The house, like its owner, had a certain personality of its own, although it lacked his simplicity1; its square mass being so richly carved that it seemed as if the faintest stroke of the architect's soft pencil had made a dollar mark. So vast, too, was its baronial hall and sweeping2 stairway in pale rose marble, that its owner might have entered it unnoticed, had not Blakeman, the butler, busying himself with the final touches to a dinner table of twenty covers, heard his master's alert step in the hall and hurried to relieve him of his coat and hat. Before, however, the man could reach him, Thayor had thrown both aside, and had stepped to a carved oak table on which were carefully arranged ten miniature envelopes. He bent3 over them for a moment and then turning to the butler asked in an impatient tone:
"How many people are coming to dinner, Blakeman?"
"Twenty, sir," answered Blakeman, his face preserving its habitual4
Sphinx-like immobility.
"Um!" muttered Thayor.
"Can, I get you anything, sir?"
"No, thank you, Blakeman. I have just left the Club."
"A dinner of twenty, eh?" continued Thayor, as Blakeman disappeared with his coat and hat—"our fourth dinner party this week, and Alice never said a word to me about it." Again he glanced at the names of the men upon the ten diminutive5 envelopes, written in an angular feminine hand; most of them those of men he rarely saw save at his own dinners. Suddenly his eye caught the name upon the third envelope from the end of the orderly row.
"Dr. Sperry again!" he exclaimed, half aloud. He opened it and his lips closed tight. The crested6 card bore the name of his wife. As he dropped it back in its place his ear caught the sound of a familiar figure descending7 the stairway—the figure of a woman of perhaps thirty-five, thoroughly8 conscious of her beauty, whose white arms flashed as she moved from beneath the flowing sleeves of a silk tea-gown that reached to her tiny satin slippers9.
She had gained the hall now, and noticing her husband came slowly toward him.
"Where's Margaret?" Thayor asked, after a short pause during which neither had spoken.
The shoulders beneath the rose tea-gown shrugged11 with a gesture of impatience12.
"In the library, I suppose," she returned. Then, with a woman's intuition, she noticed that the third envelope had been touched. Her lips tightened13. "Get dressed, Sam, or you will be late, as usual."
Thayor raised his head and looked at her.
"You never told me, Alice, that you were giving a dinner to-night—I never knew, in fact, until I found these."
"And having found them you pawed them over." There was a subtle, almost malicious14 defiance15 in her tone. "Go on—what else? Come—be quick! I must look at my table." One of her hands, glittering with the rings he had given her, was now on the portiere, screening the dining room from out which came faintly the clink of silver. She stopped, her slippered16 foot tapping the marble floor impatiently. "Well!" she demanded, her impatience increasing, "what is it?"
"Nothing," he replied slowly—"nothing that you can understand," and he strode past her up the sweeping stairs.
Margaret was in the biggest chair in the long library, sitting curled up between its generous arms when he entered. At the moment she was absorbed in following a hero through the pages of a small volume bound in red morocco. Thayor watched her for a moment, all his love for her in his eyes.
"Oh, daddy!" she cried. Her arms were about his neck now, the brown eyes looking into his own. "Oh, daddy! Oh! I'm so glad you've come. I've had such a dandy ride to-day!" She paused, and taking his two hands into her own looked up at him saucily17. "You know you promised me a new pony18. I really must have one. Ethel says my Brandy is really out of fashion, and I've seen such a beauty with four ducky little white feet."
"Where, Puss?" He stroked her soft hair as he spoke10, his fingers lingering among the tresses.
"Oh, at the new stable. Ethel and I have been looking him over; she says he's cheap at seven hundred. May I have him daddy? It looks so poverty-stricken to be dependent on one mount."
Suddenly she stopped. "Why, daddy! What's the matter? You look half ill," she said faintly.
Thayor caught his breath and straightened.
"Nothing, Puss," he answered, regaining19 for the moment something of his jaunty20 manner. "Nothing, dearie. I must go and dress, or I shall be late for our guests."
"But my pony, daddy?" pleaded Margaret.
Thayor bent and kissed her fresh cheek.
"There—I knew you would!" she cried, clapping her hands in sheer delight.
Half an hour later, when the two walked down the sweeping stairs, her soft hand about his neck, the other firmly in his own, they found the mother, now radiant in white lace and jewels, standing21 before the white chimney piece, one slippered foot resting upon the low brass22 fender. Only when the muffled23 slam of a coupe door awoke her to consciousness did she turn and speak to them, and only then with one of those perfunctory remarks indulged in by some hostesses when their guests are within ear-shot.
In the midst of the comedy, to which neither made reply, the heavy portieres were suddenly drawn24 aside and Blakeman's trained voice rang out:
"Dr. Sperry!"
A tall, wiry man with a dark complexion25, alluring26 black eyes and black moustache curled up at the ends, entered hastily, tucking the third envelope in the pocket of his pique27 waistcoat.
A peculiar28 expression flashed subtly from Alice's dark eyes as she smiled and put forth29 her hand. "I'm so glad you could come," she murmured. "I was afraid you would be sent for by somebody at the last moment."
"And I am more than happy, I assure you, dear lady," he laughed back, as he bent and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"And yet I feel so guilty—so very guilty, when there is so much sickness about town this wretched weather," she continued.
Again he smiled—this time in his best professional manner, in the midst of which he shook hands with Margaret and Thayor. Then he added in a voice as if he had not slept for months—
"Yes, there is a lot of grippe about."
Thayor looked at him from under lowered lids.
"I wonder you could have left these poor people," he said sententiously.
Alice, scenting30 danger, stretched forth one white hand and touched the doctor's wrist.
"You came because I couldn't do without you, didn't you, dear doctor?"
Again the portiere opened.
"Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Van Rock—Mr. Kennedy Jones—Miss Trevor," announced Blakeman successively.
Mrs. Thayor's fourth dinner party that week had begun.
* * * * *
As the door closed at midnight upon the last guest, Margaret kissed her father and mother good-night and hurried to her room, leaving the two alone. The dinner had been an ordeal31 to her—never before had she seen her father so absorbed.
"You were very brilliant to-night, were you not?" exclaimed Alice as soon as she and Thayor were alone.
Thayor continued silent, gazing into the library fire, his hands clenched32 deep in his trousers pockets, his shoulders squared.
"A beautiful dinner," she continued, her voice rising—"the best I have had this season, and yet you sat there like a log."
The man turned sharply—so sharply that the woman at his side gave a start.
"Sit down!" he commanded—"over there where I can see you. I have something to say."
She looked at him in amazement33. The determined34 ring in his voice made her half afraid. What had he to say?
"What do you mean?" she retorted.
"Just what I said. Sit down!"
The fair shoulders shrugged. She was accustomed to these outbursts, but not to this ring in his voice.
"Go on—what is it?"
Thayor crossed the room, shut the door and turned the key in the lock. She watched him in silence as he switched off the electric lights along the bookcases, until naught35 illumined the still library but the soft glow of the lamp and the desultory36 flare37 from the hearth38.
Still he did not speak. Finally the storm broke.
"What I have to say to you is this: I'm sick of this wholesale39 giving of dinners."
Alice let go her breath. After all, it was not what was uppermost in her mind.
"Ah! So that's it," she returned.
"That's a part of it," he cried, "but not all."
"And the other part?" she asked, her nervousness returning.
"I'll come to that later," said her husband, with an accent on the last word. "It is necessary that I should begin at the beginning."
"Go on," she murmured nervously40, gazing absently into the fire, her mind at work, her fears suddenly aroused. For the first time its wavering light seemed restful. "Go on—I'm listening."
"The first part is that I'm sick of these dinners. I've told you so before, and yet you had the impertinence to-night to give another and not say a word to me about it." The voice had a cold, incisive41 note in it—the touch of steel to warm flesh.
"Impertinence! Your ideas of hospitality, Sam, are peculiar." Any topic was better than the one she feared.
"Hospitality!" he retorted hotly. "Do you call it hospitality to squander42 my money on the cheap spongers you are continually inviting43 here? Do you call it hospitable44 to force me to sit up and entertain this riff-raff night after night, and then be dragged off to the opera or theatre when I am played out after a hard day's work down town for the money you spend? And just look at Margaret! Do you suppose that these people, this sort of life you daily surround her with, is a sane45 atmosphere in which to bring up our daughter? That's the first thing I've got to say to you, and I want to tell you right here that it's got to stop."
She looked up at him in a half frightened way, wondering whether there was not something back of this sudden tirade46, something she could not fathom47—something she feared to fathom.
"The second thing that I have to tell you is this: I am at the end of my rope, or will be if I keep on. A man can't keep up month in and month out, living my life, and not break down. I saw Leveridge yesterday and he wishes me to get some relief at once. Young Holcomb, who did me a service once at Long Lake, is here, and I am going back home with him. I intend to take a rest for a fortnight—possibly three weeks—in camp."
For an instant she could not speak—so quick came the joyful48 rebound49. Then there rushed over her what his absence might, or might not, mean to her.
"When do you start?" she asked with assumed condescension—her old way of concealing50 her thoughts.
"Saturday night."
"But Saturday night we are giving a dinner," she rejoined in a positive tone. This was one at which she wanted him present.
"You can give it, but without me," he replied doggedly51.
"I tell you you'll do nothing of the sort, Sam. I'm not going to abide52 by the advice of that quack53, Leveridge, nor shall you!" The old dominating tone reasserted itself now that she had read his mind to the bottom.
"Quack or not, you would not be alive to-day but for him, and it is disgraceful for you to talk this way behind his back. And now I am going to bed." With this he turned off the remaining light, leaving only the flicker54 of the firelight behind, shot back the bolt and strode from the room.
As he passed Margaret's door there came softly:
"Is that you, daddy?"
"Yes, dear."
"Come in, daddy, dear." Her clear young voice was confident and tender.
He stopped, pushed back the door and entered her dainty room. She lay propped55 up among the snowy whiteness of the pillows, smiling at him.
Like her mother, Margaret in her womanhood—she was eighteen—was well made; her figure being as firm and well knit as that of a boy. For an instant his eyes wandered over her simple gown of white mull, tied at the throat with the daintiest of pink ribbons, her well shaped ears and the wealth of auburn hair that sprang from the nape of her shapely neck and lay in an undulating mass of gold all over her pretty head. Whatever sorrows life had for him were nothing compared to the joy of this daughter.
All his anger was gone in an instant.
"Little girl, you know it's against orders, this reading in bed," he said in his kindly56 tone. Never in all her life had he spoken a cross word to her. "You'll ruin your eyes and you must be tired."
She closed her book. "Tired—yes, I am tired. Mother's dinners are such dreadfully long ones, and, then, daddy, to-night I've been worrying about you. You seemed so silent at dinner—it made my heart ache. Are you ill, daddy? or has something happened? I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I've been waiting for you. Tell me what has happened—you will tell me, won't you, daddy?" Her smooth, young arms were about his neck now. "Tell me," she pleaded in his ear.
"There's nothing to tell, little girl," he said. "I'm tired too, I suppose; that's all. Come—you must go to sleep. Pouf!" and he blew out the flame of the reading candle at her bedside.
For a long time that night Thayor sat staring into the fire in his room, his mind going over the events of the day—the luncheon—the talk of those around the table—the tones of Holcomb's voice as he said, "It was about his wife," and then the added refrain: "He couldn't get away; his little girl fell ill." How did his case differ?
Suddenly he roused himself and sprang to his feet. No! he was wrong; there was nothing in it. Couldn't be anything in it. Alice was foolish—vain—illogical—but there was Margaret! Nothing would—nothing could go wrong as long as she lived.
With these new thoughts filling his mind, his face brightened. Turning up the reading lamp on his desk he opened his portfolio57, covered half a page and slipped it into an envelope.
This he addressed to Mr. William Holcomb, ready for Blakeman's hand in the morning.
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1
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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3
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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5
diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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6
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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7
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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8
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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9
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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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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11
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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12
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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13
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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14
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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16
slippered
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| 穿拖鞋的 | |
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saucily
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| adv.傲慢地，莽撞地 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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regaining
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| 复得( regain的现在分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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21
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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24
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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25
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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26
alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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pique
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| v.伤害…的自尊心，使生气 n.不满，生气 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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30
scenting
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| vt.闻到（scent的现在分词形式） | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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32
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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35
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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38
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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39
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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42
squander
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| v.浪费，挥霍 | |
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43
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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44
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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45
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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46
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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47
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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48
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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49
rebound
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| v.弹回；n.弹回，跳回 | |
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50
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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51
doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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52
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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53
quack
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| n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子 | |
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54
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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55
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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57
portfolio
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| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
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