Silvia had just left him to meet her mother, who, at the expiration7 of their uninterrupted fortnight, was coming down to Howes that day; and Peter, alone for an hour on this September afternoon, let the hot sunshine, fructifying8 and caressing9, melt the marrow10 of his bones, the impressed records on his brain, into definite consciousness. The bees humming over the flower-beds, the red-admiral butterflies opening and shutting their vermilion streaked11 wings, the swallows not yet gathering12 for their autumn departure, all conduced to leisurely13 summer-like meditation14, and he found himself in possession of propositions and conclusions which he had scarcely known were his. This supreme15 sense of content came first; that, like a wash of warm colour, underlay16 the details that now began with a finer brushwork to outline themselves, and each of them appeared equally admirable, equally germane17 to the values of the emerging picture.
Mrs. Wardour’s arrival was an important touch; it might almost be called a fresh wash of colour. Out of numerous reflections, considerations, weighings of this and that, each of them at the time too liquid and inconclusive to call a plan, a plan now had certainly crystallized. They, the three contributory contrivers of it, had, so to speak, pooled the London house and this, making two houses for the three of them. Peter would be returning to his work in Whitehall next day, and since no sane19 being would wish to remain in London in these mellow20 radiances of September and October for longer than was absolutely necessary, he would, as a rule, flow up in the swiftest of cars in the morning, and stream back again in the late afternoon. For one reason or another, again, he might find himself wanting or being obliged to spend a night in town; he would be away all day, anyhow, and what{177} could be more convenient than Mrs. Wardour’s perfect willingness to establish herself for the present at Howes, where she would supply companionship for Silvia, and find it herself? Silvia again might want to spend a day or two in town, and her mother could please herself as to whether she joined her or not. From such a germ the idea of keeping both houses pooled and permanently21 open for any or all of them had easily developed. Headquarters for the present would be in the country, and London, to Mrs. Wardour’s notion, would be something of a picnic, with the house half shut up. But with four or five servants there, there would, she hoped, be no angles of real discomfort22.
Mrs. Wardour then, to all intents and purposes, was to live with them; but Peter, so ran the deed, was “master” at Howes; while in London he and Silvia would have the wide licence of guests peculiarly privileged, at liberty to ask friends there whenever they wished. The crystallization of it, the definite statement and treaty, after infinite probings and testings on her part into Peter’s most intimate feelings on the subject, had been entirely23 Silvia’s. It had been she who had finally suggested it, with the proviso that anybody—by which she undoubtedly24 meant her husband—was to tear up the treaty without any possibility of offence, if he found it unworkable or unsatisfactory; but, as he thought over it now, he was frankly25 surprised at himself to find how eminently26 satisfactory a fulfilment of it he augured28. Silvia had suggested it (there was the great point), and though he felt that he could not himself have conceivably presented a treaty like that to her for her signature, he applauded her insight in so doing. A man could hardly have suggested that to{178} the girl he had but lately married; it would have savoured, would it not, of his considering that the ideal arrangement did not procure29 for them their own undiluted companionship? But she had known that he would not put such a construction on her proposition. She did not, in fact, let an attitude which would have been typically feminine deter30 her from adopting this more sensible and more manly31 pose. But that was Silvia all through: there was a robust32 quality about her, an impotence to harbour littlenesses....
They expected another visitor that day in the person of Peter’s father, who had, in a letter which was no less than a bouquet33 of flowering eloquence34, indicated that for the due, the supreme, the sublime35 execution of the second cartoon, it was necessary for the artist to soak himself once more in the contemplation of the first, so as (this was rather involved) to catch to the fraction of a tone the key in which it was pitched. There had to be a gradual crescendo36, a deliberate tuning37 up and up, a continual ascent38 throughout the series.... Shorn of the mixture of metaphor39, he wanted to study the first cartoon before plunging40, with the aid of his sketches41, into the remainder. These sketches, he added, were, as soon as he had finished with their use, to pass out of his possession, for the charming Mrs. Henry Wardour had induced him to let her purchase them at a figure which convinced him that they would find an appreciative42 home.... Then the letter became slightly mysterious. The projected series of cartoons, he had reason to know, was exciting stupendous interest in artistic43 circles. Flattering—perhaps a man who was proud of his work ought not to say flattering—evidence of that was to hand, evidence substantial and{179} conclusive18. He had not made—this was lucky, since he would not have dreamed of going back on his bargain—he had not made any contract with Mrs. Wardour—to whom all salutations—about the rest of the series, and thought himself fortunate in not parting with them for a comparative pittance44. He did not (mark you, my Peter) complain of the price she had paid him for the first of them, and he was quite sure that, with Peter’s assistance, everything would be arranged quite satisfactorily.
Peter had read this letter, which he must talk over with Silvia on her return, with the detachment of which he was so terribly capable, and had come to the conclusion that his father had somehow induced a deluded45 Cr?sus of some sort to offer a higher price per cartoon for his future perpetrations than that which his mother-in-law had, no doubt, already given him for the first. For this deduction46 he had the most cordial welcome. As long as his father was dumping his “beastly” goods—so Peter was now at liberty to think—on the picture-gallery at Howes for fancy, if not fantastic prices, he could not in mere47 pious48 decency49 put it to Mrs. Wardour that she was paying, as he supposed, heavily, for colossal50 rubbish. But his father’s letter, maturely considered, made it quite certain that somebody was willing to pay more for rubbish than Mrs. Wardour. Already the general question had received his attention: Mrs. Wardour was, so he supposed, under contract to buy those melodramatic daubs for the decoration of a house that belonged to Silvia, and of which he, by attested51 treaty, was master. So long as his father could profitably dispose of this rubbish here, Peter was filially prohibited from any protest, but when once his father announced that he was receiving a mere pittance,{180} though without complaint, for what he would in another market receive a less despicable dole52, his son, surely, was free to welcome his taking his wares53 elsewhere. His son, in any case, was heart and soul allied54 to the new enterprise, for already Peter had experienced a vivid distaste of the fact that he countenanced55, by mere acquiescence, this further decoration of Howes. He knew that if the artist had not been his father he must have already protested against the bargain which perhaps was not yet complete on either side. His acquiescence, in fact, had brought home to him that his father was profiting by his marriage....
Then, so swiftly and involuntarily that he had not time to stop the thought on the threshold, there burst into the door of his mind the inquiry56 as to whether he, too, as well as his father, was not unloading rubbish at a high price. And the price that he, Peter, was receiving for his rubbish was infinitely57 the higher. His father received, no doubt, a substantial cheque; he himself received, as far as the material consideration went, an immunity58 from the meaning of cheques, and, in a standard immeasurably higher, some sort of blank cheque which, as Silvia told him one night (or was in the middle of telling him when his father made that flamboyant59 interruption), would be honoured by her to any figure he chose to fill in, and yet leave her richer, in such standard, than ever. There, in that immortal60 bank, he divined then, and knew now her illimitable credit. Whatever she paid out, by that, in the royal mathematics of love, was she the richer.
The impression made by that unsolicited thought was to him like having seen some pass-book of the soul which was hers. It had blown open in front of his{181} eyes, and before he had, so to speak, time to close it, he had caught a glimpse of sums so vast that they exceeded his powers of realization61. His eye, in that involuntary survey, had received no impression of his payments into her account; the credit side was but a catalogue of her own inconceivable affluence62. Every moment, it seemed, she was giving, and every moment her bounty63 flowed back to her. It was with some kind of sceptical envy that, in that glimpse, he realized this omnipotent64 finance. It was not so marvellous that love should be stronger than death; the miracle was that it could be so much stronger than life.
It was at this moment in Peter’s reflections, a moment that, only half realized, he was glad to get away from, that an interruption, reasonably claiming his attention, occurred in the shape of a little old butler, who had been drafted down here from London in view of Mrs. Wardour’s advent65. He was black-eyed and grey-headed, and “perky” in movement to an extent that fully5 justified66 Peter’s exclamation67 of “The Jackdaw,” when he had quitted the scene last night, and now the Jackdaw’s immediate68 mission was to hand Peter a couple of letters on an immense silver salver, and inquire where Mr. Mainwaring, who, so the Jackdaw understood, was to arrive that evening, should be “put.” He should be “put” clearly, in the place that would please him most, for this was Peter’s undeviating creed69 when self-sacrifice was not involved, and beyond doubt the state-rooms, so called, would please his father inordinately70.
The state-rooms had been insisted on in the rebuilding of the house by his father-in-law, in a rich vision, so Silvia had half piously71, half humorously intimated, of royal personages being sumptuously{182} housed there. There was a tremendous tapestried72 bedroom, en suite73 with a second bedroom, a breakfast-room, a sitting-room74, all tapestry75 and oak mantelpieces and silver sconces. Yes, the state-rooms for Mr. Mainwaring. Silvia (they were on humorous terms now about Peter’s father) would enjoy that immensely.
Peter took his letters from the Jackdaw, as the latter gave a pleasant sort of croak76 in answer to this order, and remembered how Nellie had once said that wealth was not an accident, but an attribute, a quality. He had been disposed to dispute that at the time, but somehow his own allocation of the state-rooms to his father confirmed the suspicion that she was right. He himself, for instance, was clearly a different person in the eyes of his father now, when he could gloriously endow him with state-rooms, from what he had been when he, as on that same occasion he told Nellie, only lived in the beastly little house off the Brompton Road because free meals and free lodging77 were a consideration to his exiguous78 purse. You were different—Nellie was right—when you could dispense79 material magnificence instead of accepting a tolerable shelter, where, though the rain was kept out, the odour of dinner, with that careless Burrows80, could not be kept in.
Still fingering his letters, and trying to insert a thumb into a too honestly adhesive81 envelope flap, Peter slightly amplified82 by corrobative illustration this thesis. How often had he, so to speak, “sung for his dinner,” accepting and welcoming such invitations as Mrs. Trentham extended to him, by which, for the pleasure of comfortable, decent food, he had gladly spent an insincere and boring evening! It had not quite been greed combined with moderate{183} penuriousness83 which had enjoined84 that: it was the natural thing to do, if you were young and poor; to dine, that is to say, comfortably, and by way of acknowledging your indebtedness, to be towed about for the rest of the evening by a foolish, married, middle-aged85 woman who, for some inscrutable reason of her own, wanted to present her unblemished reputation in some sort of compromising limelight. But now, on this opulent sunny afternoon, Peter tried in vain to recapture the mood, once habitual86 to him, of accepting any invitation merely because it implied a good dinner and perhaps a good supper, with a boring opera in between. Certainly it had been easy for him to fulfil his part of the bargain in these evenings: it was natural and also habitual for him to make himself pleasant, to look handsome, to tell Mrs. Trentham that she had never been so marvellous, so chic87, so smart, so entrancing generally. But now the mere notion of such an evening seemed foreign. If he wanted to dine at the Ritz and go to the opera and have some supper, he could do it, and secure as guests just those with whom it was pleasant to spend an evening. Henceforth if he wanted to do that he could, vulgarly speaking, “pick and choose” the recipients88 of his bounty.... Stated like that the whole thing sounded rather sordid89, but it seemed to him that, for himself, he had got rid of that sordidness90, the “court-fool-touch” which compelled you to make jokes in payment for your dinner, or (which was worse) to talk to your hostess in the serious, wistful note of an adorer, or at any rate of a dazzled and delighted guest. To be host, to pay the bill, provided you had plenty of money, was far the easier part.
There it was then: he had no longer to be asked to dine at the Ritz, and to go to the theatre or what not{184} afterwards. He could bid to his feasts, and no more consider the expense than in the old days he would have considered whether he could afford a bus fare. Whatever enjoyments91 of that kind the world had to offer were his for the mere formation of his inclination93 to enjoy them.... And then, suddenly as a blink of distant lightning, and, so it seemed, wholly independent of his own brain, there came the question as to what he had paid for these privileges. And remote as drowsy94 thunder, the question supplied its own indubitable answer. He had somehow—the thing was done—convinced Silvia that he loved her. He had, at any rate, given her the signal of response that had ecstatically, rapturously contented95 her, when, below her breath, as she accepted him as her lover, she had whispered, “Ah, just let me love you, all I want is to love you, to be allowed to love you.”... He had known quite well what that “allow” really implied. He had to be on the same plane of emotion as she; else, to her understanding of it all, they could never have arrived at this.
All the time (he knew that then, and knew it infinitely better now) her level shone in sunlight like some peak far above the clouds, compared with his little wooded hill that drowsed in the grey day below them. Round him there was no gleam of that ethereal brightness in which she walked, or, at the most, through some rent in the clouds, he caught a glimpse of her. She, at present, so it appeared to him, was so encompassed96 with brightness that, dazzled, she took for granted that he was with her, and indeed, by some device of desire and of cleverness on his part, he could convince her that through the clasp of their hands there throbbed97 the sweet entanglement98 of the soul. She interpreted his lightest action, his words, his glances,{185} by some magic of her own; but already he knew that he, though with consummate99 care, was “keeping it up.” There was no element of difficulty about it, any more than there had been any difficulty about behaving to the complete satisfaction of Mrs. Trentham at her Ritz-Opera entertainments. But in both r?les, as guest at the Ritz and as “master” of Howes, there was an inherent falsity. In both he was dressed up for the part. The difference between the two situations was that in the one Mrs. Trentham was dressed up too, and in the other Silvia was not.
Peter was quite ruthless in tearing off the motley from himself, and contemplating100 with the candidness101 of a true egoist the revealed deformities. He never cultivated illusions about himself, nor strove to soften102 down his own uncomeliness. There he was; that was he, to make the best or the worst of. He did not on the other hand, try to depreciate103 his assets; he tried, in fact, to make the most of them and use them to the utmost possible advantage. He was, and knew it, a marvellous physical type, handsome as the young Hermes, and crowned with the glory and flower of adolescence104. He surrendered to Silvia all that physical perfection; he gave her the wit and charm of his mind; and he was aware that with these he dazzled her much in the same way as Nellie had dazzled her. The use and the enjoyment92 of them, utterly105 at her service, was responsible for the splendid success of this solitary106 fortnight.
In spite of the divine conditions of these golden country days, he knew that he was not sorry to be enjoying the last of them. To-morrow he had to get back to his work, and this sword of his, body and mind, would be sheathed107 for intervals108 of absence. And then, with the sure certainty of apprehension{186} that had stamped out these conclusions, he knew that it was not for these alone, or even for these at all, that Silvia had loved him. At the most they were for her the bright-plumaged lure109, to which her attention had been originally attracted. But even in the first moments of this attention she had divined something in him, below the feathers and the fur, which she sought. Her quest had gone deeper than skin and conversation, than glances and smiles and level shoulders and firm neck, and quick response, and humour and all the lures110 of the male for the female. She had claimed and clasped him for something other than what certainly appeared to her as mere appurtenances. And what on his side had he looked for in her? Nothing, so he branded it on himself, except her mere physical attraction, her mere mental charm and freshness and her wealth.
But the admission of this was a branding: the hot iron hurt him, and, not liking111 to be hurt, he recollected112 the letters which, a few minutes ago, the Jackdaw had presented to him, and which—the first of them, upside down in his hand—was so honestly gummed that he could make no insertion into its flap.
He turned it over and saw the handwriting of the address. He managed then to open it.
“Isn’t it delightful to be married?” wrote Nellie. “I didn’t write to you at first, Peter, because you wouldn’t have enjoyed anything that came from outside. But after a fortnight, you ought to be able to be congratulated. Before that it would have been merely impertinent (and probably is now); but your friends have to take up the threads again some time. All we blissful people, in fact, must remember that we{187} are human beings, after all, and break ourselves into ‘behavin’ according’ (Mrs. Gamp, isn’t it? No, I don’t think it is). Anyhow, we shall all meet again, shan’t we, and buzz about in London, and ask each other to our lovely country houses. We’ve got to go on, Peter; the world has got to go on. Hasn’t it?”
Peter turned a page, and began to be quite absorbed in this new but familiar atmosphere. He slipped out of his present environment under some spell which lurked113 in these trivialities.
“I’m getting on beautifully,” so began the second page, “for Philip and I understand each other so well, and it’s tremendously comfortable. We seem to want just the same sort of thing. He’s awfully114 keen about birds, for instance, and I am becoming so. We go out with field-glasses, and see willow-wrens115, and yesterday we saw a marsh-warbler. Then I like golf—you always hated it, I remember—so Philip is learning to like it too. He nearly lost his temper yesterday when he missed a short putt, and that’s always a good sign. We don’t quite agree about motoring, because I always want to go as fast as the machine can manage, and he always wants to slow down when there’s a cross-road. He talks to the chauffeur116 through a beastly little tube, and it’s like a funeral.
“Peter darling, what rot I am writing. Fancy my writing such rot to you. It’s the wrong sort of rot, isn’t it? There are rots and rots. You and I always used to talk rot, but it wasn’t about birds and golf. (I’m having a new sort of mashie.) But, bar rot, when are we going to meet again? Isn’t the country a sleepy place? Do come up to town soon, and Philip and I will come up, too. (You and Silvia, I mean, of course.) I want to be in the silly old thick of it again. Because when you’re in the thick of it{188} you can make privacies, but when you’re in the privacy of the country you can’t make a thick, except when you have a great house-party, as we’re going to have next week, and that isn’t really a ‘thick’: it’s only partridges. The men go out in the morning, and the women join them for lunch, and then the men come home in the evening, and the morning and evening are the first day. But it’s all extremely comfortable—that’s the word I come back to. Mother has been here for the last three weeks, and she’s almost ceased saying that she must go away the day after to-morrow. I suppose that’s because she’s tired of hearing either Philip or me murmur117 something about its being such a short visit. P. and I really both like her being with us: it isn’t half a bad plan, and I expect she’ll stop till we go back to town again.
“I want you and Silvia to come over here on November 10th for the week-end. There will be hosts of rather nice people here: so many, in fact, that you and I can steal away without being noticed, and have a scamper118 through the wet woods (they are sure to be wet in November) and wave our tails and congratulate ourselves on being settled for life. We’ve both of us got somebody to take care of us (Yes, I mean that), and if you’re as pleased with the arrangement as I am, why, we’re very lucky people. You and I, you know, if things had been utterly and completely different, would have quarrelled so frightfully.... I saw two cats yesterday sitting with their faces within an inch of each other, scowling119 and screeching120 at each other in a perfect tempest of irritation121.
“Here’s Philip come to take me out. He will sit in the chair there waiting quite placidly122 till I have finished this letter, not reading the paper or doing anything at all, but just waiting. He knows where{189} there are a pair of golden crested123 wrens. Isn’t that exciting?... Oh, I can’t go on with him sitting there. Good-bye, my dear. Mind you and Silvia come on the 10th.”
As Peter read, he heard, by some internal audition124, Nellie’s voice enunciating the sentences with that familiar intonation125 of light staccato mockery. The written words were but like a prompter’s copy which he held and glanced at; it was Nellie who stood there and said the lines. He would have liked to argue a point or two with her, but he knew that there was between them that deep fundamental agreement and comprehension without which argument develops into mere contradiction....
Peter thrust the letter into his pocket as steps sounded on the gravel126 just behind him.
“Been sitting here ever since I left you?” asked Silvia. “Oh, Peter, without your hat in this hot sun!” She picked it up and perched it on his head.
“There! Oh, dear, what a nuisance it is that this is your last day here. But what a last day. Any letters?”
Peter’s hand fingered Nellie’s letter.
“Yes: one from Nellie,” he said. “She wants you and me to go there for the week-end on November 10th. Shall we?”
“Oh, how unkind of her! What are we to do? Shall we say that mother will be here for that Sunday? It will be quite true in its way, though it won’t mean precisely128 what she thinks it means.”
Peter looked at her below the rim129 of his straw hat. She had placed it rather forward over his forehead, and as she stood beside his chair he had to incline his head sharply back, so that the muscles at the side of{190} his neck stood out below the sun-browned skin. She came a step closer and held his throat between thumb and fingers.
“What shall we tell her?” she asked. “Speak, or I’ll strangle you.”
“Strangle away!” he said.
“I would sooner you spoke130,” she said. “I don’t want to murder you just yet. So unpleasant for mother.”
“Whether it’s unpleasant for me or not doesn’t seem to matter,” said Peter throatily, for Silvia increased the pressure of her hand.
“Not a bit, darling,” said she. “I shall squeeze tighter and tighter until you tell me what we shall say to Nellie.”
“Brute!” said Peter. “Don’t do it, Silvia. You’re hurting me frightfully.”
He wrinkled up his forehead and drew in his breath quickly, as if in great pain. Instantly Silvia took her hand away.
“Oh, my dear, I haven’t really hurt you?” she asked with compunction.
“Once upon a time,” said Peter, “there was a woman who believed every word that her husband said.”
Silvia sat down on the edge of the long chair.
“Was? There is one,” she said. “If you told me you hated me, I should believe you.”
“I hate you,” said Peter promptly131.
“You didn’t say that,” said she. “Your mouth said it. What are we to tell Nellie? Seriously, I mean. It will be nearly our last Sunday here, if we go to London in December.”
Peter made a short calculation.
“Dear Nellie,” he said, “we are so sorry we ca{191}n’t come, because November 10th will be our last evening but twenty-one alone here, as we go up to town the next month.’ Will that do?”
“It sounds perfectly132 sensible,” said Silvia. “She’ll understand: it wasn’t so long ago that she was married. Then you’ll write that, will you?” she added hopefully.
“I will if you really wish it,” said he; “but it’s not very sane. You see ... well, some time we’ve got to begin behaving like ordinary human beings again. And, after all, Nellie is a very old friend of mine, and a very intimate one of yours. She’ll think it rather odd.”
Silvia sighed.
“A whole Saturday to Monday,” she said. “How selfish Nellie is! I never knew that before. But perhaps we had better go. Shall I answer it for you?”
Peter got up.
“No; I must write to her in any case,” he said.
“What else does she say?” asked Silvia. “No message for me?”
Peter could not definitely remember any, but there was sure to have been such.
“Of course: all sorts of things. Come for a stroll, Silvia. I’m getting chilly133 in the shade of my straw hat. There’s another thing I want to talk over with you. Let’s go down by the lake!”
“Hurrah! I love being consulted. What is it?”
“It’s about my father. Oh, by the way, the Jackdaw asked me where he should be put, and I said the state-rooms. Is that all right?”
Silvia pinched his arm.
“When are you going to understand that you are master?” she said. “Oh, Peter, it will be lovely{192} for him having the state-rooms. He’ll like it tremendously. Won’t he? I wish I had thought of it. It wasn’t that, I hope, that you wanted to consult me about.”
“No. Now, before I consult you, I want to ask you a question or two, which you must promise to answer not tactfully, but truly.”
“Not even a little tact134, if I find it necessary?” she asked.
“Not an atom. Do you like that cartoon of his?”
Silvia glanced sideways at him.
“Well—I don’t find I go and look at it for pleasure,” she said. “Not often at least, not every day. Do you like it?”
“I think it’s the largest piece of rubbish I ever saw. Now try again to express your opinion.”
Silvia gave a sigh of relief.
“Oh, I do agree!” she said. “It’s the most appalling135. Now, isn’t it?”
“Question number two,” said Peter. “Do you think you will like the others any better? Do you, in fact, look forward to seeing the whole wall of the gallery covered with allegorical Mainwarings?”
“Not in the very smallest degree. But we’ve got to have them, haven’t we?”
“I don’t think so,” said he. “In fact, from a letter I have received from my father, I gather that he doesn’t consider he made a contract for them at all. It’s clear from what he says that somebody else wants to buy them at a higher rate, considerably136 higher, than your mother paid for the first. In fact, he alludes137 to the price she paid for it as a pittance. By the way, what did she pay for it?”
Silvia looked sideways at him again.
“Do you really want me to tell you?” she asked.{193}
“If you don’t mind.”
“Well, she gave him a thousand guineas for it, Peter. I rather wish he hadn’t called it a pittance; it makes mother seem mean. He was quite willing to accept it. And I don’t suppose—do you?—that he sells much at that sort of price?”
“And the rest of the unspeakable six at the same price?” asked Peter.
“I suppose so. Mother understood so,” said she.
“And does she want to have them?” asked Peter.
“No. I don’t think she does, very much,” said Silvia. “She spoke to-day of ‘my cartoons’—wasn’t that darling of her?—when I said your father was coming this evening. But I think I could explain to her that she needn’t have them; if I do it the right way, she won’t think she wants them. But what about the one we’ve got?”
“Sell it back to him at the price she gave for it,” said Peter.
Silvia seemed to consider this simple proposition rather intently.
“Yes, perhaps she would do that,” she said, without much conviction as to its probability. “Oh, Peter, haven’t we got rather odd parents?”
“I have; but why have you, except in so far that it was odd to give a thousand guineas for that monstrosity? I’m delighted at the prospect138 of getting rid of it, not only, and not chiefly, because it’s an atrocious object, but because I hate the idea of my father imposing139 upon your mother and then talking about a pittance. He would have jumped at selling it in an auction140 room for a quarter of what she paid. I wonder who can have offered him more for it. Oh, by the way, Aunt Eleanor has bought his sketches for the cartoons.{194}”
Silvia burst out laughing.
“Then Aunt Joanna has bought the cartoons themselves,” she said. “But don’t suggest that to mother. Or rather, if you want me to talk about it all to her, I won’t. Aunt Joanna, you see, wants to, what they call wipe mother’s eye. I’m quite certain of it. And if mother got wind of it, she wouldn’t part with that wretched picture for a million.”
“But how odd——”
“Yes; that’s her oddness. I said we had got odd parents. And I doubt—at least, there’s no doubt about it at all—whether she will let your father have back the one cartoon that she has got for what she paid for it. She doesn’t want any money, and she’s as generous as she can be, bless her, but she won’t be ‘done.’ The picture is hers, and she won’t let him have it back at a penny less than he is going to receive for it. Oh, let’s talk about something more interesting. Anyhow, you and I don’t want the cartoon we’ve got, or any more like it. But people are so queer, and I love their queernesses: they are part of them. After all, the queernesses in people are exactly what makes their individuality. You’re queer, I’m queer.”
“Why am I queer?” demanded Peter.
“I’ve told you so often,” said she.
Peter guessed at that what his imputed141 queerness was. It was true that she had told him often, but it was true also that there was a thing which a lover was never tired of repeating.
“Never: never once,” said he.
“As if I wasn’t doing it all day,” she said. “Taking advantage, I mean, of your queerness—not merely telling you about it directly, but being so much more direct than just telling you. What’s your queer{195}ness, indeed, if it isn’t that you allow me to be queer, just because you are?”
“You’ve changed the subject,” said he. “You’re talking about your queerness now.”
“It’s all the same queerness,” she said.
Peter could squint142 more atrociously than most people, and now, looking at Silvia, he allowed himself to contemplate143 the end of his nose. Silvia couldn’t stand this trick, and a nonsensical ritual had built itself up upon it.
“Oh, Peter, put your eyes back!” she cried.
“I can’t. They’ve stuck. Push them back for me.”
He shut his eyes, and Silvia stroked the lids from the nose outwards144.
“They will stick some day,” she said,” and then I shall divorce you.”
Peter looked at her straight again.
“Go on about the queerness,” he said.
“Yours or mine?” she asked.
“You said they were the same.”
“They are in a way. But your queerness is much the queerest. For it was I whom you loved. What I did wasn’t queer; anything else would have been not queer, but imbecile.... Peter, don’t ever be tired of knowing how awfully I love you. If you’re not there, the thought of it frightens me; there’s something crushing about it. But when you are with me, the only thing that frightens me is the thought that it shouldn’t be so. But why on earth you’re like that—like me, I mean—that’s what is so incomprehensible. Me, you know: this bit of nothing at all.”
Peter became aware, more consciously than through the hints he had previously145 been cognizant of, how, though Silvia’s level was some sun-basked{196} plateau far above him, he welcomed and spread himself in the gleams that came to him. There was a splendour in being loved like that, and at this moment the inherent falsity of his position was just burned out by that consuming ray. Her love, not in the least masculine, was yet male in its adoring self-surrender; his, as regards her, though not in the least feminine, was female in its reception of it. There was an ecstasy146 in being adored by so magnificent a lover. Even as in material ways, she showered herself on the Danae for whom, in their drama, he was cast, so in the subtler and splendid beauty of the soul, she poured herself out in a love that passed the love of woman. And that very quality, here triumphantly147 shining, drew out the essential fragrance148 of his.
“More,” he said, “more nothing at all.”
She seemed to step from her height at that, diving down to him, entrancingly tender.
“That’s all there is, my darling,” she said. “If you want more than I’ve got, you must teach it me. Now I won’t be absurd any longer. Look, there’s a moorhen!”
This was quite in the habitual manner. Like a lark149, she sang for so long as she was in the air, then folded her wings and dropped to her nest. The singing was over, and it left her panting with the ecstasy of it. But Peter, to continue that metaphor, received something of a shock; he had not known she would so swiftly come to ground. Yet that sudden dip was equally characteristic of him; he probably had shown her the trick of it, for often he had done just that. The sky, after all, extended to the actual ground: there was no intermediate element.
“It’s a coot,” he said.
“I don’t care. I only hope it’s happy,” said she.{197} “Oh, my dear, there’s the bell for lunch, and we’re half a mile from the house. The Jackdaw will peck us for being late.”
“Not our fault. The lake shouldn’t have been so long.”
“We might fill some of it up,” said she. “Let’s talk sensibly. What were we saying before you began to talk nonsense? Oh, yes, pictures, pittance——”
“Papa,” said he.
“Peter.... I can’t think of any more.”
“Peter’s papa purchases the picture he sold for a pittance,” said he. “American headlines. Make another.”
This sort of monkey-gymnastics of the mind, at which Peter and Nellie and all the rest of them so fluently excelled, was always productive in Silvia of an intense gravity; she made her contributions with effort, struggle and bewilderment, amazed at how quickly everybody else—everybody else was so clever—made words out of words, and reeled off the names of eminent27 men which began with an X....
“Something about mother,” said she with knitted brows. “I must manage—oh, Peter, isn’t that good?—I must manage to make mother——”
Peter giggled150.
“That’s not the right form,” he said. “You must get the right form. Let’s see. ‘Millionaire mother manages to make—to make—oh, yes—money on Mr. Mainwaring’s monstrosity,’” he finished up in a great hurry.
“Oh, Peter, how lovely!” said she. “How do you do it? And why can’t I?”
Mr. Mainwaring rose magnificently to his tenancy of the state-rooms, feeling that it had been a very{198} proper arrangement to put him there. Here was the father of the master of Howes paying a visit to his son; here, too, in the same earthly vesture, was the creator of the great cartoons which, among all the futile151 crosses and cenotaphs and hysterical152 verse and prose, were not unworthy of the heroic history which they commemorated153. With the same abandoned thoroughness with which he could be, when suitable, the rollicking, jovial154 boy, hungry for his tea, or the robust-throated Toreador, so now he saw in the assignation of the state-rooms to his occupancy a very proper and touching155 homage156 on the part of Peter or Silvia, or Mrs. Wardour (or more probably on their joint157 acclamation) to the sovereignty of his Art. These pleasant reflections that accompanied the appreciative exploration of his territory suggested that there was, so to speak, a little state business to be done, the nature of which he believed he had adequately indicated to Peter. Peter, good lad, would no doubt have attended to it, and it would be well for him to give his report.
Probably it was as much the desire of having this conversation with Peter secure from interruption as anything else that caused him to send a message to his son that Mr. Mainwaring would be much obliged if he would spare him a few minutes in the state-rooms before dressing158 time; but it certainly fitted in pleasantly with his sovereignty that Peter should be requested to present himself, and that Mr. Mainwaring should be set on a throne of Spanish brocade.
He waved Peter to a seat. Peter seemed to prefer to perch127 himself on the tall steel fireguard. He divined with sufficient accuracy his father’s pose, and was partly amused, partly irritated. Silvia would have been wholly amused.{199}
“Hope you’ll be comfortable here, father,” he said.
Mr. Mainwaring glanced round him.
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “I shall do very well. Ah, by the way, before we get to business, I have a letter from your mother which she asked me to give you. Perhaps you would hand me my despatch159 case.... Here it is.”
Peter was lighting160 a cigarette, and spoke between the puffs161.
“Right. I’ll take it when I go,” he said. His father looked at the tapestried walls.
“My dear boy,” he said, “I don’t know if I am right to allow you to smoke here.”
Peter dropped his match on the carpet. He did that on purpose.
“Oh, don’t bother about that,” he said. “I allow myself. Now I suppose you want to talk to me about that cartoon?”
“You got my letter? You have arranged what I indicated?”
Peter felt his irritation gaining on him.
“Well, your letter was rather—rather involved, rather vague and magnificent,” he said. “What Silvia and I made out of it was that you had been offered a higher price for work that Mrs. Wardour had commissioned you to do for her, and wanted to call it off. That seemed to be the general drift of it.”
“No; there was no definite commission,” said he. “I mentioned that.”
“Mrs. Wardour was under the impression that there was. But that, I think, can be arranged, for the series was intended—commissioned or not doesn’t matter—to hang in the gallery here. This is Silvia’s house, you see, and in a way mine, so that if we con{200}sent there will be—under certain conditions—no difficulty with my mother-in-law. Silvia has talked to her about it. We cordially consent, father. We are both quite willing that you should paint the rest of the series for somebody else.”
Mr. Mainwaring could find no fault with the substance of the speech; indeed, it gave him precisely what he was wanting. But, in spite of Peter’s neutrality of statement, he found it dealing162 some dastardly wound to his vanity.
“Ha! You and Silvia, it appears, don’t want the great series,” he remarked.
“But apparently163 somebody else does,” said Peter. “And you said in your letter that they were exciting a stupendous interest in artistic circles. That’s all right, then; we are very glad.”
“Yes, glad to get rid of them,” said the insatiable one.
Peter practically never lost his temper. He used it as a stored-up force. But certainly the sight of his father on the Spanish throne, looking like Zeus, did not predispose him to exert his habitual pleasantness.
“You are, of course, at liberty to make any comments you choose,” he said. “You are vexed164 with me because I give you your way quite willingly instead of reluctantly. By the way, don’t tell me, and in particular don’t tell Mrs. Wardour, whether the ‘artistic circles’ is another expression for Lady Darley. If it is, I think it highly probable that she would refuse to let you have back the first cartoon, if that is part of your plan. You would, in that case, I suppose, have to copy it if she allowed you to.”
Mr. Mainwaring rose to a splendour of pomposity165.
“Copy?” he said. “And could I copy the fiery166 execution of it? You speak of pictures, my Peter, as{201} if they could be produced like boots or hats. The intending purchaser—I do not say whether or no I refer to Lady Darley—wants no cold replica167. She insists on the one that came hot and terrible from the furnace of my imagination.”
“Then on certain conditions,” said Peter, “Lady Darley—I mean the purchaser—may have it.”
“Name them,” said his father, looking like a captive king.
“The first is that you completely withdraw, and if possible regret, the use of the expression ‘pittance,’ in connection with the price you received for it. There’s an implication of meanness about it with regard to Mrs. Wardour.”
Mr. Mainwaring clicked his thumb and finger as if to say, “That for what I sold it for.”
“I make no such implication,” he said. “Mrs. Wardour or anybody else is well within her rights in acquiring fine work at such prices as the artist is obliged from straitened circumstances to accept.”
“The point is,” said Peter, “that you hadn’t often, if ever, been obliged to accept a thousand guineas before for any picture.”
“And may not an artist, after years of unremitting endeavour, be allowed to come into his own and enjoy the appreciation168 he has long merited?” asked Mr. Mainwaring.
“Certainly he may: we are all delighted. But when he does—when, that is to say, you at length receive a high price for a picture, you shouldn’t, because you are offered immediately afterwards a higher price, talk of a pittance as applied169 to the first. You thought yourself, father,” continued Peter pleasantly and inexorably, “remarkably fortunate to get a thousand guineas.{202}”
Mr. Mainwaring, at this, displayed the versatility170 of a quick-change artist. It was pretty well demonstrated that Peter was not impressed by the majestic171 attitude, and he yodelled and burst into a laugh.
“Well, well, my Peter,” he said, “you shall have it your own way. It was no pittance. I ought not to have called it a pittance—mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Pittance it is—let us distinguish, my dear—when I contrast it with the subsequent offer that has reached me, but at the time a thousand guineas seemed to me a very fair remuneration. I had been too modest about my value, it appears now. Ah, yes, but recognition is pleasant enough, and when the brush slips from my hand, and my spirit flies” (he made a circular motion of his arms as if swimming) “to join the mightier172 dead, the Mainwaring estate will be found not too inconsiderable to place beside the fortunes of the Wardours. But that will not, I hope, be for a long time yet,” he added, as the notion of picturing himself in front of some great canvas with the brush slipping from his nerveless hands, supported by Silvia and Peter, occurred to him with an almost ominous173 vividness.
“Quite,” said Peter in general acknowledgment of this magnificence. “There remains174 then one thing to settle, and that is the price at which you repurchase the cartoon of which Mrs. Wardour is the present possessor.”
Mr. Mainwaring did not for the moment see the bearing of this, and remained splendid.
“I should not dream of repaying her one penny less than what I received for it,” he said. “The full price, Peter: assure her of that.”
Peter thought it better to let another aspect of the{203} case strike his father, without suggesting it, and was silent till Mr. Mainwaring spoke again.
“H’m. I see what you mean,” he said.
“I hoped you would, because really there doesn’t seem to be any reason why she should let you have for a thousand guineas a thing which is now indubitably hers, and which you will immediately sell for a considerably higher sum.”
Mr. Mainwaring began to regret that he had said quite so much about the utter impossibility of recapturing the fire of the original in a copy.
“You would be offering her, you must remember,” Peter added, “a pittance for her picture.”
“You think I ought to give her what I shall receive for it?” asked Mr. Mainwaring.
Peter kept steadily175 before him his distaste of his father “scoring off” Mrs. Wardour. The whole thing, though humorous, was rather sordid; but he knew that he rather liked himself in the part he was playing in it.
“I think the justice of that view will appeal to you,” he said. “You couldn’t very well do otherwise.”
Mr. Mainwaring was silent a moment, and then decided176 to be completely superb.
“I have no experience in business or in bargaining,” he said. “If you tell me that is right and fair and proper, I yield.”
“I think it’s your only means of getting the picture,” said Peter. “So that’s settled, is it? Oh, the letter from my mother. Thanks. Dinner at half-past eight.{204}”
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收听单词发音
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1
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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3
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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rectified
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| [医]矫正的，调整的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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7
expiration
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| n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物 | |
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fructifying
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| v.结果实( fructify的现在分词 )；使结果实，使多产，使土地肥沃 | |
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caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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10
marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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11
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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12
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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13
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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14
meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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15
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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underlay
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的过去式 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起n.衬垫物 | |
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17
germane
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| adj.关系密切的，恰当的 | |
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conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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19
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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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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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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24
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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26
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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27
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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28
augured
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| v.预示，预兆，预言( augur的过去式和过去分词 )；成为预兆；占卜 | |
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29
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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30
deter
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| vt.阻止，使不敢，吓住 | |
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31
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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34
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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crescendo
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| n.(音乐)渐强，高潮 | |
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37
tuning
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| n.调谐，调整，调音v.调音( tune的现在分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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41
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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42
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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43
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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44
pittance
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| n.微薄的薪水，少量 | |
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45
deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deduction
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| n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎 | |
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47
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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48
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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49
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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50
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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51
attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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52
dole
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| n.救济，（失业）救济金；vt.（out）发放，发给 | |
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53
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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54
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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55
countenanced
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| v.支持，赞同，批准( countenance的过去式 ) | |
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56
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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57
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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58
immunity
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| n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权 | |
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59
flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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60
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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61
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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62
affluence
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| n.充裕，富足 | |
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63
bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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64
omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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65
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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66
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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67
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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68
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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69
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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70
inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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71
piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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72
tapestried
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| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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74
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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75
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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76
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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77
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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78
exiguous
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| adj.不足的，太少的 | |
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79
dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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80
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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81
adhesive
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| n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的 | |
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82
amplified
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| 放大，扩大( amplify的过去式和过去分词 )； 增强； 详述 | |
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83
penuriousness
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84
enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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85
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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86
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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87
chic
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| n./adj.别致(的)，时髦(的)，讲究的 | |
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88
recipients
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| adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器 | |
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89
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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90
sordidness
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| n.肮脏；污秽；卑鄙；可耻 | |
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91
enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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92
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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93
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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94
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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95
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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96
encompassed
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| v.围绕( encompass的过去式和过去分词 )；包围；包含；包括 | |
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97
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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98
entanglement
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| n.纠缠，牵累 | |
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99
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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100
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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101
candidness
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| n.耿直，自然，公正 | |
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102
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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103
depreciate
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| v.降价，贬值，折旧 | |
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104
adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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105
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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106
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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107
sheathed
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| adj.雕塑像下半身包在鞘中的；覆盖的；铠装的；装鞘了的v.将（刀、剑等）插入鞘( sheathe的过去式和过去分词 )；包，覆盖 | |
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108
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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109
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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110
lures
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| 吸引力，魅力（lure的复数形式） | |
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111
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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112
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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113
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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114
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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115
wrens
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| n.鹪鹩( wren的名词复数 ) | |
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116
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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117
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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118
scamper
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| v.奔跑，快跑 | |
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119
scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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120
screeching
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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121
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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122
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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123
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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124
audition
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| n.(对志愿艺人等的)面试(指试读、试唱等) | |
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125
intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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126
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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127
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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128
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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129
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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130
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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131
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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132
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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133
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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134
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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135
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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136
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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137
alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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138
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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139
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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140
auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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141
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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142
squint
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| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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143
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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144
outwards
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| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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145
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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146
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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147
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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148
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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149
lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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150
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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151
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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152
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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153
commemorated
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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154
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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155
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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156
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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157
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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158
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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159
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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160
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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161
puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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162
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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163
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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164
vexed
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| 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 | |
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165
pomposity
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| n.浮华；虚夸；炫耀；自负 | |
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166
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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167
replica
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| n.复制品 | |
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168
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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169
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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170
versatility
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| n.多才多艺，多样性，多功能 | |
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171
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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172
mightier
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| adj. 强有力的，强大的，巨大的 adv. 很，极其 | |
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173
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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174
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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175
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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176
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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