven, where he would meet only those who, like him, had wasted earth.
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quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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5
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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6
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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censors
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| 删剪（书籍、电影等中被认为犯忌、违反道德或政治上危险的内容）( censor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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sonnets
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| n.十四行诗( sonnet的名词复数 ) | |
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15
dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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17
psychically
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| adv.精神上 | |
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18
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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disillusioned
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| a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的 | |
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21
connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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22
stenographer
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| n.速记员 | |
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23
crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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24
anchovy
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| n.凤尾鱼 | |
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25
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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morass
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| n.沼泽，困境 | |
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27
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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28
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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29
motif
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| n.(图案的)基本花纹，(衣服的)花边；主题 | |
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30
gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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31
grudging
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| adj.勉强的，吝啬的 | |
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32
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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33
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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34
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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35
mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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36
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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37
pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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38
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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39
farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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40
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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41
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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42
cyclonic
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| adj.气旋的，飓风的 | |
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43
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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44
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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45
jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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46
jaunt
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| v.短程旅游；n.游览 | |
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47
spats
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| n.口角( spat的名词复数 )；小争吵；鞋罩；鞋套v.spit的过去式和过去分词( spat的第三人称单数 )；口角；小争吵；鞋罩 | |
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48
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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49
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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50
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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51
malevolent
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| adj.有恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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52
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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53
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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54
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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55
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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56
bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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57
contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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58
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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59
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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60
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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61
spasms
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| n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 )；抽搐；（能量、行为等的）突发；发作 | |
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62
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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63
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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64
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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65
supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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66
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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67
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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68
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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70
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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71
squads
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| n.（军队中的）班( squad的名词复数 )；（暗杀）小组；体育运动的运动（代表）队；（对付某类犯罪活动的）警察队伍 | |
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72
punctilious
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| adj.谨慎的，谨小慎微的 | |
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73
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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74
extricating
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| v.使摆脱困难，脱身( extricate的现在分词 ) | |
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75
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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76
hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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77
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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78
tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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79
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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80
impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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81
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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82
wile
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| v.诡计，引诱；n.欺骗，欺诈 | |
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83
turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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84
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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85
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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86
ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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87
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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88
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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89
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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90
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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91
trepidation
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| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
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92
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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93
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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94
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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95
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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96
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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97
outlay
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| n.费用，经费，支出；v.花费 | |
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98
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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99
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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100
insolently
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| adv.自豪地，自傲地 | |
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101
penchant
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| n.爱好，嗜好；（强烈的）倾向 | |
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102
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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103
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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104
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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105
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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106
inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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107
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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108
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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109
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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110
wispy
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| adj.模糊的；纤细的 | |
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111
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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112
eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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113
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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114
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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115
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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116
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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117
jewelry
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| n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝 | |
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118
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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119
hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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120
diluted
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| 无力的，冲淡的 | |
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121
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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122
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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123
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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124
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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125
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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126
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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127
stodgy
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| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
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128
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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129
callously
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130
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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131
sagged
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| 下垂的 | |
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132
stouter
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| 粗壮的( stout的比较级 )； 结实的； 坚固的； 坚定的 | |
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133
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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134
monologue
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| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
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135
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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136
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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137
cosmetic
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| n.化妆品；adj.化妆用的；装门面的；装饰性的 | |
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138
intermittently
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| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
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139
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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140
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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141
poignancy
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| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
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142
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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143
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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144
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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145
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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146
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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147
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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148
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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149
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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150
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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151
agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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152
tenuous
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| adj.细薄的，稀薄的，空洞的 | |
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153
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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154
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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155
unwillingness
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| n. 不愿意，不情愿 | |
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156
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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157
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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158
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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159
elation
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| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
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160
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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161
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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162
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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163
trudge
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| v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行 | |
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164
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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165
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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166
lint
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| n.线头；绷带用麻布，皮棉 | |
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167
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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168
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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169
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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170
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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171
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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172
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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173
influx
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| n.流入，注入 | |
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174
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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175
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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176
triumphant
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|
| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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177
determinedly
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| adv.决意地；坚决地，坚定地 | |
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178
surmounted
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|
| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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179
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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180
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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181
begrudge
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| vt.吝啬，羡慕 | |
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182
deteriorated
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| 恶化，变坏( deteriorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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183
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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184
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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185
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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186
regained
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|
| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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187
primordial
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|
| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
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188
technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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189
thronged
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|
| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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190
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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191
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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192
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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193
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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194
pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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195
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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196
bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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197
bouquets
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| n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香 | |
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198
chauffeurs
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| n.受雇于人的汽车司机( chauffeur的名词复数 ) | |
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199
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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200
debutantes
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|
| n.初进社交界的上流社会年轻女子( debutante的名词复数 ) | |
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201
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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202
groomed
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|
| v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的过去式和过去分词 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗 | |
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203
laundered
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| v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的过去式和过去分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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204
complexioned
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| 脸色…的 | |
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205
marred
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|
| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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206
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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207
congestion
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| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
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208
retarded
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| a.智力迟钝的，智力发育迟缓的 | |
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209
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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210
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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211
orchid
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| n.兰花，淡紫色 | |
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212
orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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213
adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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214
mellower
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| 成熟的( mellow的比较级 )； （水果）熟透的； （颜色或声音）柔和的； 高兴的 | |
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215
flustered
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|
| adj.慌张的；激动不安的v.使慌乱，使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词) | |
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216
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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217
extemporaneous
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| adj.即席的，一时的 | |
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218
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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219
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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220
consorts
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| n.配偶( consort的名词复数 )；（演奏古典音乐的）一组乐师；一组古典乐器；一起v.结伴( consort的第三人称单数 )；交往；相称；调和 | |
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221
Augmented
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| adj.增音的 动词augment的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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222
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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223
auditorium
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| n.观众席，听众席；会堂，礼堂 | |
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224
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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225
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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226
panoply
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| n.全副甲胄，礼服 | |
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227
honked
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| v.（使）发出雁叫似的声音，鸣（喇叭），按（喇叭）( honk的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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228
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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229
paean
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| n.赞美歌，欢乐歌 | |
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230
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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231
prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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232
maternity
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| n.母性，母道，妇产科病房；adj.孕妇的，母性的 | |
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233
brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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234
metallic
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|
| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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235
resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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236
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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237
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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238
tolling
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| [财]来料加工 | |
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239
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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240
tugs
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| n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 )；猛拖；拖船v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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241
melancholy
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|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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242
cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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243
varied
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|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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244
reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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245
annoyance
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|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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246
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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247
stiffen
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|
| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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248
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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249
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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250
darted
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|
| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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251
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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252
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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253
revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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254
withdrawal
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|
| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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255
myriad
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|
| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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256
solitary
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|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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257
abominably
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|
| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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258
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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259
conversant
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| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
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260
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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261
portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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262
warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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263
nagged
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| adj.经常遭责怪的；被压制的；感到厌烦的；被激怒的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的过去式和过去分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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264
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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265
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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266
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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267
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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268
limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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269
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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271
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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272
grizzly
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| adj.略为灰色的，呈灰色的；n.灰色大熊 | |
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273
prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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274
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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275
attenuation
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| n.变薄；弄细；稀薄化；减少 | |
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276
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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277
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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278
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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279
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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280
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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281
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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282
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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283
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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284
meticulous
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| adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的 | |
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285
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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286
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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287
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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288
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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289
rouged
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| 胭脂，口红( rouge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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290
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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291
brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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292
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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293
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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294
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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295
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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296
nicotine
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| n.(化)尼古丁，烟碱 | |
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297
peremptorily
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| adv.紧急地，不容分说地，专横地 | |
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298
forfeited
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| （因违反协议、犯规、受罚等）丧失，失去( forfeit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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299
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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300
asinine
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| adj.愚蠢的 | |
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301
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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302
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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303
broker
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| n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排 | |
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304
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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305
malignity
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| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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306
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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307
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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308
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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309
stuffiness
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| n.不通风，闷热；不通气 | |
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310
cocktails
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| n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物 | |
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311
withers
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| 马肩隆 | |
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312
hurls
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的第三人称单数 )；大声叫骂 | |
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313
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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314
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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315
mellowed
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| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
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316
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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317
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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318
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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319
WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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320
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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321
fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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322
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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323
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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324
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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325
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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