When one says "A Wilson Avenue girl," the mind—that is, the Chicago mind—pictures immediately a slim, daring, scented5, exotic creature dressed in next week's fashions; wise-eyed; doll-faced; rapacious6. When chiffon stockings are worn Wilson Avenue's hosiery is but a film over the flesh. Aigrettes and mink7 coats are its winter uniform. A feverish8 district this, all plate glass windows and delicatessen dinners and one-room-and-kitchenette[Pg 151] apartments, where light housekeepers9 take their housekeeping too lightly.
At six o'clock you are likely to see Wilson Avenue scurrying10 about in its mink coat and its French heels and its crêpe frock, assembling its haphazard11 dinner. Wilson Avenue food, as displayed in the ready-cooked shops, resembles in a startling degree the Wilson Avenue ladies themselves: highly coloured, artificial, chemically treated, tempting14 to the eye, but unnutritious. In and out of the food emporia these dart15, buying dabs16 of this and bits of that. Chromatic17 viands18. Vivid scarlet19, orange, yellow, green. A strip of pimento here. A mound20 of mayonnaise there. A green pepper stuffed with such burden of deceit as no honest green pepper ever was meant to hold. Two eggs. A quarter-pound of your best creamery butter. An infinitesimal bottle of cream. "And what else?" says the plump woman in the white bib-apron, behind the counter. "And what else?" Nothing. I guess that'll be all. Mink coats prefer to dine out.
As a cripple displays his wounds and sores, proudly, so Wilson Avenue throws open its one-room front door with a grandiloquent21 gesture as it boasts, "Two hundred and fifty a month!" Shylock, purchasing a paper-thin slice of pinky ham in Wilson Avenue, would know his own early Venetian transaction to have been pure philanthropy.[Pg 152]
It took Raymond and Cora Atwater twelve years to reach this Wilson Avenue, though they carried it with them all the way. They had begun their married life in this locality before it had become a definite district. Twelve years ago the neighbourhood had shown no signs of mushrooming into its present opulence22. Twelve years ago Raymond, twenty-eight, and Cora, twenty-four, had taken a six-room flat at Racine and Sunnyside. Six rooms. Modern. Light. Rental23, $28.50 per month.
"But I guess I can manage it, all right," Raymond had said. "That isn't so terrible—for six rooms."
Cora's full under lip had drawn24 itself into a surprisingly thin straight line. Later, Raymond came to recognize the meaning of that labial25 warning. "We don't need all those rooms. It's just that much more work."
"I don't want you doing your own work. Not unless you want to. At first, maybe, it'd be sort of fun for you. But after a while you'll want a girl to help. That'll take the maid's room off the kitchen."
"Well, supposing? That leaves an extra room, anyway."
A look came into Raymond's face. "Maybe we'll need that, too—later. Later on." He actually could have been said to blush, then, like a boy.[Pg 153] There was much of the boy in Raymond at twenty-eight.
Cora did not blush.
Raymond had married Cora because he loved her; and because she was what is known as a "home girl." From the first, business girls—those alert, pert, confident little sparrows of office and shop and the street at lunch hour—rather terrified him. They gave you as good as you sent. They were always ready with their own nickel for carfare. You never knew whether they were laughing at you or not. There was a little girl named Calhoun in the binoculars26 (Raymond's first Chicago job was with the Erwin H. Nagel Optical Company on Wabash). The Calhoun girl was smart. She wore those plain white waists. Tailored, Raymond thought they called them. They made her skin look fresh and clear and sort of downy-blooming like the peaches that grew in his own Michigan state back home. Or perhaps only girls with clear fresh skins could wear those plain white waist things. Raymond had heard that girls thought and schemed about things that were becoming to them, and then stuck to those things. He wondered how the Calhoun girl might look in a fluffy27 waist. But she never wore one down to work. When business was dull in the motor and sun-glasses (which was where he held forth) Raymond would stroll over to Laura[Pg 154] Calhoun's counter and talk. He would talk about the Invention. He had no one else to talk to about it. No one he could trust, or who understood.
The Calhoun girl, polishing the great black eyes of a pair of field glasses, would look up brightly to say, "Well, how's the Invention coming on?" Then he would tell her.
The Invention had to do with spectacles. Not only that, if you are a wearer of spectacles of any kind, it has to do with you. For now, twelve years later, you could not well do without it. The little contraption that keeps the side-piece from biting into your ears—that's Raymond's.
Knowing, as we do, that Raymond's wife is named Cora we know that the Calhoun girl of the fresh clear skin, the tailored white shirtwaists, and the friendly interest in the Invention, lost out. The reason for that was Raymond's youth, and Raymond's vanity, and Raymond's unsophistication, together with Lucy Calhoun's own honesty and efficiency. These last qualities would handicap any girl in love, no matter how clear her skin or white her shirtwaist.
Of course, when Raymond talked to her about the Invention she should have looked adoringly into his eyes and said, "How perfectly28 wonderful! I don't see how you think of such things."
What she said, after studying its detail thought[Pg 155]fully for a moment, was: "Yeh, but look. If this little tiny wire had a spring underneath—just a little bit of spring—it'd take all the pressure off when you wear a hat. Now women's hats are worn so much lower over their ears, d'you see? That'd keep it from pressing. Men's hats, too, for that matter."
She was right. Grudgingly29, slowly, he admitted it. Not only that, he carried out her idea and perfected the spectacle contrivance as you know it to-day. Without her suggestion it would have had a serious flaw. He knew he ought to be grateful. He told himself that he was grateful. But in reality he was resentful. She was a smart girl, but—well—a fella didn't feel comfortable going with a girl that knew more than he did. He took her to the theatre—it was before the motion picture had attained30 its present-day virulence31. She enjoyed it. So did he. Perhaps they might have repeated the little festivity and the white shirtwaist might have triumphed in the end. But that same week Raymond met Cora.
Though he had come to Chicago from Michigan almost a year before, he knew few people. The Erwin H. Nagel Company kept him busy by day. The Invention occupied him at night. He read, too, books on optometry. Don't think that he was a Rollo. He wasn't. But he was naturally some[Pg 156]what shy, and further handicapped by an unusually tall lean frame which he handled awkwardly. If you had a good look at his eyes you forgot his shyness, his leanness, his awkwardness, his height. They were the keynote of his gentle, studious, kindly32, humorous nature. But Chicago, Illinois, is too busy looking to see anything. Eyes are something you see with, not into.
Two of the boys at Nagel's had an engagement for the evening with two girls who were friends. On the afternoon of that day one of the boys went home at four with a well-developed case of grippe. The other approached Raymond with his plea.
"Say, Atwater, help me out, will you? I can't reach my girl because she's downtown somewheres for the afternoon with Cora. That's her girl friend. And me and Harvey was to meet 'em for dinner, see? And a show. I'm in a hole. Help me out, will you? Go along and fuss Cora. She's a nice girl. Pretty, too, Cora is. Will you, Ray? Huh?"
Ray went. By nine-thirty that evening he had told Cora about the Invention. And Cora had turned sidewise in her seat next to him at the theatre and had looked up at him adoringly, awe-struck. "Why, how perfectly wonderful! I don't see how you think of such things."
"Oh, that's nothing. I got a lot of ideas. Things I'm going to work out. Say, I won't always be[Pg 157] plugging down at Nagel's, believe me. I got a lot of ideas."
"Really! Why, you're an inventor, aren't you! Like Edison and those. My, it must be wonderful to think of things out of your head. Things that nobody's ever thought of before."
Ray glowed. He felt comfortable, and soothed33, and relaxed and stimulated34. And too large for his clothes. "Oh, I don't know. I just think of things. That's all there is to it. That's nothing."
"Oh, isn't it! No, I guess not. I've never been out with a real inventor before ... I bet you think I'm a silly little thing."
He protested, stoutly35. "I should say not." A thought struck him. "Do you do anything? Work downtown somewheres, or anything?"
She shook her head. Her lips pouted37. Her eyebrows38 made pained twin crescents. "No. I don't do anything. I was afraid you'd ask that." She looked down at her hands—her white, soft hands with little dimples at the finger-bases. "I'm just a home girl. That's all. A home girl. Now you will think I'm a silly stupid thing." She flashed a glance at him, liquid-eyed, appealing.
He was surprised (she wasn't) to find his hand closed tight and hard over her soft dimpled one. He was terror-stricken (she wasn't) to hear his voice saying, "I think you're wonderful. I think you're[Pg 158] the most wonderful girl I ever saw, that's what." He crushed her hand and she winced39 a little. "Home girl."
Cora's name suited her to a marvel41. Her hair was black and her colouring a natural pink and white, which she abetted42 expertly. Cora did not wear plain white tailored waists. She wore thin, fluffy, transparent43 things that drew your eyes and fired your imagination. Raymond began to call her Coral in his thoughts. Then, one evening, it slipped out. Coral. She liked it. He denied himself all luxuries and most necessities and bought her a strand44 of beads45 of that name, presenting them to her stammeringly46, clumsily, tenderly. Tender pink and cream, they were, like her cheeks, he thought.
"Oh, Ray, for me! How darling! You naughty boy!... But I'd rather have had those clear white ones, without any colouring. They're more stylish47. Do you mind?"
When he told Laura Calhoun she said, "I hope you'll be very happy. She's a lucky girl. Tell me about her, will you?"
Would he! His home girl!
When he had finished she said, quietly, "Oh, yes."
And so Raymond and Cora were married and went to live in six-room elegance48 at Sunnyside and Racine. The flat was furnished sumptuously49 in Mission and those red and brown soft leather cush[Pg 159]ions with Indian heads stamped on them. There was a wooden rack on the wall with six monks50' heads in coloured plaster, very life-like, stuck on it. This was a pipe-rack, though Raymond did not smoke a pipe. He liked a mild cigar. Then there was a print of Gustave Richter's "Queen Louise" coming down that broad marble stair, one hand at her breast, her great girlish eyes looking out at you from the misty51 folds of her scarf. What a lot of the world she has seen from her stairway! The shelf that ran around the dining room wall on a level with your head was filled with steins in such shapes and colours as would have curdled52 their contents—if they had ever had any contents.
They planned to read a good deal, evenings. Improve their minds. It was Ray's idea, but Cora seconded it heartily53. This was before their marriage.
"Now, take history alone," Ray argued: "American history. Why, you can read a year and hardly know the half of it. That's the trouble. People don't know the history of their own country. And it's interesting, too, let me tell you. Darned interesting. Better'n novels, if folks only knew it."
"My, yes," Cora agreed. "And French. We could take up French, evenings. I've always wanted to study French. They say if you know French you can travel anywhere. It's all in the accent;[Pg 160] and goodness knows I'm quick at picking up things like that."
"Yeh," Ray had said, a little hollowly, "yeh, French. Sure."
But, somehow, these literary evenings never did materialize. It may have been a matter of getting the books. You could borrow them from the public library, but that made you feel so hurried. History was something you wanted to take your time over. Then, too, the books you wanted never were in. You could buy them. But buying books like that! Cora showed her first real display of temper. Why, they came in sets and cost as much as twelve or fifteen dollars. Just for books! The literary evenings degenerated54 into Ray's thorough scanning of the evening paper, followed by Cora's skimming of the crumpled55 sheets that carried the department store ads, the society column, and the theatrical56 news. Raymond began to use the sixth room—the unused bedroom—as a workshop. He had perfected the spectacle contrivance and had made the mistake of selling his rights to it. He got a good sum for it.
"But I'll never do that again," he said, grimly. "Somebody'll make a fortune on that thing." He had unwisely told Cora of this transaction. She never forgave him for it. On the day he received the money for it he had brought her home a fur set of baum marten. He thought the stripe in it beau[Pg 161]tiful. There was a neckpiece known as a stole, and a large muff.
"Oh, honey!" Cora had cried. "Aren't you fun-ny!" She often said that, always with the same accent. "Aren't you fun-ny!"
"What's the matter?"
"Why didn't you let me pick it out? They're wearing Persian lamb sets."
"Oh. Well, maybe the feller'll change it. It's all paid for, but maybe he'll change it."
"Do you mind? It may cost a little bit more. You don't mind my changing it though, do you?"
"No. No-o-o-o! Not a bit."
They had never furnished the unused bedroom as a bedroom. When they moved out of the flat at Racine and Sunnyside into one of those new four-room apartments on Glengyle the movers found only a long rough work-table and a green-shaded lamp in that sixth room. Ray's delicate tools and implements58 were hard put to it to find a resting place in the new four-room apartment. Sometimes Ray worked in the bathroom. He grew rather to like the white-tiled place, with its look of a laboratory. But then, he didn't have as much time to work at home as he formerly59 had had. They went out more evenings.
The new four-room flat rented at sixty dollars.[Pg 162] "Seems the less room you have the more you pay," Ray observed.
"There's no comparison. Look at the neighbourhood! And the living room's twice as big."
It didn't seem to be. Perhaps this was due to its furnishings. The Mission pieces had gone to the second-hand60 dealer61. Ray was assistant manager of the optical department at Nagel's now and he was getting royalties62 on a new smoked glass device. There were large over-stuffed chairs in the new living room, and a seven-foot davenport, and oriental rugs, and lamps and lamps and lamps. The silk lampshade conflagration63 had just begun to smoulder in the American household. The dining room had one of those built-in Chicago buffets64. It sparkled with cut glass. There was a large punch bowl in the centre, in which Cora usually kept receipts, old bills, moth66 balls, buttons, and the tarnished67 silver top to a syrup68 jug69 that she always meant to have repaired. Queen Louise was banished70 to the bedroom where she surveyed a world of cretonne.
Cora was a splendid cook. She had almost a genius for flavouring. Roast or cheese soufflé or green apple pie—your sense of taste never experienced that disappointment which comes of too little salt, too much sugar, a lack of shortening. Expert as she was at it, Cora didn't like to cook. That is, she didn't like to cook day after day. She rather[Pg 163] liked doing an occasional meal and producing it in a sort of red-cheeked triumph. When she did this it was an epicurean thing, savoury, hot, satisfying. But as a day-after-day programme Cora would not hear of it. She had banished the maid. Four rooms could not accommodate her. A woman came in twice a week to wash and iron and clean. Often Cora did not get up for breakfast and Ray got his at one of the little lunch rooms that were springing up all over that section of the North Side. Eleven o'clock usually found Cora at the manicure's, or the dressmaker's, or shopping, or telephoning luncheon72 arrangements with one of the Crowd. Ray and Cora were going out a good deal with the Crowd. Young married people like themselves, living royally just a little beyond their income. The women were well-dressed, vivacious73, somewhat shrill74. They liked stories that were a little off-colour. "Blue," one of the men called these stories. He was in the theatrical business. The men were, for the most part, a rather drab-looking lot. Colourless, good-natured, open-handed. Almost imperceptibly the Crowd began to use Ray as a target for a certain raillery. It wasn't particularly ill-natured, and Ray did not resent it.
"Oh, come on, Ray! Don't be a wet blanket.... Lookit him! I bet he's thinking about those smoked glasses again. Eh, Atwater? He's in[Pg 164] a daze76 about that new rim57 that won't show on the glasses. Come out of it! First thing you know you'll lose your little Cora."
There was little danger of that. Though Cora flirted77 mildly with the husbands of the other girls in the Crowd (they all did) she was true to Ray.
Ray was always talking of building a little place of their own. People were beginning to move farther and farther north, into the suburbs.
"Little place of your own," Ray would say, "that's the only way to live. Then you're not paying it all out in rent to the other feller. Little place of your own. That's the right idear."
But as the years went by, and Ray earned more and more money, he and Cora seemed to be getting farther and farther away from the right idear. In the $28.50 apartment Cora's morning marketing78 had been an orderly daily proceeding79. Meat, vegetables, fruit, dry groceries. But now the maidless four-room apartment took on, in spite of its cumbersome80 furnishings, a certain air of impermanence.
"Ray, honey, I haven't a scrap81 in the house. I didn't get home until almost six. Those darned old street cars. I hate 'em. Do you mind going over Jo Bauer's to eat? I won't go, because Myrtle served a regular spread at four. I couldn't eat a thing. D'you mind?"
"Why, no." He would get into his coat again[Pg 165] and go out into the bleak82 November wind-swept street to Bauer's restaurant.
Cora was always home when Raymond got there at six. She prided herself on this. She would say, primly83, to her friends, "I make a point of being there when Ray gets home. Even if I have to cut a round of bridge. If a woman can't be there when a man gets home from work I'd like to know what she's good for, anyway."
The girls in the Crowd said she was spoiling Raymond. She told Ray this. "They think I'm old-fashioned. Well, maybe I am. But I guess I never pretended to be anything but a home girl."
"That's right," Ray would answer. "Say, that's the way you caught me. With that home-girl stuff."
"Caught you!" The thin straight line of the mouth. "If you think for one minute——"
"Oh, now, dear. You know what I mean, sweetheart. Why, say, I never could see any girl until I met you. You know that."
He was as honestly in love with her as he had been nine years before. Perhaps he did not feel now, as then, that she had conferred a favour upon him in marrying him. Or if he did he must have known that he had made fair return for such favour.
Cora had a Hudson seal coat now, with a great kolinsky collar. Her vivid face bloomed rosily84 in this soft frame. Cora was getting a little heavier.[Pg 166] Not stout36, but heavier, somehow. She tried, futilely85, to reduce. She would starve herself at home for days, only to gain back the vanished pounds at one afternoon's orgy of whipped-cream salad, and coffee, and sweets at the apartment of some girl in the Crowd. Dancing had come in and the Crowd had taken it up vociferously86. Raymond was not very good at it. He had not filled out with the years. He still was lean and tall and awkward. The girls in the crowd tried to avoid dancing with him. That often left Cora partnerless unless she wanted to dance again and again with Raymond.
"How can you expect the boys to ask me to dance when you don't dance with their wives! Good heavens, if they can learn, you can. And for pity's sake don't count! You're so fun-ny!"
He tried painstakingly87 to heed88 her advice, but his long legs made a sorry business of it. He heard one of the girls refer to him as "that giraffe." He had put his foot through an absurd wisp of tulle that she insisted on calling a train.
They were spending a good deal of money now, but Ray jousted89 the landlord, the victualler, the furrier, the milliner, the hosiery maker71, valiantly90 and still came off the victor. He did not have as much time as he would have liked to work on the new invention. The invisible rim. It was calculated so to blend with the glass of the lens as to be, in ap[Pg 167]pearance, one with it, while it still protected the eyeglass from breakage. "Fortune in it, girlie," he would say, happily, to Cora. "Million dollars, that's all."
He had been working on the invisible rim for five years. Familiarity with it had bred contempt in Cora. Once, in a temper, "Invisible is right," she had said, slangily.
They had occupied the four-room apartment for five years. Cora declared it was getting beyond her. "You can't get any decent help. The washwoman acts as if she was doing me a favour coming from eight to four, for four dollars and eighty-five cents. And yesterday she said she couldn't come to clean any more on Saturdays. I'm sick and tired of it."
Raymond shook a sympathetic head. "Same way down at the store. Seems everything's that way now. You can't get help and you can't get goods. You ought to hear our customers. Yesterday I thought I'd go clear out of my nut, trying to pacify91 them."
Cora inserted the entering wedge, deftly92. "Goodness knows I love my home. But the way things are now ..."
"Yeh," Ray said, absently. When he spoke93 like that Cora knew that the invisible rim was revolving95 in his mind. In another moment he would be off to[Pg 168] the little cabinet in the bathroom where he kept his tools and instruments.
She widened the opening. "I noticed as I passed to-day that those new one-room kitchenette apartments on Sheridan will be ready for occupancy October first." He was going toward the door. "They say they're wonderful."
"Who wants to live in one room, anyway?"
"It's really two rooms—and the kitchenette. There's the living room—perfectly darling—and a sort of combination breakfast room and kitchen. The breakfast room is partitioned off with sort of cupboards so that it's really another room. And so handy!"
"How'd you know?"
"I went in—just to look at them—with one of the girls."
Until then he had been unconscious of her guile96. But now, suddenly, struck by a hideous97 suspicion—"Say, looka here. If you think——"
"Well, it doesn't hurt to look at 'em, does it!"
A week later. "Those kitchenette apartments on Sheridan are almost all gone. One of the girls was looking at one on the sixth floor. There's a view of the lake. The kitchen's the sweetest thing. All white enamel98. And the breakfast room thing is done in Italian."
"What d'you mean—done in Italian?"[Pg 169]
"Why—uh—Italian period furniture, you know. Dark and rich. The living room's the same. Desk, and table, and lamps."
"Oh, they're furnished?"
"Complete. Down to the kettle covers and the linen99 and all. The work there would just be play. All the comforts of a home, with none of the terrible aggravations."
"Say, look here, Coral, we don't want to go to work and live in any one room. You wouldn't be happy. Why, we'd feel cooped up. No room to stretch.... Why, say, how about the beds? If there isn't a bedroom how about the beds? Don't people sleep in those places?"
"There are Murphy beds, silly."
"Murphy? Who's he?"
"Oh, goodness, I don't know! The man who invented 'em, I suppose. Murphy."
Raymond grinned in anticipation101 of his own forthcoming joke. "I should think they'd call 'em Morphy beds." Then, at her blank stare. "You know—short for Morpheus, god of sleep. Learned about him at high school."
Cora still looked blank. Cora hardly ever understood Ray's jokes, or laughed at them. He would turn, chuckling102, to find her face a blank. Not even bewildered, or puzzled, or questioning. Blank. Unheeding. Disinterested103 as a slate104.[Pg 170]
Three days later Cora developed an acute pain in her side. She said it was nothing. Just worn out with the work, and the worry and the aggravation100, that's all. It'll be all right.
Ray went with her to look at the Sheridan Road apartment. It was one hundred and fifty dollars. "Phew!"
"But look at what you save? Gas. Light. Maid service. Laundry. It's really cheaper in the end."
Cora was amazingly familiar with all the advantages and features of the sixth-floor apartment. "The sun all morning." She had all the agent's patter. "Harvey-Dickson ventilated double-spring mattresses105. Dressing106 room off the bathroom. No, it isn't a closet. Here's the closet. Range, refrigerator, combination sink and laundry tub. Living room's all panelled in ivory. Shower in the bathroom. Buffet65 kitchen. Breakfast room has folding-leaf Italian table. Look at the chairs. Aren't they darlings! Built-in book shelves——"
"Book shelves?"
"Oh, well, we can use them for fancy china and ornaments107. Or—oh, look!—you could keep your stuff there. Tools and all. Then the bathroom wouldn't be mussy all the time."
"Beds?"
"Right here. Isn't that wonderful. Would you[Pg 171] ever know it was there? You can work it with one hand. Look."
"Do you really like it, Coral?"
"I love it. It's heavenly."
He stood in the centre of the absurd living room, a tall, lank75, awkward figure, a little stooped now. His face was beginning to be furrowed108 with lines—deep lines that yet were softening109, and not unlovely. He made you think, somehow, as he stood there, one hand on his own coat lapel, of Saint-Gaudens' figure of Lincoln, there in the park, facing the Drive. Kindly, thoughtful, harried110.
They moved in October first.
The over-stuffed furniture of the four-room apartment was sold. Cora kept a few of her own things—a rug or two, some china, silver, bric-à-brac, lamps. Queen Louise was now permanently111 dethroned. Cora said her own things—"pieces"—would spoil the effect of the living room. All Italian.
"No wonder the Italians sit outdoors all the time, on the steps and in the street"—more of Ray's dull humour. He surveyed the heavy gloomy pieces, so out of place in the tiny room. One of the chairs was black velvet112. It was the only really comfortable chair in the room but Ray never sat in it. It reminded him, vaguely113, of a coffin114. The corridors of the apartment house were long, narrow, and white-walled. You traversed these like a convict,[Pg 172] speaking to no one, and entered your own cubicle115. A toy dwelling116 for toy people. But Ray was a man-size man. When he was working downtown his mind did not take temporary refuge in the thought of the feverish little apartment to which he was to return at night. It wasn't a place to come back to, except for sleep. A roost. Bedding for the night. As permanent-seeming as a hay-mow.
Cora, too, gave him a strange feeling of impermanence. He realized one day, with a shock, that he hardly ever saw her with her hat off. When he came in at six or six-thirty Cora would be busy at the tiny sink, or the toy stove, her hat on, a cigarette dangling117 limply from her mouth. Ray did not object to women smoking. That is, he had no moral objection. But he didn't think it became them. But Cora said a cigarette rested and stimulated her. "Doctors say all nervous women should smoke," she said. "Soothes118 them." But Cora, cooking in the little kitchen, squinting119 into a kettle's depths through a film of cigarette smoke, outraged120 his sense of fitness. It was incongruous, offensive. The time, and occupation, and environment, together with the limply dangling cigarette, gave her an incredibly rowdy look.
When they ate at home they had steak or chops, and, perhaps, a chocolate éclair for dessert; and a[Pg 173] salad. Raymond began to eat mental meals. He would catch himself thinking of breaded veal121 chops, done slowly, simmeringly, in butter, so that they came out a golden brown on a parsley-decked platter. With this mashed122 potatoes with brown butter and onions that have just escaped burning; creamed spinach123 with egg grated over the top; a rice pudding, baked in the oven, and served with a tart12 crown of grape jell. He sometimes would order these things in a restaurant at noon, or on the frequent evenings when they dined out. But they never tasted as he had thought they would.
They dined out more and more as spring drew on and the warm weather set in. The neighbourhood now was aglitter with eating places of all sorts and degrees, from the humble124 automat to the proud plush of the Sheridan Plaza125 dining room. There were tea-rooms, cafeterias, Hungarian cafés, chop suey restaurants. At the table d'h?te places you got a soup, followed by a lukewarm plateful of meat, vegetables, salad. The meat tasted of the vegetables, the vegetables tasted of the meat, and the salad tasted of both. Before ordering Ray would sit down and peer about at the food on the near-by tables as one does in a dining car when the digestive fluids have dried in your mouth at the first whiff through the doorway126. It was on one of these evenings that he noticed Cora's hat.[Pg 174]
"What do you wear a hat for all the time?" he asked, testily127.
"Hat?"
"Seems to me I haven't seen you without a hat in a month. Gone bald, or something?" He was often cross like this lately. Grumpy, Cora called it. Hats were one of Cora's weaknesses. She had a great variety of them. These added to Ray's feeling of restlessness and impermanence. Sometimes she wore a hat that came down over her head, covering her forehead and her eyes, almost. The hair he used to love to touch was concealed128. Sometimes he dined with an ingénue in a poke94 bonnet129; sometimes with a se?orita in black turban and black lace veil, mysterious and provocative130; sometimes with a demure miss in a wistful little turned-down brim. It was like living with a stranger who was always about to leave.
When they ate at home, which was rarely, Ray tried, at first, to dawdle131 over his coffee and his mild cigar, as he liked to do. But you couldn't dawdle at a small, inadequate132 table that folded its flaps and shrank into a corner the minute you left it. Everything in the apartment folded, or flapped, or doubled, or shot in, or shot out, or concealed something else, or pretended to be something it was not. It was very irritating. Ray took his cigar and his evening paper and wandered uneasily into the Italian living[Pg 175] room, doubling his lean length into one of his queer, angular hard chairs.
Cora would appear in the doorway, hatted. "Ready?"
"Huh? Where you going?"
"Oh, Ray, aren't you fun-ny! You know this is the Crowd's poker133 night at Lil's."
The Crowd began to say that old Ray was going queer. Honestly, didja hear him last week? Talking about the instability of the home, and the home being the foundation of the state, and the country crumbling134? Cora's face was a sight! I wouldn't have wanted to be in his boots when she got him home. What's got into him, anyway?
Cora was a Wilson Avenue girl now. You saw her in and out of the shops of the district, expensively dressed. She was almost thirty-six. Her legs, beneath the absurdly short skirt of the day, were slim and shapely in their chiffon hose, but her upper figure was now a little prominent. The scant135, brief skirt fore-shortened her; gave her a stork-like appearance; a combination of girlishness and matronliness not pleasing.
There were times when Ray rebelled. A peace-loving man, and gentle. But a man. "I don't want to go out to eat. My God, I'm tired! I want to eat at home."[Pg 176]
"Honey, dear, I haven't a thing in the house. Not a scrap."
"I'll go out and get something, then. What d'you want?"
"Get whatever looks good to you. I don't want a thing. We had tea after the matinée. That's what made me so late. I'm always nagging136 the girls to go home. It's getting so they tease me about it."
He would go foraging137 amongst the delicatessen shops of the neighbourhood. He saw other men, like himself, scurrying about with moist paper packets and bags and bundles, in and out of Leviton's, in and out of the Sunlight Bakery. A bit of ham. Some cabbage salad in a wooden boat. A tiny broiler, lying on its back, its feet neatly138 trussed, its skin crackly and tempting-looking, its white meat showing beneath the brown. But when he cut into it at home it tasted like sawdust and gutta-percha. "And what else?" said the plump woman in the white bib-apron behind the counter. "And what else?"
In the new apartment you rather prided yourself on not knowing your next-door neighbours. The paper-thin walls permitted you to hear them living the most intimate details of their lives. You heard them laughing, talking, weeping, singing, scolding, caressing139. You didn't know them. You did not[Pg 177] even see them. When you met in the halls or elevators you did not speak. Then, after they had lived in the new apartment about a year Cora met the woman in 618 and Raymond met the woman in 620, within the same week. The Atwaters lived in 619.
There was some confusion in the delivery of a package. The woman in 618 pressed the Atwaters' electric button for the first time in their year's residence there.
A plump woman, 618; blonde; in black. You felt that her flesh was expertly restrained in tight pink satin brassières and long-hipped corsets and many straps140.
"I hate to trouble you, but did you get a package for Mrs. Hoyt? It's from Field's."
It was five-thirty. Cora had her hat on. She did not ask the woman to come in. "I'll see. I ordered some things from Field's to-day, too. I haven't opened them yet. Perhaps yours ... I'll look."
The package with Mrs. Hoyt's name on it was there. "Well, thanks so much. It's some georgette crêpe. I'm making myself one those new two-tone slip-over negligees. Field's had a sale. Only one sixty-nine a yard."
Cora was interested. She sewed rather well when she was in the mood. "Are they hard to make?"
"Oh, land, no! No trick to it at all. They just[Pg 178] hang from the shoulder, see? Like a slip-over. And then your cord comes round——"
She stepped in. She undid141 the box and shook out the vivid folds of the filmy stuff, vivid green and lavender. "You wouldn't think they'd go well together but they do. Makes a perfectly stunning142 negligee."
Cora fingered the stuff. "I'd get some. Only I don't know if I could cut the——"
"I'll show you. Glad to." She was very friendly. Cora noticed she used expensive perfume. Her hair was beautifully marcelled. The woman folded up the material and was off, smiling. "Just let me know when you get it. I've got a lemon cream pie in the oven and I've got to run." She called back over her shoulder. "Mrs. Hoyt."
Cora nodded and smiled. "Mine's Atwater." She saw that the woman's simple-seeming black dress was one she had seen in a Michigan Avenue shop, and had coveted143. Its price had been beyond her purse.
Cora mentioned the meeting to Ray when he came home. "She seems real nice. She's going to show me how to cut out a new negligee."
"What'd you say her name was?" She told him. He shrugged144. "Well, I'll say this: she must be some swell145 cook. Whenever I go by that door at dinner time my mouth just waters. One night last[Pg 179] week there was something must have been baked spare-ribs and sauerkraut. I almost broke in the door."
The woman in 618 did seem to cook a great deal. That is, when she cooked. She explained that Mr. Hoyt was on the road a lot of the time and when he was home she liked to fuss for him. This when she was helping146 Cora cut out the georgette negligee.
"I'd get coral colour if I was you, honey. With your hair and all," Mrs. Hoyt had advised her.
"Why, that's my name! That is, it's what Ray calls me. My name's really Cora." They were quite good friends now.
It was that same week that Raymond met the woman in 620. He had left the apartment half an hour later than usual (he had a heavy cold, and had not slept) and encountered the man and woman just coming out of 620.
"And guess who it was!" he exclaimed to Cora that evening. "It was a girl who used to work at Nagel's, in the binoculars, years ago, when I started there. Calhoun, her name was. Laura Calhoun. Smart little girl, she was. She's married now. And guess what! She gets a big salary fitting glasses for women at the Bazaar147. She learned to be an optician. Smart girl."
Cora bridled148, virtuously149. "Well, I think she'd better stay home and take care of that child of hers.[Pg 180] I should think she'd let her husband earn the living. That child is all soul alone when she comes home from school. I hear her practising. I asked Mrs. Hoyt about her. She say's she's seen her. A pindling scrawny little thing, about ten years old. She leaves her alone all day."
Ray encountered the Calhoun girl again, shortly after that, in the way encounters repeat themselves, once they have started.
"She didn't say much but I guess her husband is a nit-wit. Funny how a smart girl like that always marries one of these sap-heads that can't earn a living. She said she was working because she wanted her child to have the advantages she'd missed. That's the way she put it."
One heard the long-legged, melancholy150 child next door practising at the piano daily at four. Cora said it drove her crazy. But then, Cora was rarely home at four. "Well," she said now, virtuously, "I don't know what she calls advantages. The way she neglects that kid. Look at her! I guess if she had a little more mother and a little less education it'd be better for her."
"Guess that's right," Ray agreed.
It was in September that Cora began to talk about the mink coat. A combination anniversary and Christmas gift. December would mark their twelfth anniversary. A mink coat.[Pg 181]
Raymond remembered that his mother had had a mink coat, back there in Michigan, years ago. She always had taken it out in November and put it away in moth balls and tar13 paper in March. She had done this for years and years. It was a cheerful yellow mink, with a slightly darker marking running through it, and there had been little mink tails all around the bottom edge of it. It had spread comfortably at the waist. Women had had hips151 in those days. With it his mother had carried a mink muff; a small yellow-brown cylinder152 just big enough for her two hands. It had been her outdoor uniform, winter after winter, for as many years as he could remember of his boyhood. When she had died the mink coat had gone to his sister Carrie, he remembered.
A mink coat. The very words called up in his mind sharp winter days; the pungent153 moth-bally smell of his mother's fur-coated bosom154 when she had kissed him good-bye that day he left for Chicago; comfort; womanliness. A mink coat.
"How much could you get one for? A mink coat."
Cora hesitated a moment. "Oh—I guess you could get a pretty good one for three thousand."
"You're crazy," said Ray, unemotionally. He was not angry. He was amused.
But Cora was persistent155. Her coat was a sight.[Pg 182] She had to have something. She never had had a real fur coat.
"How about your Hudson seal?"
"Hudson seal! Did you ever see any seals in the Hudson! Fake fur. I've never had a really decent piece of fur in my life. Always some mangy make-believe. All the girls in the Crowd are getting new coats this year. The woman next door—Mrs. Hoyt—is talking of getting one. She says Mr. Hoyt——"
"Say, who are these Hoyts, anyway?"
Ray came home early one day to find the door to 618 open. He glanced in, involuntarily. A man sat in the living room—a large, rather red-faced man, in his shirt-sleeves, relaxed, comfortable, at ease. From the open door came the most tantalizing156 and appetizing smells of candied sweet potatoes, a browning roast, steaming vegetables.
Mrs. Hoyt had run in to bring a slice of fresh-baked chocolate cake to Cora. She often brought in dishes of exquisitely157 prepared food thus, but Raymond had never before encountered her. Cora introduced them. Mrs. Hoyt smiled, nervously158, and said she must run away and tend to her dinner. And went. Ray looked after her. He strode into the kitchenette where Cora stood, hatted, at the sink.
"Say, looka here, Cora. You got to quit seeing that woman, see?"[Pg 183]
"What woman?"
"One calls herself Mrs. Hoyt. That woman. Mrs. Hoyt! Ha!"
"Why, Ray, what in the world are you talking about! Aren't you fun-ny!"
"Yeh; well, you cut her out. I won't have you running around with a woman like that. Mrs. Hoyt! Mrs. Fiddlesticks!"
They had a really serious quarrel about it. When the smoke of battle cleared away Raymond had paid the first instalment on a three thousand dollar mink coat. And, "If we could sub-lease," Cora said, "I think it would be wonderful to move to the Shoreham. Lil and Harry159 are going there in January. You know yourself this place isn't half respectable."
Raymond had stared. "Shoreham! Why, it's a hotel. Regular hotel."
"Yes," placidly160. "That's what's so nice about it. No messing around in a miserable161 little kitchenette. You can have your meals sent up. Or you can go down to the dining room. Lil says it's wonderful. And if you order for one up in your room the portions are big enough for two. It's really economy, in the end."
"Nix," said Ray. "No hotel in mine. A little house of our own. That's the right idea. Build."
"But nobody's building now. Materials are so high. It'll cost you ten times as much as it would if[Pg 184] you waited a few—a little while. And no help. No maids coming over, hardly. I think you might consider me a little. We could live at the Shoreham a while, anyway. By that time things will be better, and we'd have money saved up and then we might talk of building. Goodness knows I love my home as well as any woman——"
They looked at the Shoreham rooms on the afternoon of their anniversary. They were having the Crowd to dinner, downtown, that evening. Cora thought the Shoreham rooms beautiful, though she took care not to let the room-clerk know she thought so. Ray, always a silent, inarticulate man, was so wordless that Cora took him to task for it in a sibilant aside.
"Ray, for heaven's, sake say something. You stand there! I don't know what the man'll think."
"A hell of a lot I care what he thinks." Ray was looking about the garish162 room—plush chairs, heavy carpets, brocade hangings, shining table-top, silly desk.
"Two hundred and seventy-five a month," the clerk was saying. "With the yearly lease, of course. Otherwise it's three twenty-five." He seemed quite indifferent.
Ray said nothing. "We'll let you know," said Cora.
The man walked to the door. "I can't hold it for[Pg 185] you, you know. Our apartments are practically gone. I've a party who practically has closed for this suite40 already. I'd have to know."
Cora looked at Ray. He said nothing. He seemed not to have heard. His face was gaunt and haggard. "We'll let you know—to-morrow," Cora said. Her full under lip made a straight thin line.
When they came out it was snowing. A sudden flurry. It was already dark. "Oh, dear," said Cora. "My hat!" Ray summoned one of the hotel taxis. He helped Cora into it. He put money into the driver's hand.
"You go on, Cora. I'm going to walk."
"Walk! Why! But it's snowing. And you'll have to dress for dinner."
"I've got a little headache. I thought I'd walk. I'll be home. I'll be home."
He slammed the door then, and turned away. He began to walk in the opposite direction from that which led toward the apartment house. The snow felt cool and grateful on his face. It stung his cheeks. Hard and swift and white it came, blinding him. A blizzard163 off the lake. He plunged164 through it, head down, hands jammed into his pockets.
So. A home girl. Home girl. God, it was funny. She was a selfish, idle, silly, vicious woman. She was nothing. Nothing. It came over him in a sudden blinding crashing blaze of light. The wo[Pg 186]man in 618 who wasn't married to her man, and who cooked and planned to make him comfortable; the woman in 620 who blindly left her home and her child every day in order to give that child the thing she called advantages—either of these was better than his woman. Honester. Helping someone. Trying to, anyway. Doing a better job than she was.
He plunged across the street, blindly, choking a little with the bitterness that had him by the throat.
Hey! Watcha!—--A shout rising to a scream.
A bump. Numbness165. Silence. Nothingness.
"Well, anyway, Cora," said the girls in the Crowd, "you certainly were a wonderful wife to him. You can always comfort yourself with that thought. My! the way you always ran home so's to be there before he got in."
"I know it," said Cora, mournfully. "I always was a home girl. Why, we always had planned we should have a little home of our own some day. He always said that was the right idear—idea."
Lil wiped her eyes. "What are you going to do about your new mink coat, Cora?"
Cora brushed her hair away from her forehead with a slow, sad gesture. "Oh, I don't know. I've hardly thought of such trifling166 things. The woman next door said she might buy it. Hoyt, her name is. Of course I couldn't get what we paid for it, though[Pg 187] I've hardly had it on. But money'll count with me now. Ray never did finish that invisible rim he was working on all those years. Wasting his time. Poor Ray.... I thought if she took it, I'd get a caracul, with a black fox collar. After I bought it I heard mink wasn't so good anyway, this year. Everything's black. Of course, I'd never have said anything to Raymond about it. I'd just have worn it. I wouldn't have hurt Ray for the world."
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1
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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clandestine
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| adj.秘密的，暗中从事的 | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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5
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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rapacious
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| adj.贪婪的，强夺的 | |
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mink
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| n.貂，貂皮 | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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housekeepers
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| n.（女）管家( housekeeper的名词复数 ) | |
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scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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dabs
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| 少许( dab的名词复数 )； 是…能手； 做某事很在行； 在某方面技术熟练 | |
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chromatic
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| adj.色彩的，颜色的 | |
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18
viands
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| n.食品，食物 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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grandiloquent
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| adj.夸张的 | |
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opulence
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| n.财富，富裕 | |
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rental
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| n.租赁，出租，出租业 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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labial
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| adj.唇的；唇音的；n.唇音，风琴管 | |
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binoculars
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| n.双筒望远镜 | |
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fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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grudgingly
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30
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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32
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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33
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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34
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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pouted
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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39
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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41
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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42
abetted
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| v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持 | |
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43
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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44
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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45
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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46
stammeringly
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| adv.stammering（口吃的）的变形 | |
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47
stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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48
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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49
sumptuously
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| 奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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50
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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51
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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52
curdled
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| v.（使）凝结( curdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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54
degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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56
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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57
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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58
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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59
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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60
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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61
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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62
royalties
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| 特许权使用费 | |
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63
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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64
buffets
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| （火车站的）饮食柜台( buffet的名词复数 )； （火车的）餐车； 自助餐 | |
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65
buffet
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| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
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66
moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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67
tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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68
syrup
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| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
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69
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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70
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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72
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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73
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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74
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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75
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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76
daze
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| v.(使)茫然，(使)发昏 | |
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77
flirted
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78
marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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79
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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80
cumbersome
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| adj.笨重的，不便携带的 | |
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81
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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82
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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83
primly
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| adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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84
rosily
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| adv.带玫瑰色地，乐观地 | |
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85
futilely
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| futile（无用的）的变形； 干 | |
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86
vociferously
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| adv.喊叫地，吵闹地 | |
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87
painstakingly
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| adv. 费力地 苦心地 | |
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88
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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89
jousted
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| （骑士）骑马用长矛比武( joust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90
valiantly
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| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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91
pacify
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| vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒)；抚慰 | |
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92
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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93
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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94
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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95
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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96
guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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97
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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98
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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99
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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100
aggravation
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| n.烦恼，恼火 | |
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101
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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102
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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103
disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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104
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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105
mattresses
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| 褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 ) | |
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106
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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107
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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108
furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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110
harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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111
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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112
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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113
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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114
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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115
cubicle
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| n.大房间中隔出的小室 | |
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116
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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117
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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118
soothes
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| v.安慰( soothe的第三人称单数 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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119
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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120
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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121
veal
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| n.小牛肉 | |
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122
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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123
spinach
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| n.菠菜 | |
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124
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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125
plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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126
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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127
testily
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| adv. 易怒地, 暴躁地 | |
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128
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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129
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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130
provocative
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| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
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131
dawdle
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| vi.浪费时间；闲荡 | |
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132
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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133
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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134
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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135
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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136
nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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137
foraging
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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138
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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139
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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140
straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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141
Undid
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| v. 解开, 复原 | |
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142
stunning
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| adj.极好的；使人晕倒的 | |
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143
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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144
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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145
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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146
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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147
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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148
bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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149
virtuously
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| 合乎道德地，善良地 | |
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150
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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151
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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152
cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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153
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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154
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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155
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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156
tantalizing
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| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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157
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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158
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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159
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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160
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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161
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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162
garish
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| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
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163
blizzard
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| n.暴风雪 | |
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164
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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165
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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166
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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