Nor is this the extent of their knowledge. They can talk fluently about all the great dressmakers and milliners that dwell in the centres of fashion, and even of those so exclusive as to cater14 only to the best-bred Americans, and they are always the first to appear in the new style, even though they have no place to show it but the street. Moreover, they know every scandal in Europe, scandals of aristocrats15 and prime donne, that no newspaper has ever scented16. They discuss the great and the famous of the world as casually17 as their own acquaintance, dropping titles and other formalities in a manner that bespeaks18 a keen and secret pleasure that the less gifted or less energetic mortal may sigh for in vain.
Mrs. Bode came of good pioneer stock, her sturdy Kansas grandfather, Daniel Tay, having been among the first to brave the hardships of the emigrant19 trail and make “his pile” in California. Not that he made it in one picturesque moment. He was only moderately lucky in the mines. But he could make pies, and miners were willing to pay little bags of gold-dust for them. He set up a shop for rough-and-ready clothing in Sacramento, with a pie counter under the awning20. At all times he made a handsome income, and when the miners came trooping in drunk and reckless, he cleaned up almost as much as the gambling-houses.
In due course, he migrated to San Francisco, and, abandoning a plebeian21 method of livelihood22 of which his wife had learned to disapprove23, embarked24 in a commission business including hardware and groceries. In those wild and fluctuating days he made and lost several fortunes. When his son, Daniel Second, grew up, he was a fairly prosperous merchant, with connections in Central America and China. His coffee, spices, teas, and such other delicacies25 as even the renowned26 California soil refused to produce were the best on the market; and had it not been for the old gaming fever in his blood, which sent him on periodic sprees into the stock-market, he would have accumulated a large fortune and permitted his wife and daughters to assist in the making of San Francisco’s aristocracy. But they were always being either burned out or sold out of their fine new houses, and Mrs. Tay died a disappointed woman. The Southerners held the social fort and she had never crossed its threshold. To be sure, she had washed the miners’ overalls27 in the rear of the Sacramento store while the pies were being devoured28 in front, but ancient history is made very rapidly in California, and there were signs that several no better than herself were “getting their wedge in.”
Mr. Tay soon followed his wife into the imposing29 vault30 on Lone31 Mountain, but not before adjuring32 his son to “let stocks alone.” The advice was unnecessary, for Daniel Second was a shrewd cautious man, immune from every temptation the fascinating city of San Francisco could offer. He put the business he had inherited on a sure foundation, rebuilt modestly whenever he was burned out, and was impervious33 to the laments34 of his pretty second wife that they were “nobodies.” Mrs. Tay felt that heaven had endowed her with that talent most envied of women, the social, but her husband was more than content to be a nobody so long as his financial future was secure; and it was not until his oldest daughter, Charlotte,—or “Cherry” as she was fondly called,—came home from boarding-school for the last time, that he was persuaded to buy a large and hideous35 “residence” with a mansard roof, a cupola, and bow-windows, suddenly thrown on the market by a disappearing capitalist, and “splurge a bit.”
The splurging carried them but a short distance. St. Mary’s Hall, Benicia, where Cherry had received the last of her education, was an aristocratic institution, and she had made some good friends among the girls. But although they came to her first party, and she was asked now and again to large entertainments at their homes, it was more than patent that the Tays were not “in it.” There was no reason in the world why they should not be, for they were not even “impossible” (as the old folks had been); but whether Mrs. Tay was less gifted socially than she had fancied, or people so long out of it were regarded with suspicion or cold indifference36 by the venerable holders37 of the social fort, or Tay’s modest fortune was not worth while, in view of the enormous fortunes that had been made recently in the railroads and the Nevada mines, and “Society was already large enough,” certain it is that Mrs. Tay and her step-daughter spent long days in the library of their big house in the Western Addition, consoling themselves with books (and who shall say that Burke and the Almanach de Gotha were not among them?) or “the finest view in the world.”
This unhappy state of affairs lasted for two years, and then Cherry had an inspiration. One of her father’s friends was the owner of a powerful newspaper, and he had a friend as powerful as himself in the state whence came the present Minister to the Court of St. James. Armed with letters from these two makers13 and unmakers of reputations, Cherry took her mother to London and requested to be presented at court. The request was granted, and this great event, as well as their subsequent adventures in the most good-natured society in the world, were cabled to the San Francisco newspapers.
Mr. Tay had snorted in disgust when the plan was unfolded to him, but had yielded to sulks, tears, and hysterics. One season, however, was all he would finance; but his wife and daughter, although they had hoped to remain abroad for two years, returned with the less reluctance38 as they were now “names” in the inhospitable city of their birth. These names had been embroidered39 for four months with royalty40, a few of the best titles in Burke, and many of the lesser41. (“Precious few will know the difference,” said Cherry, scornfully.)
Their position, as a matter of fact, was somewhat improved; Cherry was admitted to the sacred Assemblies, and people allowed themselves to admire her Parisian gowns, her pretty face, and refined vivacious42 manner. At the end of the season she captured the son of one of the new great millionnaires. The Tays had arrived. The past was forgotten by themselves if not by other walking blue books, that fine scavenger43 element in Society which allowed no one permanently44 to sink “pasts,” ages, ancestral pies, saloons, brothels, wash-tubs, or any of the humble7 but honest beginnings which fain would repose45 beneath the foundations of San Francisco. But the Tays, like many another, fancied their past forgotten, whatever the fate of their neighbors; and, as a matter of fact, they were now so firmly established that three divorces could not have dislodged them. Mrs. Bode, in her superb mansion46 on Nob Hill, forged ahead so steadily47 that she enjoyed excellent prospects48 of being a Society Queen, when the old guard should have died off, and Mrs. Tay had stuccoed her house, shaved off the bow-windows, flattened49 the roof, replaced rep and damask with silks and tapestries50, and both were happy women.
All this may sound contemptible51 to those that enjoy a proper scorn of Society; but it must be remembered that as the world is at present constituted, women, not forced to work for their living, and born without talent, have little outlet52 for their energies. And of these energies they often have as full a supply as men. Besides, they don’t know any better.
Mrs. Bode was thirty-two at the time the Tay family entered Julia’s life, and although she had been abroad many times since her marriage, this was the first visit of her younger brother and sister; Mr. Tay “having no use for Europe and the Californians who were always running about in it when they had the finest slice of God’s own country to live in.” But Mrs. Bode was an avowed53 enemy of the “provincial point of view,” and justly prided herself upon being one of the most cosmopolitan54 women in San Francisco society. She was determined55 that her little half-sister, to whom she was devoted56, having no children of her own, should enjoy all the advantages she so sadly had lacked, and Dan’s obstreperous57 Americanism had “tired” her. So, for the last eight months, with or without the amiable58 Mr. Bode, and in spite of cables from pa, who wished Daniel Third to finish his education as quickly as possible and enter the firm, she had piloted her charges through ruins, picture galleries, cities ancient and modern, museums, and mountain landscapes; besides forcing them to study French and German two hours a day with travelling tutors; until Emily yawned in the face of everything, and Dan threatened to cable to his father for funds and return by himself. But Mrs. Bode, whose own leave of absence was expiring, held them well in hand, and announced her intention of bringing them over every summer. This program she carried out as far as Emily was concerned, but it was fifteen years before Daniel Tay found time or inclination59 to leave his native land again.
Their reception at the castle was all that Julia could have wished. Mrs. Winstone was delighted to see them, Mrs. Bode being impeccable in her critical eyes inasmuch as she had no accent, did not flaunt60 her riches, and was never so aggressively well dressed that she made an Englishwoman feel dowdy61. If she had been told of the Sacramento store, with the pies in front and the wash-tubs behind, it would not have affected62 her judgment63 in the least. She would have replied that all Americans had some such origin; and nothing amused her more than their ancestral pretensions64. “New is new, and republics are republics,” she said once to Mrs. Macmanus, when discussing a grande dame65 from New York. “What silly asses66 they are to talk ‘family’ in Europe! We like some and we don’t others, and that’s all there is to it.”
As neither painted, she and Mrs. Bode kissed each other warmly, and, the American having had her fill of ruins long since, they went off to a comfortable fireside to gossip, leaving Emily and Daniel to Julia. The little girl was openly rebellious67, when ordered to investigate the ruined portion of the castle, but Daniel would have followed Julia straight out into the North Sea. He had never been insensible to the charm of girls, but here was a goddess, and he proceeded to worship her in the whole-hearted fashion of fifteen, and with an enthusiasm the more possessing as it knew no guile68.
They wandered through old rooms and passages, under and over ground, ivy-draped and stark69, Julia recounting the castle’s many histories. Emily lagged behind and wilfully70 closed her ears. Finally, having emerged upon the flat roof of a tower, she saw that she could find her way back to the garden without getting lost, announced her intention curtly71, and ran down the spiral stair.
“Good riddance,” said her brother, as he and Julia sat down to rest. “But I don’t blame her. This is the last dinky old castle that I look at this trip. America for me, anyhow. Don’t think I’m a Western savage—that is what Cherry calls me—it’s awfully72 good of you to climb round like this and spiel off such a lot, and this really is the dandiest castle I’ve seen. But I’ve been dragged through about a hundred, and as for pictures—wow! They can only be counted by miles. I’ll never look at another as long as I live. Give me chromos, anyhow. We have some in the garret at home, and I like them better than the old masters—got some color and go in them, and not so much religion.”
Julia laughed outright73. She thought him a young barbarian74, but refreshing75 as the crystal water of a spring after too much old burgundy—this simile76 inspired by memory of the army of aristocrats she had met since her arrival in England. These gentlemen, most of them splendid to look at, were either formal and correct even when most languid, or bit their ideas out in slang, giving the impression that they thought in slang, dreamed in slang, indubitably made love in it; but it was a slang, which, loose and ugly as it might be, often meaningless, seemed to cry “hands off” to all without the pale. Some were affected, but all of these were affected in precisely77 the same way. Each and every one was full of an inherited wisdom which betrayed itself in manner and certain rigid78 mental attitudes, even where brain was lacking. To Julia, at this moment, they seemed in an advanced stage of petrifaction79. Even Nigel was a grandfather in comparison with this bright green shoot from the new world. And Julia warmed to his frank admiration80. The men to whom she had done duty as hostess since the 15th of September had paid her little or no attention. They were interested in some one else, they found her too young, they were too tired for flirtation81 after a long day with the guns, or they were wary82 about “poaching on the preserves of a cad like France. He had a look in his eye at times that would warn any man off.”
Whatever the cause, Julia, whose natural feminine instinct for conquest had been awakened83 during her brief season in London while she was still a girl, and who missed Nigel’s adoration84, was willing to accept her due at the hands of fifteen, nothing better offering. Besides, the boy amused her, and she was seldom amused these days.
“Tell me more about California,” she said; and under a rapid fire of questions Dan artlessly revealed the history of his family (he was very proud of it), and, incidentally, told her much of the social peculiarities85 of his city. It was a strange story to Julia, who knew nothing of young civilizations, and was profoundly imbued86 with a respect for aristocracies. She felt that she should place this young scion87 of a quite terrible family somewhere between the steward88 of Bosquith and Mr. Leggins; but when she looked squarely into that open ingenuous89 fearless almost arrogant90 face, the face of an intelligent boy born in a land whose theory is equality, and in whose short life poverty and snubs had played no part, she found herself accepting him as an equal. His face had not the fine high-bred beauty of Nigel’s nor the mathematical regularity91 of her husband’s, but the eyes were keener, the brow was larger and fuller, the mouth more mobile than any she knew; and these divergencies fascinated her. But she drew herself apart in some resentment92 as he asked her abruptly:?—
“What does your husband do for a living?”
“Do—why, nothing.”
“Nothing? Great Scott! What sort of a man is he? When American men don’t work, even if they have money, we despise them. They generally have to, anyhow. If they inherit money they have to work to hang on to it. Some of them drink themselves to death, but they don’t count.”
Julia had colored haughtily93, but wondered at her eagerness in exclaiming: “My husband was in the navy, but he has resigned and is now a member of Parliament.”
“Well, that’s doing something, but not much. I remember, now, Cherry told me he’s going to be a duke. Then, I suppose, he’ll do nothing at all.”
“Oh, yes, dukes have to look after their estates; they don’t leave everything to their stewards94; they take a paternal95 interest in the tenantry; sometimes they are magistrates96, and sometimes they go to the House of Lords.”
“Well, that’s just playing with life, to my mind,” said young Tay, with conviction. “A man isn’t a man who doesn’t earn his keep and make his pile. I’m almost sorry my father is well off: I’d like to make my own fortune. But there’s this satisfaction; if I don’t work as hard as he does, when my time comes, I’ll be a beggar fast enough. Competition’s awful; and even people that do nothing but cut coupons97 for a living often get stuck. People are rich to-day and poor to-morrow, when they’re not sharp. Makes life interesting. But just living on ancestral acres—Gee98! I’d die of old age before I was twenty-five.”
“I wonder if that is the way Ishbel felt?” murmured Julia, thoughtfully. Ishbel’s sudden departure from the tenets of her class had astounded99 her, and, in spite of explanations, she was puzzled yet.
“Ishbel?”
“Lady Ishbel Jones. She is the daughter of a poor Irish peer, and married a very rich City man. After five years of society and pleasure—she is beautiful and charming—she suddenly decided100 she wanted to make money herself and opened a hat shop in Bond Street. She would just suit you.”
But young Tay frowned and shook his head vigorously. “Not a bit of it. Women were not made to work, but to be worked for. If I had my way, every man should be made to support all his poor women relations, and if the women hadn’t any men relations, then I’d have the other men taxed to support them. It makes me sick seeing girls going to work in the morning when I am starting for my ride in the Park. And a rich man to let his wife work! I call that downright disgusting.”
Julia, much to her astonishment101, resented this speech. “That’s tyranny of another kind. Women are not dolls. You talk like a Turk.”
“Turk? Dolls!” He arose in his wrath102. “I’d have you know that American women do just about as they please, and American men are famous for letting them.” He added, with his natural honesty: “Some are strict and old-fashioned, like my father, but nobody could say he wasn’t generous. And what I told you is the reputation of American men, anyhow.”
“Well, sit down again, please. I am surprised. I thought you would respect Ishbel.”
“Not I. She’ll spoil her looks, and then where’ll she be?”
Julia, in a moment of prescience, asked with a mixture of wistfulness and disdain103, “Do you care so much for mere5 beauty?”
“Betcherlife. I hate ugliness, and I love pretty girls. We have them in San Francisco by wholesale104. To be ugly is a crime out there. I intend to marry the prettiest I can find just as soon as I’m old enough.”
“And some day—when she loses her youth and beauty?”
“Oh, I’ll love her just the same, for she’ll be my wife, and I’ll be old myself then, and have nothing to say. But I’ll have had the pick. I intend to have the pick of everything going.”
“Going?”
“In life. I must teach you our slang. English slang has no sense.”
“I fancy I could understand you better if you did. But I’ve seen men whose wives were once young and pretty, and who are always after some beauty twenty years younger than themselves—thirty—forty?—”
Then she blushed, feeling that such a display of worldly knowledge was a desecration105 in the presence of fifteen summers.
But young Tay answered indifferently: “Oh, we’ve plenty of those at home. The bald heads always make the worst fools of themselves. But I mean to have a real romance in my life and stick to it. Shall only have time for one, as when once I put on the harness I mean to keep it on. I’m going to be one of the biggest millionnaires in the United States. Say, what made you marry so young? You don’t look more than sixteen.”
“I’m nineteen,” replied Julia, haughtily.
“Well, don’t get huffy. You ought to see how extra sweet Cherry looks when some one tells her she looks ten years younger than she is?—”
“So does Aunt Maria!” Julia laughed again. “Fancy a boy like you noticing such things.”
“I’m fifteen, not so young for a man, particularly when he’s been brought up in a family of women. He gets on to all their curves—I tell you what! And I can tell you that many an American boy of fifteen is supporting his mother—whole family.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“I do. It’s not so easy, but it’s done every day. I don’t pretend there are not lots that let their sisters work, but that’s either because they can’t get along, no matter how hard they try, or because there’s a screw loose—foreign blood, most likely. No real American would do it. If pa died to-morrow, I’d quit school and go right into the firm. Nobody’d get the best of me, neither.”
It was impossible to resist such firm self-confidence. Julia looked at him in open admiration.
“Say!” he exclaimed, with one of his dazzling leaps among the peaks of conversation. “Would you mind letting your hair down?”
“Why—What?”
“I’d like to see all of it.” And young Tay spoke106 in the tone of one unaccustomed to have his requests ignored. “Do.”
Julia looked him over, shrugged107 her shoulders, then took out the combs and pins. After all, he was only a boy, and she was feeling singularly contented108. It was seldom that she had experienced more than a fleeting109 moment of companionship. She had come near to it with Nigel, Bridgit, and Ishbel, but they seemed years older than herself, and vastly superior. She would have been unwilling110 to admit it, but at this moment she really felt sixteen.
“Jiminy!” exclaimed young Tay, as the breeze lifted the shining masses of hair. “There’s nothing to beat it even in California. Red? Not a bit of it. It’s the color of flames, and flames are a clear red-yellow—like Guinea gold.”
He didn’t touch it, but his eyes sparkled as he watched it float, or hang about her white face and brilliant eyes in their black frames. “Gee! But I’d like to marry you. Why couldn’t you wait awhile?”
“It wouldn’t have done any good,” said Julia, who, like most females, was of a literal turn. “I shouldn’t be here, but in the West Indies, and you might never go there.”
“Well, what’s done’s done,” replied the boy, gloomily, and with the agreeable sensation of being the blighted111 hero of a romance so early in life. “What sort of a chap is your husband? I shall hate him, but I’d like to know?—”
“He—well—he’s—”
“You’re not so dead gone on him,” said the boy, shrewdly.
“Not what?”
“More slang. Not—oh, hang it, it doesn’t sound so well in plain English. That’s what slang’s for. How old is he?”
“Forty-one.”
“Great Scott!”
The boy betrayed his own youth in that exclamation112, in spite of his precocious113 wisdom. Forty-one suggests senile decay to arrogant fifteen. Julia’s own youth leaped to that heartfelt outbreak, and she burst into tears.
Young Tay forgot that he was in love with her, and patted her heartily114 on the back. “Oh, say! Don’t do that!” he cried. “But what did you do it for?”
Julia, to the first confidant she had ever had, sobbed115 out her story. Daniel pranced116 about the roof of the tower and kicked loose stones into space. “I—I—hate him,” concluded Julia, then stopped in terror, realizing that she had never admitted as much to herself. But she squarely faced the truth. “I do. And—I’m—I’m frightened.”
“See here.” Daniel sat down beside her once more. “You’re only a kid, and this is the very worst I ever heard. Talk about cruelty to animals! I’ve read some of those novels that are always lying round the house—English high life, and all that rot—but I supposed they were all made up. I never believed that mothers really made their daughters marry against their will. Why, somehow, it sounds like ancient history. Say—this is what you must do—come to California with us. Cherry’ll manage it. She’s rich, all right, and manages everything and everybody. Then just as soon as I’m old enough I’ll marry you—see?”
“How could I marry you when I’m married already?”
“Divorce. Plain as a pikestaff. And I’ll take bully117 good care of you, and never look at another girl.”
Julia dried her eyes. The plan was alluring118, but in a moment she shook her head. Her keen intuitions warned her not to mention the planets to this ultra-occidental person, but there was another argument equally forcible.
“My husband would kill us both. He—he—I’ve never seen him in a temper—he’s taking care of his heart—but I feel he’s got a horrible one, and he seems to enjoy saying that if ever I looked at another man he’d strangle us both?—”
“Pooh! I guess they all say that when they’re first married?—”
“And he’s cruel to animals. Englishmen are seldom that. It isn’t that I’m really afraid of him now—it’s that I have a presentiment119 that I shall be some day. His eyes are sometimes so strange—not like eyes at all—just glass—he—he—doesn’t look human then.”
“He must be a peach. Gee!—but I’d like to punch him. You’ve got to come with us. That’s certain. I’ll talk Cherry over to-night. She’d just love figuring in a sensation with the British aristocracy.”
“Perhaps she wouldn’t care to offend it,” said the more astute120 female. “From all I hear, the rich Americans that come to London don’t do much to?—”
“Don’t mind my feelings! Queer themselves. I guess not. But I’ll bring her round. Oh, don’t put your hair up!”
“It is time to go back.” Julia gave her hair a dexterous121 twist, wound the coil about her head, and pinned it in place. “You must have your tea.”
“Tea!” The contempt of composite American manhood exploded in his tones.
“Well, you can have whiskey and soda122, although you’re rather young?—”
For the first time Daniel’s magnificent aplomb123 deserted124 him. He flushed and turned away his head. “That’s where you’ve got me. I’ve had orders from pa not to touch alcohol or tobacco until I’m twenty-one. If I do, I’ll lose my chance of being taken into the firm, be put to work as a clerk somewhere, and get no more education. If I pull out all right, I’m to have ten thousand dollars plunk on my twenty-first birthday. You see the San Francisco boys, particularly when they’ve got money, are pretty wild. I don’t say I wouldn’t like to be once in a while, just for the fun of the thing, but I promised to please pa—he was so uneasy, and I’m the only son. But when I get that ten thousand I’m going to blow it in on a big spree—have suppers in the Palace Hotel, and throw all the plates out of the window into the court—just to show what I can do; then settle down. What I’ve made up my mind to do, I’ll do. I’m not a bit afraid of liquor or anything else getting the better of me.”
Julia, who was watching him, was puzzled at the expression of his mobile face. It was not so much that its natural strength was relaxed for a moment by some subtle source of weakness, as that the strong passions of the man stirred in their heavy sleep and sent a fight wave across the clean carefully sentinelled mind above. Julia did not pretend to understand, nor did any ghost in her own depths whisper of the future. She put her arm about his neck and kissed him impulsively125.
“That’s splendid of you. And don’t you ever drink. It killed my father, and it’s killing126 my brother. And it makes people so hideous to look at. Now come down. I don’t want Aunt Maria to scold me. They don’t mean it, all these older people, but they humiliate127 me all the time. You are the only person I’ve met in England that makes me feel it’s not silly to be young.”
She picked her way daintily down the rough staircase, young Tay after her, again with that sense of being willing to follow her to the end of the earth. He even drank a cup of tea. But the ancestral hall, with its women in gay tea-gowns, and a few men who had returned earlier than their more ardent128 companions, made him feel suddenly very young and very American. He looked at Julia, whose place at the tea-table was occupied by Mrs. Winstone, and who was attracting as little attention as Emily, and felt more chivalrously129 in love than ever.
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1 bode | |
v.预示 | |
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2 affiliations | |
n.联系( affiliation的名词复数 );附属机构;亲和性;接纳 | |
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3 cardinal | |
n.(天主教的)红衣主教;adj.首要的,基本的 | |
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4 invaluable | |
adj.无价的,非常宝贵的,极为贵重的 | |
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adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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6 specialized | |
adj.专门的,专业化的 | |
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7 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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adj. 卑下的,谦逊的,粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下,贬低 | |
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9 conversationally | |
adv.会话地 | |
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10 ramifications | |
n.结果,后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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11 malignant | |
adj.恶性的,致命的;恶意的,恶毒的 | |
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12 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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13 makers | |
n.制造者,制造商(maker的复数形式) | |
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vi.(for/to)满足,迎合;(for)提供饮食及服务 | |
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15 aristocrats | |
n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 ) | |
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17 casually | |
adv.漠不关心地,无动于衷地,不负责任地 | |
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18 bespeaks | |
v.预定( bespeak的第三人称单数 );订(货);证明;预先请求 | |
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19 emigrant | |
adj.移居的,移民的;n.移居外国的人,移民 | |
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20 awning | |
n.遮阳篷;雨篷 | |
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21 plebeian | |
adj.粗俗的;平民的;n.平民;庶民 | |
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22 livelihood | |
n.生计,谋生之道 | |
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23 disapprove | |
v.不赞成,不同意,不批准 | |
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24 embarked | |
乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 ); 装载; 从事 | |
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25 delicacies | |
n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 );精致;精美的食物;周到 | |
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26 renowned | |
adj.著名的,有名望的,声誉鹊起的 | |
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吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 ); 耗尽; 津津有味地看; 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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29 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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31 lone | |
adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
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32 adjuring | |
v.(以起誓或诅咒等形式)命令要求( adjure的现在分词 );祈求;恳求 | |
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33 impervious | |
adj.不能渗透的,不能穿过的,不易伤害的 | |
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34 laments | |
n.悲恸,哀歌,挽歌( lament的名词复数 )v.(为…)哀悼,痛哭,悲伤( lament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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35 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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36 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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37 holders | |
支持物( holder的名词复数 ); 持有者; (支票等)持有人; 支托(或握持)…之物 | |
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38 reluctance | |
n.厌恶,讨厌,勉强,不情愿 | |
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39 embroidered | |
adj.绣花的 | |
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40 royalty | |
n.皇家,皇族 | |
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41 lesser | |
adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地 | |
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42 vivacious | |
adj.活泼的,快活的 | |
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43 scavenger | |
n.以腐尸为食的动物,清扫工 | |
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44 permanently | |
adv.永恒地,永久地,固定不变地 | |
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45 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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46 mansion | |
n.大厦,大楼;宅第 | |
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47 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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48 prospects | |
n.希望,前途(恒为复数) | |
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49 flattened | |
[医](水)平扁的,弄平的 | |
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50 tapestries | |
n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 );绣帷,织锦v.用挂毯(或绣帷)装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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51 contemptible | |
adj.可鄙的,可轻视的,卑劣的 | |
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52 outlet | |
n.出口/路;销路;批发商店;通风口;发泄 | |
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53 avowed | |
adj.公开声明的,承认的v.公开声明,承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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54 cosmopolitan | |
adj.世界性的,全世界的,四海为家的,全球的 | |
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55 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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56 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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57 obstreperous | |
adj.喧闹的,不守秩序的 | |
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58 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
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59 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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60 flaunt | |
vt.夸耀,夸饰 | |
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61 dowdy | |
adj.不整洁的;过旧的 | |
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62 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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63 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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64 pretensions | |
自称( pretension的名词复数 ); 自命不凡; 要求; 权力 | |
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65 dame | |
n.女士 | |
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66 asses | |
n. 驴,愚蠢的人,臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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67 rebellious | |
adj.造反的,反抗的,难控制的 | |
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68 guile | |
n.诈术 | |
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69 stark | |
adj.荒凉的;严酷的;完全的;adv.完全地 | |
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70 wilfully | |
adv.任性固执地;蓄意地 | |
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71 curtly | |
adv.简短地 | |
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72 awfully | |
adv.可怕地,非常地,极端地 | |
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73 outright | |
adv.坦率地;彻底地;立即;adj.无疑的;彻底的 | |
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74 barbarian | |
n.野蛮人;adj.野蛮(人)的;未开化的 | |
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75 refreshing | |
adj.使精神振作的,使人清爽的,使人喜欢的 | |
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76 simile | |
n.直喻,明喻 | |
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77 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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78 rigid | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
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79 petrifaction | |
n.石化,化石;吓呆;惊呆 | |
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80 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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81 flirtation | |
n.调情,调戏,挑逗 | |
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82 wary | |
adj.谨慎的,机警的,小心的 | |
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83 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
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84 adoration | |
n.爱慕,崇拜 | |
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85 peculiarities | |
n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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86 imbued | |
v.使(某人/某事)充满或激起(感情等)( imbue的过去式和过去分词 );使充满;灌输;激发(强烈感情或品质等) | |
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87 scion | |
n.嫩芽,子孙 | |
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88 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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89 ingenuous | |
adj.纯朴的,单纯的;天真的;坦率的 | |
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90 arrogant | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的 | |
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91 regularity | |
n.规律性,规则性;匀称,整齐 | |
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92 resentment | |
n.怨愤,忿恨 | |
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93 haughtily | |
adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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94 stewards | |
(轮船、飞机等的)乘务员( steward的名词复数 ); (俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的)管理员; (大型活动的)组织者; (私人家中的)管家 | |
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95 paternal | |
adj.父亲的,像父亲的,父系的,父方的 | |
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96 magistrates | |
地方法官,治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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97 coupons | |
n.礼券( coupon的名词复数 );优惠券;订货单;参赛表 | |
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98 gee | |
n.马;int.向右!前进!,惊讶时所发声音;v.向右转 | |
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99 astounded | |
v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词);愕然;愕;惊讶 | |
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100 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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101 astonishment | |
n.惊奇,惊异 | |
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102 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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103 disdain | |
n.鄙视,轻视;v.轻视,鄙视,不屑 | |
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104 wholesale | |
n.批发;adv.以批发方式;vt.批发,成批出售 | |
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105 desecration | |
n. 亵渎神圣, 污辱 | |
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106 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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107 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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108 contented | |
adj.满意的,安心的,知足的 | |
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109 fleeting | |
adj.短暂的,飞逝的 | |
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110 unwilling | |
adj.不情愿的 | |
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111 blighted | |
adj.枯萎的,摧毁的 | |
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112 exclamation | |
n.感叹号,惊呼,惊叹词 | |
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113 precocious | |
adj.早熟的;较早显出的 | |
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114 heartily | |
adv.衷心地,诚恳地,十分,很 | |
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115 sobbed | |
哭泣,啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 ); 哭诉,呜咽地说 | |
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116 pranced | |
v.(马)腾跃( prance的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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117 bully | |
n.恃强欺弱者,小流氓;vt.威胁,欺侮 | |
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118 alluring | |
adj.吸引人的,迷人的 | |
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119 presentiment | |
n.预感,预觉 | |
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120 astute | |
adj.机敏的,精明的 | |
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121 dexterous | |
adj.灵敏的;灵巧的 | |
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122 soda | |
n.苏打水;汽水 | |
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123 aplomb | |
n.沉着,镇静 | |
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124 deserted | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
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125 impulsively | |
adv.冲动地 | |
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126 killing | |
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财 | |
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127 humiliate | |
v.使羞辱,使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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128 ardent | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,强烈的,烈性的 | |
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129 chivalrously | |
adv.象骑士一样地 | |
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