In this brief period, the two parties seemed to have become fused in a remarkable1 intimacy2. This was clearly due to the presence of the young people, and Thorpe congratulated himself many times each day upon the striking prescience he had shown in bringing them.
Both the ladies unaffectedly liked Julia; so much so that they seemed unwilling3 to make any plans which did not include her. Then it was only a matter of course that where she went her brother should go—and a further logical step quite naturally brought in their willing uncle. If he had planned everything, and now was ordering everything, it could not have gone more to his liking4.
Certain side speculations5 lent a savour to the satisfaction with which he viewed this state of affairs. He found many little signs to confirm the suspicion that the two ladies had been the readier to make much of Julia because they were not overkeen about each other's society. The bright, sweet-natured girl had come as a welcome diversion to a couple who in seclusion6 did battle with tendencies to yawn. He was not quite convinced, for that matter, that the American lady always went to that trouble. She seemed to his observation a wilful7 sort of person, who would not be restrained by small ordinary considerations from doing the things she wanted to do. Her relations with her companion afforded him food for much thought. Without any overt9 demonstrations10, she produced the effect of ordering Lady Cressage about. This, so far as it went, tended to prejudice him against her. On the other hand, however, she was so good to Julia, in a peculiarly frank and buoyant way which fascinated the girl, that he could not but like her. And she was very good to Alfred too.
There was, indeed, he perceived, a great deal of individuality about the friendship which had sprung up between Miss Madden and his nephew. She was years his senior—he settled it with himself that the American could not be less than seven-and-twenty,—yet Alfred stole covert11 glances of admiration12 at her, and seemed to think of nothing but opportunities for being in her company as if—as if—Thorpe hardly liked to complete the comparison in his own thoughts. Alfred, of course, said it was all on account of her wonderful hair; he rather went out of his way to dilate13 upon the enthusiasm her “colour scheme”—whatever that might mean—excited in him as an artist. The uncle had moments of profound skepticism about this—moments when he uneasily wondered whether it was not going to be his duty to speak to the young man. For the most part, however, he extracted reassurance14 from Miss Madden's demeanour toward the lad. She knew, it seemed, a vast deal about pictures; at least she was able to talk a vast deal about them, and she did it in such a calmly dogmatic fashion, laying down the law always, that she put Alfred in the position of listening as a pupil might listen to a master. The humility15 with which his nephew accepted this position annoyed Thorpe upon occasion, but he reasoned that it was a fault on the right side. Very likely it would help to keep the fact of the lady's seniority more clearly before the youngster's mind, and that would be so much gained.
And these apprehensions16, after all, were scarcely to be counted in the balance against the sense of achieved happiness with which these halcyon17 days kept Thorpe filled. The initiatory18 dinner had gone off perfectly19. He could have wished, indeed, that Julia had a smarter frock, and more rings, when he saw the imposing20 costumes and jewelled throats and hands of his guests—but she was a young girl, by comparison, he reflected, and there could be no doubt that they found her charming. As for Alfred, he was notably21 fine-looking in his evening-clothes—infinitely more like the son of a nobleman, the gratified uncle kept saying to himself, than that big dullard, the Honourable22 Balder. It filled him with a new pleasure to remember that Alfred had visiting cards presenting his name as D'Aubigny, which everybody of education knew was what the degenerate23 Dabney really stood for. The lad and his sister had united upon this excellent change long ago at Cheltenham, and oddly enough they had confessed it to their uncle, at the beginning of the trip, with a show of trepidation24, as if they feared his anger. With radiant gayety he had relieved their minds by showing them his card, with “Mr. Stormont Thorpe” alone upon it. At the dinner table, in the proudest moment of his life, he had made himself prouder still by thinking how distinguished25 an appearance his and Alfred's cards would make together in the apartment below next day.
But next day, the relations between the two parties had already become too informal for cards. Julia went down to see them; they came up to see Julia. Then they all went for a long walk, with luncheon26 at Vevey, and before evening Alfred was talking confidently of painting Miss Madden. Next day they went by train to St. Maurice, and, returning after dark, dined without ceremony together. This third day—the weather still remaining bright—they had ascended28 by the funicular road to Glion, and walked on among the swarming29 luegers, up to Caux. Here, after luncheon, they had wandered about for a time, regarding the panorama30 of lake and mountains. Now, as the homeward descent began, chance led the two young people and Miss Madden on ahead.
Thorpe found himself walking beside Lady Cressage. He had upon his arm her outer wrap, which she said she would put on presently. To look at the view he must glance past her face: the profile, under the graceful31 fur cap, was so enriched by glowing colour that it was, to his thought, as if she were blushing.
“How little I thought, a few months ago,” he said, “that we should be mountaineering together!”
“Oh, no one knows a day ahead,” she responded, vaguely32. “I had probably less notion of coming to Switzerland then than you had.”
“Then you don't come regularly?”
“I have never seen either Germany or Switzerland before. I have scarcely been out of England before.”
“Why now”—he paused, to think briefly33 upon his words—“I took it for granted you were showing Miss Madden around.”
“It 's quite the other way about,” she answered, with a cold little laugh. “It is she who is showing me around. It is her tour. I am the chaperone.” Thorpe dwelt upon the word in his mind. He understood what it meant only in a way, but he was luminously34 clear as to the bitterness of the tone in which it had been uttered.
“No—it didn't seem as if it were altogether—what I might call—YOUR tour,” he ventured. They had seen much of each other these past few days, but it was still hard for him to make sure whether their freedom of intercourse35 had been enlarged.
The slight shrug36 of the shoulders with which, in silence, she commented upon his remark, embarrassed him. For a moment he said nothing. He went on then with a renewed consciousness of risk.
“You mustn't be annoyed with me,” he urged. “I've been travelling with that dear little niece of mine and her brother, so long, that I've got into a habit of watching to notice if the faces I see round me are happy. And when they're not, then I have a kind of fatherly notion of interfering37, and seeing what's wrong.”
She smiled faintly at this, but when he added, upon doubtful inspiration—“By the way, speaking of fathers, I didn't know at Hadlow that you were the daughter of one of my Directors”—this smile froze upon the instant.
“The Dent27 du Midi is more impressive from the hotel, don't you think?” she remarked, “than it is from here.”
Upon consideration, he resolved to go forward. “I have taken a great interest in General Kervick,” he said, almost defiantly38. “I am seeing to it that he has a comfortable income—an income suitable to a gentleman of his position—for the rest of his life.”
“He will be very glad of it,” she remarked.
“But I hoped that you would be glad of it too,” he told her, bluntly. A curious sense of reliance upon his superiority in years had come to him. If he could make his air elderly and paternal39 enough, it seemed likely that she would defer40 to it. “I'm talking to you as I would to my niece, you know,” he added, plausibly41.
She turned her head to make a fleeting42 survey of his face, as if the point of view took her by surprise. “I don't understand,” she said. “You are providing an income for my father, because you wish to speak to me like an uncle. Is that it?”
He laughed, somewhat disconsolately43. “No—that isn't it,” he said, and laughed again. “I couldn't tell, you know, that you wouldn't want to talk about your father.” “Why, there's no reason in the world for not talking of him,” she made haste to declare. “And if he's got something good in the City, I'm sure I'm as glad as anyone. He is the sort that ought always to have a good deal of money. I mean, it will bring out his more amiable44 qualities. He does not shine much in adversity—any more than I do.”
Thorpe felt keenly that there were fine things to be said here—but he had confidence in nothing that came to his tongue. “I've been a poor man all my life—till now,” was his eventual45 remark.
“Please don't tell me that you have been very happy in your poverty,” she adjured46 him, with the dim flicker47 of a returning smile. “Very likely there are people who are so constituted, but they are not my kind. I don't want to hear them tell about it. To me poverty is the horror—the unmentionable horror!”
“There never was a day that I didn't feel THAT!” Thorpe put fervour into his voice. “I was never reconciled to it for a minute. I never ceased swearing to myself that I'd pull myself out of it. And that's what makes me sort of soft-hearted now toward those—toward those who haven't pulled themselves out of it.”
“Your niece says you are soft-hearted beyond example,” remarked Lady Cressage.
“Who could help being, to such a sweet little girl as she is?” demanded the uncle, fondly.
“She is very nice,” said the other. “If one may say such a thing, I fancy these three months with her have had an appreciable48 effect upon you. I'm sure I note a difference.”
“That's just what I've been saying to myself!” he told her. He was visibly delighted with this corroboration49. “I've been alone practically all my life. I had no friends to speak of—I had no fit company—I hadn't anything but the determination to climb out of the hole. Well, I've done that—and I've got among the kind of people that I naturally like. But then there came the question of whether they would like me. I tell you frankly50, that was what was worrying the heart out of me when I first met you. I like to be confessing it to you now—but you frightened me within an inch of my life. Well now, you see, I'm not scared of you at all. And of course it's because Julia's been putting me through a course of sprouts51.”
The figure was lost upon Lady Cressage, but the spirit of the remarks seemed not unpleasant to her. “I'm sure you're full of kindness,” she said. “You must forget that I snapped at you—about papa.” “All I remember about that is,” he began, his eye lighting52 up with the thought that this time the opportunity should not pass unimproved, “that you said he didn't shine much in adversity—-any more than you did. Now on that last point I disagree with you, straight. There wouldn't be any place in which you wouldn't shine.”
“Is that the way one talks to one's niece?” she asked him, almost listlessly. “Such flattery must surely be bad for the young.” Her words were sprightly53 enough, but her face had clouded over. She had no heart for the banter54.
“Ah”—he half-groaned. “I only wish I knew what was the right way to talk to you. The real thing is that I see you're unhappy—and that gets on my nerve—and I should like to ask you if there wasn't something I could do—and ask it in such a way that you'd have to admit there was—and I don't know enough to do it.”
He had a wan8 smile for thanks. “But of course there is nothing,” she replied, gently.
“Oh, there must be!” he insisted. He had no longer any clear notions as to where his tongue might not lead him. “There must be! You said I might talk to you as I would to Julia.”
“Did I?”
“Well, I'm going to, anyway,” he went on stoutly55, ignoring the note of definite dissent56 in her interruption. “You ARE unhappy! You spoke57 about being a chaperone. Well now, to speak plainly, if it isn't entirely58 pleasant for you with Miss Madden—why wouldn't you be a chaperone for Julia? I must be going to London very soon—but she can stay here, or go to Egypt, or wherever she likes—and of course you would do everything, and have everything—whatever you liked, too.”
“The conversation is getting upon rather impossible grounds, I'm afraid,” she said, and then bit her lips together. Halting, she frowned a little in the effort of considering her further words, but there was nothing severe in the glance which she lifted to him as she began to speak. “Let us walk on. I must tell you that you misconceive the situation entirely. Nobody could possibly be kinder or more considerate than Miss Madden. Of course she is American—or rather Irish-American, and I'm English, and our notions and ways are not always alike. But that has nothing to do with it. And it is not so much that she has many thousands a year, and I only a few hundreds. That in itself would signify nothing—and if I must take help from somebody I would rather take it from Celia Madden than anybody else I know—but this is the point, Mr. Thorpe. I do not eat the bread of dependence59 gracefully60. I pull wry61 faces over it, and I don't try very much to disguise them. That is my fault. Yes—oh yes, I know it is a fault—but I am as I am. And if Miss Madden doesn't mind—why”—she concluded with a mirthless, uncertain laugh—“why on earth should you?”
“Ah, why should I?” he echoed, reflectively. “I should like desperately62 to tell you why. Sometime I will tell you.”
They walked on in silence for a brief space. Then she put out her hand for her wrap, and as she paused, he spread it over her shoulders.
“I am amazed to think what we have been saying to each other,” she said, buttoning the fur as they moved on again. “I am vexed63 with myself.”
“And more still with me,” he suggested.
“No-o—but I ought to be. You've made me talk the most shocking rubbish.”
“There we disagree again, you know. Everything you've said's been perfect. What you're thinking of now is that I'm not an old enough friend to have been allowed to hear it. But if I'm not as old a friend as some, I wish I could make you feel that I'm as solid a friend as any—as solid and as staunch and as true. I wish I could hear you say you believed that.”
“But you talk of 'friends,'” she said, in a tone not at all responsive—“what is meant by 'friends'? We've chanced to meet twice—and once we barely exchanged civilities, and this time we've been hotel acquaintances—hardly more, is it?—and you and your young people have been very polite to me—and I in a silly moment have talked to you more about my affairs than I should—I suppose it was because you mentioned my father. But 'friends' is rather a big word for that, isn't it?”
Thorpe pouted64 for a dubious65 moment. “I can think of a bigger word still,” he said, daringly. “It's been on the tip of my tongue more than once.”
She quickened her pace. The air had grown perceptibly colder. The distant mountains, visible ever and again through the bare branches, were of a dark and cheerless blue, and sharply defined against the sky. It was not yet the sunset hour, and there were no mists, but the light of day seemed to be going out of the heavens. He hurried on beside her in depressed66 silence.
Their companions were hidden from view in a convolution of the winding67 road, but they were so near that their voices could be heard as they talked. Frequently the sound of laughter came backward from them.
“They're jolly enough down there,” he commented at last, moodily68.
“That's a good reason for our joining them, isn't it?” Her tone was at once casual and pointed69.
“But I don't want to join them!” he protested. “Why don't you stay with me—and talk?” “But you bully70 me so,” she offered in explanation.
The phrase caught his attention. Could it be that it expressed her real feeling? She had said, he recalled, that he had made her talk. Her complaint was like an admission that he could overpower her will. If that were true—then he had resources of masterfulness still in reserve sufficient to win any victory.
“No—not bully you,” he said slowly, as if objecting to the word rather than the idea. “That wouldn't be possible to me. But you don't know me well enough to understand me. I am the kind of man who gets the things he wants. Let me tell you something: When I was at Hadlow, I had never shot a pheasant in my life. I used to do tolerably well with a rifle, but I hardly knew anything about a shot-gun, and I don't suppose I'd ever killed more than two or three birds on the wing—and that was ages ago. But I took the notion that I would shoot better than anybody else there. I made up my mind to it—and I simply did it, that's all. I don't know if you remember—but I killed a good deal more than both the others put together. I give you that as an example. I wanted you to think that I was a crack shot—and so I made myself be a crack shot.”
“That is very interesting,” she murmured. They did not seem to be walking quite so fast.
“Don't think I want to brag71 about myself,” he went on. “I don't fancy myself—in that way. I'm not specially72 proud of doing things—it's the things themselves that I care for. If some men had made a great fortune, they would be conceited73 about it. Well, I'm not. What I'm keen about is the way to use that fortune so that I will get the most out of it—the most happiness, I mean. The thing to do is to make up your mind carefully what it is that you want, and to put all your power and resolution into getting it—and the rest is easy enough. I don't think there's anything beyond a strong man's reach, if he only believes enough in himself.”
“But aren't you confusing two things?” she queried74. The subject apparently75 interested her. “To win one's objects by sheer personal force is one thing. To merely secure them because one's purse is longer than other people's—that's quite another matter.”
He smiled grimly at her. “Well, I'll combine the two,” he said.
“Then I suppose you will be altogether irresistible,” she said, lightly. “There will be no pheasants left for other people at all.”
“I don't mind being chaffed,” he told her, with gravity. “So long as you're good-natured, you can make game of me all you like. But I'm in earnest, all the same. I'm not going to play the fool with my money and my power. I have great projects. Sometime I'll tell you about them. They will all be put through—every one of them. And you wouldn't object to talking them over with me—would you?”
“My opinion on 'projects' is of no earthly value—to myself or anyone else.”
“But still you'd give me your advice if I asked it?” he persisted. “Especially if it was a project in which you were concerned?”
After a moment's constrained76 silence she said to him, “You must have no projects, Mr. Thorpe, in which I am concerned. This talk is all very wide of the mark. You are not entitled to speak as if I were mixed up with your affairs. There is nothing whatever to warrant it.”
“But how can you help being in my projects if I put you there, and keep you there?” he asked her, with gleeful boldness. “And just ask yourself whether you do really want to help it. Why should you? You've seen enough of me to know that I can be a good friend. And I'm the kind of friend who amounts to something—who can and will do things for those he likes. What obligation are you under to turn away that kind of a friend, when he offers himself to you? Put that question plainly to yourself.”
“But you are not in a position to nominate the questions that I am to put to myself,” she said. The effort to import decision into her tone and manner was apparent. “That is what I desire you to understand. We must not talk any more about me. I am not the topic of conversation.”
“But first let me finish what I wanted to say,” he insisted. “My talk won't break any bones. You'd be wrong not to listen to it—because it's meant to help you—to be of use to you. This is the thing, Lady Cressage: You're in a particularly hard and unpleasant position. Like my friend Plowden”—he watched her face narrowly but in vain, in the dull light, for any change at mention of the name—“like my friend Plowden you have a position and title to keep up, and next to nothing to keep it up on. But he can go down into the City and make money—or try to. He can accept Directorships and tips about the market and so on, from men who are disposed to be good to him, and who see how he can be of use to them—and in that way he can do something for himself. But there is the difference: you can't do these things, or you think you can't, which is the same thing. You're all fenced in; you're surrounded by notice-boards, telling you that you mustn't walk this way or look that way; that you mustn't say this thing or do the other. Now your friend down ahead there—Miss Madden—she doesn't take much stock in notice-boards. In fact, she feeds the gulls77, simply because she's forbidden to do it. But you—you don't feed any gulls, and yet you're annoyed with yourself that you don't. Isn't that the case? Haven't I read you right?”
She seemed to have submitted to his choice of a topic. There was no touch of expostulation in the voice with which she answered him. “I see what you think you mean,” she said.
“Think!” he responded, with self-confident emphasis. “I'm not 'thinking.' I'm reading an open book. As I say, you're not contented—you're not happy; you don't try to pretend that you are. But all the same, though you hate it, you accept it. You think that you really must obey your notice-boards. Now what I tell you you ought to do is to take a different view. Why should you put up all this barbed wire between yourself and your friends? It doesn't do anybody else any good—and it does you harm. Why, for example, should Plowden be free to take things from me, and you not?”
She glanced at him, with a cold half-smile in her eye. “Unfortunately I was not asked to join your Board.”
He pressed his lips tightly together, and regarded her meditatively78 as he turned these words over in his mind. “What I'm doing for Plowden,” he said with slow vagueness meanwhile, “it isn't so much because he's on the Board. He's of no special use to me there. But he was nice to me at a time when that meant everything in the world to me—and I don't forget things of that sort. Besides, I like him—and it pleases me to let him in for a share of my good fortune. See? It's my way of enjoying myself. Well now, I like you too, and why shouldn't I be allowed to let you in also for a share of that good fortune? You think there's a difference, but I tell you it's imaginary—pure moonshine. Why, the very people whose opinion you're afraid of—what did they do themselves when the South African craze was on? I'm told that the scum of the earth had only to own some Chartered shares, and pretend to be 'in the know' about them—and they could dine with as many duchesses as they liked. I knew one or two of the men who were in that deal—I wouldn't have them in my house—but it seems there wasn't any other house they couldn't go to in London.”
“Oh yes, there were many houses,” she interposed. “It wasn't a nice exhibition that society made of itself—one admits that,—but it was only one set that quite lost their heads. There are all kinds of sets, you know. And—I don't think I see your application, in any event. The craze, as you call it, was all on a business basis. People ran after those who could tell them which shares were going up, and they gambled in those shares. That was all, wasn't it?”
Still looking intently at her, he dismissed her query79 with a little shake of the head. “'On a business basis,'” he repeated, as if talking to himself. “They like to have things 'on a business basis.'”
He halted, with a hand held out over her arm, and she paused as well, in a reluctant, tentative way. “I don't understand you,” she remarked, blankly.
“Let me put it in this way,” he began, knitting his brows, and marshalling the thoughts and phrases with which his mind had been busy. “This is the question. You were saying that you weren't asked to join my Board. You explained in that way how I could do things for Plowden, and couldn't do them for you. Oh, I know it was a joke—but it had its meaning—at least to me. Now I want to ask you—if I decide to form another Company, a very small and particular Company—if I should decide to form it, I say—could I come to you and ask you to join THAT Board? Of course I could ask—but what I mean is—well, I guess you know what I mean.”
The metaphor80 had seemed to him a most ingenious and satisfactory vehicle for his purpose, and it had broken down under him amid evidences of confusion which he could not account for. All at once his sense of physical ascendancy81 had melted away—disappeared. He looked at Lady Cressage for an instant, and knew there was something shuffling82 and nerveless in the way his glance then shifted to the dim mountain chain beyond. His heart fluttered surprisingly inside his breast, during the silence which ensued.
“Surely you must have said everything now that you wished to say,” she observed at last. She had been studying intently the trodden snow at her feet, and did not even now look up. The constraint83 of her manner, and a certain pleading hesitation84 in her words, began at once to restore his self-command. “Do not talk of it any further, I beg of you,” she went on. “We—we have been lagging behind unconscionably. If you wish to please me, let us hurry forward now. And please!—no more talk at all!”
“But just a word—you're not angry?”
She shook her head very slightly.
“And you do know that I'm your friend—your solid, twenty-four-carat friend?”
After a moment's pause, she made answer, almost in a whisper—“Yes—be my friend—if it amuses you,”—and led the way with precipitate85 steps down the winding road.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
intimacy
|
|
| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
unwilling
|
|
| adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
liking
|
|
| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
speculations
|
|
| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
seclusion
|
|
| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
wilful
|
|
| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
wan
|
|
| (wide area network)广域网 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
overt
|
|
| adj.公开的，明显的，公然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
demonstrations
|
|
| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
covert
|
|
| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
dilate
|
|
| vt.使膨胀，使扩大 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
reassurance
|
|
| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
humility
|
|
| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
apprehensions
|
|
| 疑惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
halcyon
|
|
| n.平静的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
initiatory
|
|
| adj.开始的；创始的；入会的；入社的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
imposing
|
|
| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
notably
|
|
| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
honourable
|
|
| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
degenerate
|
|
| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
trepidation
|
|
| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
luncheon
|
|
| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
dent
|
|
| n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
ascended
|
|
| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
swarming
|
|
| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
panorama
|
|
| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
briefly
|
|
| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
luminously
|
|
| 发光的； 明亮的； 清楚的； 辉赫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
intercourse
|
|
| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
shrug
|
|
| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
interfering
|
|
| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
defiantly
|
|
| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
paternal
|
|
| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
defer
|
|
| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
plausibly
|
|
| 似真地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
fleeting
|
|
| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
disconsolately
|
|
| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
amiable
|
|
| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
eventual
|
|
| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
adjured
|
|
| v.（以起誓或诅咒等形式）命令要求( adjure的过去式和过去分词 )；祈求；恳求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
flicker
|
|
| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
appreciable
|
|
| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
corroboration
|
|
| n.进一步的证实，进一步的证据 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
sprouts
|
|
| n.新芽，嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
lighting
|
|
| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
sprightly
|
|
| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
banter
|
|
| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
stoutly
|
|
| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
dissent
|
|
| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
dependence
|
|
| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
gracefully
|
|
| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
wry
|
|
| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
vexed
|
|
| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
pouted
|
|
| v.撅（嘴）( pout的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
dubious
|
|
| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
depressed
|
|
| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
moodily
|
|
| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
bully
|
|
| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
brag
|
|
| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
specially
|
|
| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
conceited
|
|
| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
queried
|
|
| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
constrained
|
|
| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
gulls
|
|
| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
meditatively
|
|
| adv.冥想地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
query
|
|
| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
metaphor
|
|
| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
ascendancy
|
|
| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
shuffling
|
|
| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
constraint
|
|
| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
hesitation
|
|
| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
precipitate
|
|
| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |