"By raft?" exclaimed the lady as she caught the envelope. "What's that?"
"One of those crawling timber things you see going by," replied Vernon, gazing meditatively2 across the river; "it's rather the sort of thing one imagines Caragh would do: invests him with the charm of the unexpected."
His wife was frowning as she read the message.
"What does he mean by such a piece of fooling," she said petulantly4, "when he knows I'm here alone!"
"Well, there's you and about twenty ill-dressed Germans who can't even speak their own language, or no one; mostly no one. It's not amusing in a place like this. When will he be here?"
Harry Vernon put his finger on the bell. "We'll find out," he said.
But they did not. The combined intelligence of the hotel was unequal to coping with the ways of a timber raft; it made obliging guesses, tranquilly6 ridiculous, as a concession7 to good manners, which, with easy indifference8 to distance, endowed Caragh's new mode of motion with any rate of progress between that of a perambulator and of an express train.
Ethel Vernon bit her lip as her husband drew out, with huge relish9, in his profuse10 execrable German the ambagious ignorance of the hotel staff.
"Well," he laughed, as the last witness withdrew, "it seems you may expect Caragh any moment from lunch-time until this day month. If only these good people had named an hour at which he couldn't possibly turn up we should have known when to look for him."
"He may come when he pleases," said his wife indifferently.
"It's a way he has," remarked the other, smiling.
Lady Ethel determined11 before his arrival to see everything in the city which Caragh might wish to show her.
The effort would bore her considerably12, but she hoped for some compensation from his chagrin13. The city was, however, for the following days, almost obliterated14 by pelting15 rain.
But even that brought a measure of consolation16. Ethel sat at her window, and watched the green river grow turbid17 and swollen18 under the streaming skies.
"I hope he likes his raft," she murmured grimly.
But it was her husband who on that aspiration20 had the first news. He had paid a visit to Vacz, and meant to return by water. On the pier21 he found Caragh, whose curiosity in raft travel was satisfied, and who yearned22 for dry clothes. They travelled by the same boat, and Maurice explained that his adventure dated back many years in design, which a chance meeting with a timber merchant at Gyor enabled him to execute. He gave an account of the raft-men, their hardihood, humour, and riparian morality.
"I see," said Vernon, amused and interested. "Pity it's not the sort of thing that appeals to a woman!"
Caragh looked at him doubtfully.
"I suppose it's not," he said.
"I mean as a reason for having kept her waiting," Vernon continued.
"Must think of something else," soliloquized the other dolefully.
Vernon laughed.
"There's always that happy alternative for a Celt. Oh, by the way," he cried, with sudden remembrance, "how's the lady?"
"The lady you're going to marry in that green isle24 of yours. We heard of her from Miss Persse, who'd been staying over there, at Bally—something or other."
"Miss Nevern?" Caragh suggested absently, looking across the river; he was not a man very easy to surprise.
"That's the name!" said Vernon. "When does it come off?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to ask Miss Persse," replied the other slowly; "I'm not in her confidence."
"Well, I'm sorry," the politician said. "I hoped you were going to settle down and lead an honest life."
"I've kept out of prison—and Parliament, so far," replied Caragh thoughtfully.
"Your things turned up all right, and I took a room for them," Vernon explained, as they landed at the Ferencz Jozsef Quay25 and went up to the hotel. "The place is so full over this religious Bill that it's hard to get in anywhere."
He went up with Caragh to see if the right room had been reserved.
"We're dining down below at seven; everything's early here. Kapitany is coming, the leader of the opposition26 in the Magnates."
Caragh got out of his wet things in which he had lived during the two days of rain, took a bath, and dressed. There were still two hours to dinner, and he debated for a moment if he should go in search of Ethel Vernon. Something in his remembrance of her husband's smile, however, seemed to deprecate hurry, and he was aware that the man who knew not how to wait came only to the things he had not wanted.
As he doubted what to do, he remembered vividly27 where he was. While he loitered, under an apricot twilight28 the Váczi-utcza was becoming silvered with its thousand lamps.
At that hour the brilliant merry little street would be filling, between its walls of blazing windows, across the breadth of its asphalte road, with a stream of men and women; men of fine carriage and women with splendid eyes; laughing, chattering29, flaunting30, flirting31, strolling idly to and fro.
There would be a letter awaiting him from Lettice! He paused a moment, mentally to locate the post-office, and to taste the curious sedate34 pleasure the anticipation35 brought. It was the first letter he had received from her, and the first of such a kind that had ever come to him from any woman. He found it in the big busy building behind the Laktanya, and, slipping it into his pocket, turned back to the gay Váczi-utcza, already filled with a piercing ineffectual whiteness under the clear rose and amethyst36 of the evening sky.
There, with a green tumbler before him, in a kavehaz much patronized of the garrison37, he sat and read his letter, looking out absently between its sentences at the lighted faces in the street.
It was a shy sweet formal little note, not lavish38 of endearment39, less so even than her lips had been, and with something evasive and unaccustomed about it which touched Caragh, like the shrinking of a child's hand from an unfamiliar40 texture41.
He had completely forgotten her existence half an hour earlier, yet he was surprised to find how tenderly he thought of her, when he thought of her at all. Women, before now, had often filled his thoughts to an aching tension; he had read their letters with a leaping pulse; but he had felt for none of them as he did for this frank girl, who escaped so easily from his remembrance and had never warmed his blood.
He bought a basket of saffron roses on his way back and sent it up to Ethel Vernon. She was sitting at table when he came down to dinner, talking volubly across it to a ruddy white-haired old gentleman with a soldier's face and shoulders. She greeted him with charming animation42, introduced him to Kapitany, mentioned his adventure, and wove his tongue at once into their talk. Fine manners and the tact43 of entertainment were traditions in her family since there had been an earldom of Dalguise, and the famous Hungarian, noting the adroitness44 with which she piloted Caragh's ethical45 opinions into the traffic of politics, thought her a very clever woman, and him a very fortunate young man.
With his own good fortune Caragh was less impressed. He had not expected that his roses would be worn, but he wished that a frock had not been selected which seemed so much to miss them.
He knew Ethel Vernon well enough to make out the meaning of her primrose46 and heliotrope47, and she, alas48! knew him well enough to be certain that he could not miss it. The delicacy49 of his perception had supplied her before with forms of punishment, which she used on him the more deliberately50 since no one else of her acquaintance was hurt by them at all. Her courtesy, which so appealed to Kapitany, seemed to Caragh like a frozen forceps feeling for his nerves. They were both of them beyond the use of courtesies, which may lead back along the road of friendship as far, and faster, than they have led forward. Her affability seemed that night to thrust Caragh back to the days spent in fascinated speculation51 on the advice in Ethel Vernon's eyes. He had taken it, or supposed he had taken it, in the end, and for nearly three years now she had stood for everything of woman's interest and adjustment in his life. That, for him, was a considerable stretch of constancy, for which however he took no credit. It was due, as he had once suggested, to her bewildering inconstancy to herself, which produced in her captive a sense of attachment52 to half a dozen women.
Her inconstancy in those three years had not, it was true, been confined altogether to herself. She had forsaken53 her own high places more than once or twice to follow strange gods. There were certain astounding54 admirations to her account for men whom Caragh found intolerable.
She found them so herself after a brief experience, and always returned to him more charming for her mistakes, with the wry55 face of a child who comes from some unprofitable misdemeanour to be scolded and consoled.
So, with mutual56 concessions57 and disillusionment, their alliance—never worse than indiscreet—took the shape of a serene58 affection. On her part somewhat appropriative, and touched perhaps on his with sentiment; yet, in the main, that rare arrangement between man and woman, a loyal and tender comradeship.
Caragh had, in consequence, cause to feel embarrassed by the news he carried.
Projects for his marriage had often made a jest between them, but neither had ever taken the idea seriously, and its development would come to her, as he knew, with all the baseness of a betrayal.
His sense of the cruelty of what he had to tell her endued59 him with a strange numbness60 and indifference to the fashion in which during dinner her hurt pride stabbed at him under the caresses61 of her manner. Beside her just resentment62, this irritation63 because he had dared to keep her waiting seemed not to matter. He was so sorry for all she was to suffer because of him, that no lesser64 feeling seemed to count. He listened to Vernon's politics, to Kapitany's eulogy65 of fogash, but he was thinking only of what he had to say.
After dinner the Hungarian carried Vernon off to the club, and his hostess offered to keep Caragh until her husband's return.
He followed her upstairs to her sitting-room66, and out on to a little balcony which overlooked the Danube.
The night had in it still the soft warmth of the September day, but the sky was dyed with violet, in which the stars were growing white. The river swept beneath them in a leaden humming flood, and beyond it the Castle and Hill of Buda stood black among the stars.
Ethel dropped into a low cane67 chair, and Caragh, seated upon the balustrade, took a long look at the darkening air before he turned and spoke68 to her.
He knew that an explanation was expected of him, reasonable, but not so reasonable as to evade69 reproaches; and an apology, not humble70 enough to be beneath reproof71. He tendered both; and if they left his censor72 with quite false impressions, that, he reflected ruefully, came of the perverse73 requirements of a woman's mind.
Looking down at her lifted face below him, pale under the purple heaven as though penetrated74 by the night, and still estranged75, despite his pleading, over so trumpery76 a cause, he wondered how much, because of her beauty, woman had lost in understanding.
Beauty Ethel Vernon had in its most provoking, most illusive77 form. It came and went like the scent78 of a flower, left her passive and unpersuading, or lit her radiantly as a kindled79 lamp.
Even the shape of her spread skirts in the chair beneath him had in its vagueness something, some soft glow of sense, which made it expressive80, and which made it hers. And he was anxious for peace, for peace at any price, from such a needless strife81. What he had to tell her would be hard enough any way; but it was, at all events, something with the dignity of fate. He could not speak of it while fighting this little foolish fit of outraged82 pride, and he would not speak of it while his tidings might seem to be touched with the malice83 of his punishment. For one moment he was tempted84 to let this idle quarrel grow into a cause of rupture—so easy with an offended woman—and thus be spared speech at all. It would be easier, more considerate for her, inclination85 told him, and ah! so acceptably easier and more considerate for himself. But the temptation was not for long. In all his unprofitable vacillations he had shirked nothing to which he had set his name. The only chance to get square with folly86 was, he knew, by paying the price of it, and the one gain possible in this worst of his blunders seemed to be its pain. He would go through with that.
Yet, though he had his chance that evening, had it thrust upon him, he did not take it. There is a limit even to one's appetite for pain.
But he made peace, having swallowed his scolding and admitted that the ways of men were mad. The talk turned to easier topics, and he looked with less apprehension87 at the silken shadow in the chair.
Then, with a sudden air of remembrance, Ethel put the question which had clung for hours to the end of her tongue.
"Oh! by the way, am I to congratulate you?"
"Well, I don't know," he said. "About what?"
"Oh, that's absurd!" she exclaimed with a nervous laugh: "Isn't there a Miss Nevin?"
"Two or three, I daresay," he conceded.
"Miss Persse only mentioned one," she said, looking keenly at the dark silhouette88 of his figure perched on the iron trellis among the stars. "But she wrote that you could tell us a good deal about her."
"Sufficiently90 charming to be charmed by you?"
"So I flatter myself," he said. "I don't know even that I wouldn't put it—to be charmed only by me."
"Ah, that's too superlative," she sighed derisively91.
"To be said of any woman? Possibly! You're a woman and you ought to know," he reflected. "But she's the sort of woman one says rather more of than one ought."
"And rather more to than one ought."
"Well, yes, perhaps. One forgets, of course; but I fancy I must have said a good deal."
"She could listen to a good deal, no doubt," said Ethel Vernon slowly.
"She could listen absorbingly," he replied with ardour.
"And you said all you knew?"
"Heaven pity a poor woman! no! You forget my attainments92. I said all that I was hopelessly ignorant of. That proved infinitely93 more attractive."
"I daresay it did," she agreed shortly. "Your ignorance of what you shouldn't say to a woman is past belief."
"She'll acquire it," returned the other drily. "And what do you do in that sort of place? I heard you sailed with her."
"I sailed with her, I sat with her, I supped with her! The brother was obligingly occupied, and preoccupied95, with the estate—which yields about half what it costs him—and so she had to look after me."
"Which wasn't difficult?"
"Simplicity96 itself," he smiled. "She had to look such a very little way; I was never out of her sight."
"It was. We sailed from the hour the mists lifted till the moon rose to show us home. Or we sat together on little beaches with only the wide seas in sight."
"Where she made love to you?"
"Where she made love to me. On a strand98 of fairy shells, with a sapphire99 pool beside us and her little arm about my neck."
Ethel Vernon laughed. "You're about the only man I know who would have told her to remove it."
"I didn't tell her to remove it. I abandoned myself to the situation. You didn't ask, by the way, if she were pretty."
"No, I heard that you had stayed there for a fortnight."
Caragh chuckled100. "A very sage3 deduction," he replied. "Well, she is pretty, though you mightn't think so. It's the sort of prettiness that tempts101 you in."
"Yes, tempts you in to the character. Like a lamp by the window of a cosy103 room. Makes you want to go in, and loll in a chair, and look at the pictures—there are pictures—and feel comfortably and gratefully at home. There's a kind of beauty, you know, to which one says, 'Yes, very charming; but, for heaven's sake, let's stay outside!'"
"But you didn't stay outside Miss Nevin's?" Ethel Vernon asked.
"Miss Nevern's," he corrected. "No, as I've told you, I went in, and walked round, and wondered how she had kept it so unspoiled. Most girls' minds are pasted over with appalling104 chromos of the emotions, as painted in fiction; and there's a stale taint105 of some one else's experience in everything they do and say; a precocious106 air of having been vicariously there before. It's quite stimulating107 to come across a woman who is fresh to what she feels."
"Like the beautiful Miss Nevern! And how did it end?"
"Oh, how does it end?" he said with a sigh. "We vowed108 the endless everythings, and kissed, and parted. And here I am in Budapest!"
The lady in the chair looked up at him for some seconds with a slow smile upon her lips. "I wonder when you're going to be too old," she murmured, "to talk nonsense?"
"Oh, it wasn't nonsense," he answered mournfully.
She began some question as to his journey, but he checked it with a lifted finger and a sudden "Hush109!"
She could only hear the dull rush of the river and the waning110 rumble111 of the town. Then above these floated, blown soft and faint as a thistle-seed against their faces, a bugle112 note from the black Castle of Buda across the stream.
A wailing113 cadence114, twice repeated, and then the long melancholy115 call, with all its intricate phrases delicately clear, now that their ears were adjusted to the thread of sound, ending as it had opened with the falling cadence which left a last low mournful note upon the air.
"What is it?" she enquired as the sound faded.
"Last Post," he answered. "Wait!"
The gurgle of the river rose again, and the feebler murmur19 of the streets rejoined it. Then the call came once more; came with buoyant clearness through the blue night air, straight across the water.
The noises of the city seemed to cease, as though all stood listening to that fluting116 sweetness, and, when its last plaintive117 challenge died away, the slender echoes of other bugles118 could be heard repeating it to the distant barracks beyond the hill.
Long after the last was silent Caragh still stared out over the river at the girdle of lights along its further shore and the scattered119 tapers120 which burned beyond it up the Castle slope into the sky.
"That seems to impress you very much," said Ethel Vernon presently.
"It does impress me," he replied. "It doesn't seem to belong there."
He did not say why. It was seldom worth while to submit to a woman any sentiment that was unestablished. Convention was the passport to her understanding. But what, he wondered, had soldiers in common with that cry of the spent day? How were their blatant121 showy lives related to the impotent patience of its despair? It was as if some noisy roisterer had breathed a Nunc Dimittis.
But he only explained, when she pressed for his reason, that the call did not sound to him sufficiently truculent122 for a soldier's good-night.
He whistled its English equivalent. "That's more like it," he exclaimed. "The man who sleeps on that will sleep too deep to dream of anything but love, and blood, and beer."
They talked on under the stars till Harry Vernon stumbled out on to the balcony from the darkness of the room, and began at once an energetic account of his evening at the Casino. He never consulted the interest of his hearers, but his voluble information generally made his interest theirs. He was to inspect, on the morrow, more than most men would have cared to look at in a week, and he was certain to see it all with the weighty sense of responsibility to his country which only an under secretary can acquire. He apologized to his wife for leaving her introduction to the city with one as incompetent123 as Caragh to do it justice.
"He probably knows it a great deal better than you ever will," she laughed.
"He probably does," replied her husband with a grin, "but the parts he knows best he won't be able to show you."
Caragh threw a cushion at the speaker's head as he turned to say good-night to his wife.
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1
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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petulantly
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blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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profuse
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| adj.很多的，大量的，极其丰富的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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pelting
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| 微不足道的，无价值的，盛怒的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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flaunting
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| adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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flirting
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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jolt
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| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
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sedate
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| adj.沉着的，镇静的，安静的 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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amethyst
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| n.紫水晶 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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endearment
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| n.表示亲爱的行为 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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adroitness
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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heliotrope
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| n.天芥菜；淡紫色 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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53
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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54
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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55
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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56
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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57
concessions
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| n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权 | |
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58
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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59
endued
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| v.授予，赋予（特性、才能等）( endue的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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61
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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62
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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63
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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64
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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65
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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66
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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67
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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68
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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69
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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70
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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71
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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72
censor
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| n./vt.审查，审查员；删改 | |
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73
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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74
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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75
estranged
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| adj.疏远的，分离的 | |
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76
trumpery
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| n.无价值的杂物；adj.（物品）中看不中用的 | |
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77
illusive
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| adj.迷惑人的，错觉的 | |
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78
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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79
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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80
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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81
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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82
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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83
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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84
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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85
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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86
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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87
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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88
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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89
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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90
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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91
derisively
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| adv. 嘲笑地，嘲弄地 | |
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92
attainments
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| 成就，造诣； 获得( attainment的名词复数 )； 达到； 造诣； 成就 | |
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93
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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94
pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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95
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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96
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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97
idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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98
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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99
sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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100
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
tempts
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| v.引诱或怂恿（某人）干不正当的事( tempt的第三人称单数 )；使想要 | |
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102
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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103
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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104
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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105
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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106
precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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107
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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108
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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109
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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110
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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111
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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112
bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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113
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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114
cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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115
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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116
fluting
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| 有沟槽的衣料； 吹笛子； 笛声； 刻凹槽 | |
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117
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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118
bugles
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| 妙脆角，一种类似薯片但做成尖角或喇叭状的零食； 号角( bugle的名词复数 )； 喇叭； 匍匐筋骨草； （装饰女服用的）柱状玻璃（或塑料）小珠 | |
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119
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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120
tapers
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| （长形物体的）逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 )； 微弱的光； 极细的蜡烛 | |
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121
blatant
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| adj.厚颜无耻的；显眼的；炫耀的 | |
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122
truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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123
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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