The high gray cliffs that held the bay, hid, at either end, the land beyond it; half hid even, by a curve of their contour, the entrance to Ballindra River, so that no sign of habitation was to be seen along the shore.
The blue spaces of the sea were empty, save for a little lug-rigged boat which had slipped out of the river while the mists still slept upon it, and had spent the morning creeping with each soft breath of air to the northern border of the bay.
It was now close to land, so close that the object of its journey could be plainly seen.
It was in shape like a young moon, paved in silvery pink and pearl by milk-white pebbles5 and delicate shells, with shelving wings of stone thrust out and bent6 inward from either side into the sea.
The long ledges of rock were of a dark lavender, and from them a brilliant yellow weed dripped and swung in the transparent7 pool of purple and emerald, which throbbed8 softly against the pearly crescent of the shore.
East and west, so far as eye could reach, the sea pushed a sparkling shoulder against the sheer front of the cliffs. Nowhere else in the whole bay was there a foot's breadth of beach, and there was clearly no outlet9 landwards even from the slender strand10 towards which the boat was heading.
A girl with fair hair and luminous11 gray eyes was steering12, and a man of about thirty sat upon the opposite gunwale with the slack sheet in his hand. She looked up at the flapping leech13, and then with a whimsical smile into his face.
"You'll have to row in," she said.
"Not I," he protested airily; "we're going to sail."
"Give the wind time," he replied, with a glance across the bay and a big indrawn breath of complete satisfaction; "we've the whole day before us."
"We haven't the whole channel, though," she said, nodding to starboard, where a black fin19 of rock cut suddenly in the clear water a little whispering ring of foam20.
"Phew!" exclaimed the man, screwing round on the gunwale as the black fin disappeared. "Many like that?"
"Plenty, plenty!" laughed the girl. "Are you going to row?"
He shook his head. Then, with an effect of having completely forgotten her, stared eagerly across that wavering jewel of water at the rose and silver of the beach, and down through the transparent purple depths beneath him at the sand and the rocks and the waving yellow weed.
She watched his face brighten with their beauty, as though somehow he had absorbed it, and his grave good looks take on a boyish lightness, as his eyes turned from colour to colour, or followed the sea-fern streaming in the pulse of the tide. Leaning forward with a smile she laid her hand on the cleat in front of her and let the halyard go. The brown sail ran down till the parrel jammed, and Maurice Caragh faced round reproachfully.
"Why don't you want to row?" she cried. "It isn't a hundred yards."
"No, I know," he sighed, as he freed the clip of the traveller and gathered in the bunt; "but a sail looks so much more adventurous21."
"Even in a calm?" she smiled.
"Oh, yes, most in a calm," he replied, seating himself disconsolately22 on the thwart23 in front of her, and slowly pushing out a sweep. "Adventure's nothing with a full sail, but all the fear of the sea is in the flat one. Look here!" he continued, without change of tone, "the rowlocks are gone."
She thrust out the point of a little white shoe at the place where they lay beneath his thwart, and he pushed them resignedly into their chocks, and pulled for the shore; Lettice Nevern standing24 up with her finger tips on the tiller behind her, and her eye intent upon the channel.
Her quick emphatic25 directions amused the man who was rowing, as the boat wound through the invisible maze27.
"Goodness!" he exclaimed, backing hard with his left, "I shouldn't care to bring a boat in here with a bit of wind."
"You couldn't," she replied, "with any wind but what we've got. That's what I like about it. There are not ten days in the year you can dare to land here. But this half tide is the worst; it's easier with less or more water."
"I've always come by myself," she answered, looking down into his face, "that's why"—she hesitated for a moment—"that's why I didn't bring you before."
The reason might not have seemed explicit29 to another, but it carried a sense of privilege to Caragh's mind that troubled the look with which he acknowledged it.
"I hope I mayn't prove unworthy of it," he said gravely.
"I don't know," she answered, with an absent glance at him: "it's a very dear little beach."
He was willing to admit, when he landed, that it might be anything she pleased to call it, but there was chiefly wonder in his eye. The bands of tiny white and silver pebbles, and of tinier pink shells, made a floor so delicate, so incredibly dainty as seemed, in that land of legend, proof sufficient of a fairy's treading.
The water lay so still and clear against it that only by the brighter tint30 of the covered pebbles could the margin31 of the sea be told, and the moving tide that swayed the weed made all along the curved strand a little whispering song, unlike any other music in the world.
Lettice enjoyed Caragh's bewilderment for a moment, but stopped him as he was bringing the cable ashore32.
"Oh, no!" he pleaded, "the tide's rising, and she'll look so jolly and so impossible nosing along the shore with all that water under her, on the very edge of an ocean."
But Lettice was inflexible34. The tide would be lower she said by the time they started; and Maurice had to shove the boat out again, and succeeded, after a couple of vain attempts, in jerking the anchor off her bow on to a holding bottom.
"Oh, well," he said cheerfully, eyeing the result of his labour, while he unpacked35 the luncheon36, "she looks very well out there; only I wish I'd put up the sail."
"Are you quite mad to-day?" the girl asked.
She sat watching him with an air of grave amusement; her feet drawn18 up and her hands clasped below her knees. She wore a white serge coat and skirt, with a biscuit-coloured silk shirt and a ribbon of the same shade round her sailor hat. She looked much younger than her twenty-three years, though the baby-fairness of her hair and skin were sobered by the quiet depths of her gray eyes.
"I'm never mad," said Caragh to her question, holding up the red length of a lobster37 against the sky, "but sometimes, with you, I'm less distressingly38 sane39 than usual."
Lettice, her hands fallen to her ankles, watched him sideways, with one temple resting on her knee.
"That's the reflection of my foolishness, I suppose?" she said.
He was sitting with his feet towards the sea, unpacking41 the hamper42 on to a spread cloth beside him. He viewed the result appreciatively.
"Two bells!" he announced to Lettice. "We're going to do ourselves well."
His prediction, however, only applied43 to himself, for Lettice ate even less than usual; an amount, he had once declared, absurdly incompatible44 with her splendid air of health.
She offered him no assistance in clearing up, but he showed a proper sense of his privilege, by refusing even to throw the lobster claws into the sea. Lettice smiled at the chaos45 of fragments he insisted on repacking.
"Bridget will have ideas of your economy when she opens that," she suggested.
"She'll guess perhaps that we lunched in Paradise," he said.
The ocean was like glass; yet the water pulsed to and fro past them between the long limestone48 ledges, as it rose and fell with the breath of the sleeping blue breast of the sea.
And the tender sounds of it never ceased. Soft thumps49 in the blind tunnels beneath them, a crystal kiss that whitened an edge of stone, the whisper of clear rillets that ran up and tinkled50 down again, finding no pool to hold them; and, under all, the brushing, backwards51 and forwards in the moving water, of the yellow tangle52 of weed.
Caragh remained but a short time in the seat he had chosen. Rising, he stood at the margin of the sea, shifting his footing now and then, to scan some fresh wonder of colour, and with his ears intent on the soft complexity53 of sound. He seemed entirely54 to have forgotten his companion's presence, and Lettice watched him with an interest which became annoyed.
"One would think you had never seen such a thing before," she said.
He turned at the sound of her words, but came more slowly to their meaning.
"Oh, one never has seen, or heard, anything before; it's always different," he replied, smiling. "Just listen to that little pool emptying; it runs up a whole octave, but such a queer scale! yet a minute ago I couldn't hear it! And the comic cadence55 of the water in that gully, it almost makes one laugh. How old Bach would have played with it. But you don't hear?"
"Not a note," she said with tight lips; "but I've no ear."
"It's sheer vanity to say that," he tossed back; "but I'll admit if your ears were smaller no one could see them."
He stepped over the intervening ledges, and they picked their way side by side to the beach.
"But it is wonderful," he continued, "that there's a whole world round us that we listen to and look at for years and years, yet never either hear or see till some strange fortunate moment." He put his hand under her outstretched arm as her balance wavered upon a ridge46. "Why, this may be Paradise after all, only we don't notice the angels."
His fingers closed on her elbow as she slipped upon a piece of weed.
"Ah," he sighed, as they stepped down upon the strand, "you do no justice to my plural58. I wasn't thinking of the sort of paradise that may be made by one pair of wings. All the same," he went on reflectively, throwing himself upon the beach beside her, "it isn't as an angel that I've ever thought of you."
The tide was almost at its full, and the clear deep water with its thin crystal lip, which opened and shut upon the stones, was only a yard or two from Miss Nevern's feet.
Her little white shoes were thrust out straight before her, heels together, pointing to the sky, and she leaned forward looking over them across the bay.
At Caragh's words she turned her face towards him, with the vague depths of some conjecture59 in her eyes, as though disposed to ask him how, if not as an angel, he had ever thought of her. But she turned her eyes again, without speaking, to the topaz hills beyond the bay.
Maurice lay a moment looking at her silent profile, then, standing in front of her, he spread out the wide white skirt fan-wise on either side of her feet.
She lifted her eyes to his from the distant hills with a smile.
"It would make a charming thing in marble," he continued; "almost Egyptian and yet so immensely modern. Only some fool of a critic would be certain to ask what it meant."
"And what would you say?"
He gave the statue a moment's further consideration.
"Well, that it wasn't meant for him, anyway," he replied, dropping down again beside her.
"Could you tell him what it meant for you?" she enquired, without moving.
"You could tell me, perhaps?" she suggested presently.
"Heavens, no!" he exclaimed. "You least of all. You'd think me crazy."
"Oh, I think you that as it is," she admitted thoughtfully.
He laughed, but with his eyes still occupied with the beauty of her bent figure.
He filled his left hand absently with the little shells on which he lay, shaking them up and down on his open palm, till only a few were left between his fingers. As he dropped these into the other hand, his eye fell upon them.
"I say! what dear little things!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Why didn't you tell me about them?"
Lettice turned her head.
"I thought you'd seen them," she said indifferently.
"They're quite incredible," he went on, too absorbed in his discovery to notice her tone; "how is it that, with an ocean falling on them here, they're not ground to gruel63. They make me feel more than ever an interloper. You should have moored64 me out in the boat: this floor was laid for naiads and fays and pixies; for nothing so heavy-footed as a man."
"Or a woman," Lettice suggested, still seated as he had posed her, but watching his search among the pebbles with her chin against her shoulder.
"Cover those number threes!" he said, without looking up from it, picking out the tiniest shells into a little pink heap upon his hand.
"They're not number threes," she retorted; "and they have to carry me. You'd find them heavy enough if you were under them."
He glanced up quickly at the half-hidden outline of the face behind her shoulder.
"I daresay," he murmured.
Something in the manner of his agreement brought the colour into her cheek, and, perhaps to hide it, she leant over towards him, and, propped65 on one elbow, began to search for the little shells and drop them into his hand.
She noticed, as she had never before had opportunity, the suggestion of a fine capacity in the shape of his open hand, and the sharp decision of its rare creases66.
"How deep your lines are!" she said.
He looked with enquiry at the darkened features which were bent above his hand, and in reply she raked with a nail, as pink as and more polished than they, the little pile of shells back towards his thumb.
"Oh, that!" he exclaimed, as she ran the tip of her finger along the furrow67. "It's wonderful, isn't it? I never saw a heart line on any hand that filled me with such respect. Cut evidently by one of those obstinately68 permanent affections that make one gasp69 in books. Let's look at yours?"
"Oh, shut it up!" he frowned. "Hide it from your dearest friend. Ah, my simplicity71 which thought you so different from all that!"
She laughed, and screwing up her hand looked down into its little cup.
"Well," she said; "tell me what you see in it."
But he shook his head.
"I shut my eyes," he declared solemnly. "Hold it a little further off."
"I shan't," she said.
"I mean," he explained, "that a yard away it's everything that one could wish."
She surveyed her hand reflectively. There had been those who wished it a good deal nearer than that; and who had wished in vain.
"At what people call a safe distance, I suppose," she said. "I think you're very fond of safe distances."
He almost started at the touch of scornful provocation72 in the words and in the tone. A delightful73 indifference74 to what he was or wasn't fond of had made hitherto, by its very exclusions75, so much possible between them.
"Do you?" he replied, his eyes still upon her bent figure. "Why?"
"You weren't aware of it?" she asked.
"I wasn't. I haven't been told of it before."
"Perhaps, it's only with me?" she suggested.
"Perhaps, it's only with you," he smiled. "How does it show?"
She made, with her slender nail, little moons in the sand.
"It doesn't show," she said, looking down at her finger; "one feels it."
"A general attitude of caution," he suggested playfully; "such as this."
"As what?" she enquired.
"Oh!" he said, with a wave of his hand at the enclosing wall of cliff and the empty vastness of the sea, "this teeming76 beach, the fashionable resort behind it, the chaperon at our elbow!"
She glanced at him with a shy smile.
"Oh, not in that way," she said; "besides you couldn't help yourself; you were brought. No, one sees it mostly in the things you say."
"In the things I say?"
"Well, no! perhaps, in the things you don't say."
"I see!" he mused26, with the same air of banter77, "the desert areas of omission78! Others made them blossom for you like the rose? I don't succeed in even expressing things that were commonplaces with them?"
"What sort of things?" she asked, her eyes again upon the sand.
"Oh, you know them probably, better than I," he said; "being a woman and used to them."
"To what?"
"No," she said reflectively; "you don't succeed in expressing those. Do you try?"
"Not much, I'm afraid. They offend me."
"You!" she exclaimed, surprised into facing him with lifted brows, "you might have said they would offend a woman."
"I might have, years and years ago!" he replied; "but that passed with other elevating superstitions81 of one's youth. Since then I've observed an unpleasant variety in admirations, but have yet to meet the offended woman. No, a woman may call you a fool for your flummery, or even think you one; but she'll give you every opening to repeat the folly82."
The surprise in Lettice Nevern's eyes grew more serious.
"You think a man should never tell a woman that he admires her?" she said.
"He needn't appraise83 her to her face like a fat ox in a show-pen! unless—oh, well, unless, I suppose, she likes it."
"And then?"
A stain of duller red upon the girl's cheek would have betrayed some quickening of her thought, had he been looking at her, instead of out across the purple level of the sea, where, above Ballindra, the harbour hills were turning in the slanting86 sunlight from topaz to amethyst87.
The smile of humorous toleration with which Maurice Caragh accepted half the perplexities of life had always seemed to her so completely to reveal his mind—like the pool before them, through which the light filtered to the very floor—that this dark humour of depreciation88 let out the sounding line through her fingers into unanchorable depths.
"I think you're a little hard," she said slowly; "women aren't vain, as a rule; at least not like that. It's their humility89 that makes them care so much to be admired."
"I see," he smiled. "But I don't object to the admiration; that's inevitable90; only to the way it's paid."
"But how is a woman to know if you don't tell her?"
"Do you ask?" he said.
"I?" she questioned. "Why?"
"I thought the last fortnight would have taught you that," he said quietly.
Her eyes flashed upon him ere she could prevent them, and from the flash her cheeks took colour as though they faced a flame.
But she was playing with the shells in her hand again before he noticed that she had moved her head, but the tip of her forefinger91 trembled as she pushed the tiny pink heap across her palm.
"Taught me what?" she murmured.
"What I couldn't say," he replied, adding determinedly92, as she would not help him, "how much I admired you."
She turned her face half way towards him with a little pathetic distrustful smile.
"Couldn't you see it?" he said.
Her under lip quivered as her mouth moved to answer him; then, as though afraid to trust the simplest word to it, she shook her head.
Caragh saw the quiver, and every fibre in him seemed resonant93 with that vibration94; seemed to ring with pity and tenderness and shame, as a bell reverberates95 to a mere96 thread of sound.
The thing was happening which had never happened to him before; with which, in a varied97 adventure with women, he had never had to charge his soul; for, until to-day, he had not stolen wittingly a girl's love.
"I thought it was plain enough," he went on warily98; "I couldn't have given my eyes much more to say."
"Oh, your eyes!" came her deprecation.
He waited a second.
"Well, you see," he temporized99, "I'm shy, and I didn't know how else to say it, but I hoped you'd understand."
He let the vague uncommitting words slip slowly from him, as a man pays out a cable which he cannot make fast, with rocks astern of him, and the last fathom100 at any moment in his fingers. Would she come to his help, he wondered, with a laugh or a light word, or must he go on to the inevitable end.
Lettice said nothing; her glance, lifted from her hand, looked away past him absently across the bay. But in its aversion he read that she understood—more even than he asked; understood that a man may be craven enough to let his eyes do what his lips dare not. She was not coming to his help; but he might, so her silence said, jump overboard and save himself, and let her and his honour go together upon the rocks.
"Well!" he went on in lighter101 tones, as though to suggest their adoption102, "I'm afraid my mute eloquence103 was wasted. Must I stoop to speech?"
The girl's eyes still gazed dreamily across the water.
"What for?" she said.
She might, as many a woman would, have left his hesitation104 no alternative; have given with some touch of tenderness, of reluctance105, even of acerbity106, that hint of the expected from which, for his honour, there could be no appeal. But she chose not to. Perhaps it was her diffidence that decided107, perhaps her pride.
Anyway she left to him the freedom of his embarrassment108, such as it was.
He must extricate109 himself, but he himself should choose how. It was clear that he had not chosen when he spoke110 again.
"You see," he said, with the same airy extenuation111; "I'm such a bad talker that I leave as little as possible to my tongue. It is so often, to my thought, like the nervous listener who insists on supplying the last word to a sentence; the wrong word, but the word one has, out of good manners, to use."
She was looking at him now, but with no meaning in her eyes.
"That's why," he continued, "I couldn't trust it to say how ... how grateful I was for you."
"For me?" she questioned.
"You see I can't trust it yet," he pleaded ruefully. "Yes, for you: for everything about you that's so delightful and unlooked for; the charm——"
At that her eyes stopped him. He had looked up suddenly as though he felt the blaze of them hot upon his face.
"Am I in the show-pen?" she said quietly.
That settled it, he felt. Well, she had every right to her challenge; he had put it into her mouth.
It was characteristic, curiously112 enough, of his fortuitous nature, that, despite the unedifying fashion in which his intention had hitherto hung and veered—nosing, as it were, the wind of opportunity for a flaw that suited it—he put his helm over now with irrevocable decision.
"You've cause to ask that," he said with a smile, "since I left out the only reason that seems to make admiration speakable."
"Yes?" she asked simply. "What is it?"
He raised himself from his elbow, on to his wrist, with one knee beneath him, straightening himself with respectful homage113 to the occasion.
Her eyes, brave enough before, would not meet that, and he saw the vain attempt to steady the rebellious116 tenderness of her lips. Their tremor117 touched him as it had before; his voice lost its little air of drama and dropped into the boyish plainness which so well became it.
"Please," he explained, "I should have said that first: only I didn't, because I thought you knew it. I'm not silly enough to suppose it matters whether I adore you or not, except just as an apology, the only apology for what I oughtn't to have said."
She was looking down deliberately118 at the hand on which she leant, and even her lips were hid from him. He bent towards her and put his hand over hers upon the sand.
"Dear," he said humbly119, "it seems so idle to say I love you, that I only dare to say it—as an excuse. Will you let it stand at that, and forgive me just because of it? You needn't tell me that I have no claim, and never had the least encouragement to speak of such a thing. I know that. It's inconsiderate and presumptuous120, and there's only me to blame. But some day, perhaps, you won't mind remembering that I worshipped you, and try to be a little sorry for me after all."
But what she tried, not over successfully, was to say his name. Yet her lips proclaimed it with such a tremulous appropriation121 as to answer all his other questions.
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1
sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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ledges
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| n.（墙壁，悬崖等）突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 )；（平窄的）壁架；横档；（尤指）窗台 | |
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5
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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6
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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9
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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12
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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14
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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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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fin
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| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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30
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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34
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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35
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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36
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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37
lobster
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| n.龙虾，龙虾肉 | |
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38
distressingly
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| adv. 令人苦恼地；悲惨地 | |
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39
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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40
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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42
hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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43
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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44
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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45
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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46
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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47
outermost
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| adj.最外面的，远离中心的 | |
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48
limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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49
thumps
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| n.猪肺病；砰的重击声( thump的名词复数 )v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的第三人称单数 ) | |
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50
tinkled
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| （使）发出丁当声，（使）发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 )； 叮当响着发出，铃铃响着报出 | |
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51
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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52
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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53
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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54
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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55
cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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56
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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57
avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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58
plural
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| n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的 | |
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59
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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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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61
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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62
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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63
gruel
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| n.稀饭，粥 | |
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64
moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
creases
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的第三人称单数 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹 | |
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67
furrow
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| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
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68
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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69
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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70
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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71
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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72
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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73
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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74
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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75
exclusions
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| n.不包括的项目：如接受服务项目是由投保以前已患有的疾病或伤害引致的，保险公司有权拒绝支付。；拒绝( exclusion的名词复数 )；排除；被排斥在外的人（或事物）；排外主义 | |
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76
teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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77
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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79
fatuities
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| n.愚昧，昏庸( fatuity的名词复数 )；愚蠢的言行 | |
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80
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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81
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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82
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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83
appraise
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| v.估价，评价，鉴定 | |
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84
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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85
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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86
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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87
amethyst
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| n.紫水晶 | |
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88
depreciation
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| n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低 | |
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89
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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90
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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91
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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92
determinedly
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| adv.决意地；坚决地，坚定地 | |
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93
resonant
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| adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的 | |
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94
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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95
reverberates
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| 回响，回荡( reverberate的第三人称单数 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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96
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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97
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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98
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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99
temporized
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| v.敷衍( temporize的过去式和过去分词 )；拖延；顺应时势；暂时同意 | |
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100
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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101
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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102
adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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103
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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104
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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105
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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106
acerbity
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| n.涩，酸，刻薄 | |
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107
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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108
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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109
extricate
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| v.拯救，救出；解脱 | |
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110
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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111
extenuation
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| n.减轻罪孽的借口；酌情减轻；细 | |
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112
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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113
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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114
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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115
eulogies
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| n.颂词，颂文( eulogy的名词复数 ) | |
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116
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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117
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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118
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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119
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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120
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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121
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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