"Oh, Mr. Whitelaw!"
As it was the first time he had ever been honored with this prefix2, he felt shocked and slightly foolish.
"Yes, Miss Ansley?"
A little breathless, she was, as he had noticed during their previous meeting, oddly grown up for her age, as one who takes responsibilities because there is no one else to bear them. She had the manner and selection of words of a woman of thirty.
"I hope you won't mind my waylaying3 you like this, but my brother would so much like to see you. You've been so awfully4 kind that I hope you'll come up. He's in bed, you know."
"When does he want me to come?"
"Well, now, if it isn't troubling you too much. You see, my father and mother are coming home to-night, and he'd like to have a word with you before then. He won't keep you more than a few minutes."
What Tom obscurely felt as an honor to himself she put as a favor he was doing them. It was an
[Pg 210]
honor in that it admitted him a little farther into privacies which to him seemed tapestried5 with privilege and tradition. His one brief glimpse of their way of living had not made him discontented; it had only appealed to his faculty6 for awe7.
Awe was what he was aware of in following his young guide up the two red staircases to the room where the fat boy lay in bed. It was a mother's-darling's room, amusingly out of keeping with the pudgy, fleshy being whom it housed. Flowered paper on the walls, flowered hangings at the windows, flowered cretonnes on thickly upholstered armchairs, flowered silk on the duvet, garlands of flowers on the headboard and footboard of the virginal white bedstead, made the piggy eyes and piggy cheeks, bolstered8 up by pillows of which some were trimmed with lace, the more funnily grotesque9. Tom Whitelaw saw neither the fun nor the grotesqueness10. All he could take in was the fact that beauty could gild11 the lily of this luxury. He knew nothing of beauty in his own denuded12 life. The room with two beds which he still shared with Honey at Mrs. Danker's was not so much a sanctuary13 as a lair14.
The fat boy's giggles15 were those of welcome, and also those of embarrassment16.
"After the scrap17 the other night got sick. Bronchitis. Sit down."
Tom looked round to see what Miss Ansley was doing, but slipping away, she shut the door behind her. He sank into the flowered armchair nearest to the bed. The cracked girlish voice, which now had a wheeze18 in it, went on.
[Pg 211]
"They've wired for dad and mother, and they're coming home to-night. Thought that before they got here I'd put you wise to something I want you to do."
Waiting for more, Tom sat silent, while the poor piggy face screwed itself up as if it meant to cry.
"Dad and mother think that because I'm so fat I'm not a sport. But they're dead wrong, see? I am a sport; only—only—" he was almost bursting into tears—"only the damn fat won't let me get it out, see?"
"Yes, I see. I now you're a sport all right, old chap. Of course!"
"Well, then, don't let them think the other thing, if they were to ask you."
"Ask me what?"
"Ask you what the row was about the other afternoon. If they do that tell 'em we were only playing nigger-in-the-henhouse, or any other snow game. Don't say I was knocked down by a lot of kids. Make 'em think I was having the devil's own good time."
Tom Whitelaw knew this kind of humiliation19. If he had not been through Guy Ansley's special phase of it he had been through others.
"I'll tell them what I saw. You and a lot of other fellows were skylarking in the snow, and I went by and got you to knock off. As I had to pass your door we came home together; but when I found you were wet to the skin I advised Miss Ansley to see that you hit the hay. That's all there was to it."
In the version of the incident the strain of truth was sufficiently20 clear to allow the fat boy to approve
[Pg 212]
of it. He didn't want to tell a lie, or to get Tom Whitelaw to tell a lie; but sport having been the object with which he had stolen away on that winter's afternoon, it was easy to persuade himself that he had got it. Before Tom went away Guy Ansley understood that he would figure to his parents not as a victim but as something of a tough.
"Gee21, I wish I was you," he grinned at Tom, who stood with his hands on the doorknob.
"Me!" Tom was never so astonished in his life. His eyes rolled round the room. "How do you think I live?"
"Oh, live! That's nothing. What I'd like to do is to rough it. If they'd let me do that I shouldn't be—I shouldn't be wrapped up in fat like a mummy in—in whatever it is they're wrapped up in. You can get away with anything on looks."
Sincere as was this tribute, it meant nothing to Tom Whitelaw, looks being no part of his preoccupations. What, for the minute, he was thinking about was that nobody in the world seemed to be quite satisfied. Here he was envying Guy Ansley his down quilt and his comfortable chairs, while Guy was envying him the rough-and-tumble of privation.
"I shouldn't look after him too much," he said to the young sister whom, on coming downstairs, he found waiting at the front door. "There's nothing wrong with him, except that he's a little stout22. He's got lots of pluck."
Her face glowed. The glow brought out its intelligence. The intelligence set into action a demure23, mysterious charm, almost oriental.
[Pg 213]
"That's just what I always say, and no one ever believes me. Mother makes a baby of him."
"If he could only fight his own way a little more...."
"Oh, I do hope you'll say that if they speak to you about him."
"I will if I ever get the chance, but...."
"Oh, you must get the chance. I'll make it. You see, you're the only boy Guy's ever taken a fancy to who didn't treat him as a joke."
Tom assured her that her brother was not the only fellow who had a hard fight to put up during boyhood. He had seen them by the dozen who, just because of some trifling24 oddity, or unusual taste, were teased, worried, tormented25, till school became a hell; but that didn't keep them from turning out in the end to be the best sports among them all. Very likely the guying did them good. He thought it might. He, Tom Whitelaw, had been through a lot of it, and now that he was sixteen he wasn't sorry for himself a bit. He used to be sorry for himself, but....
Seeing her for the second time, and in daylight, her features grew more distinct to him. He mused26 on them while continuing his way homeward. To say she was not pretty, as he had said the other night, was to use a form of words calling for amplification27. It was the first time he had had occasion to observe that there are faces to which beauty is not important.
"It's the way she looks at you," was his form of summing up; and yet for the way she looked at you he had no sufficient phraseology.
That her eyes were long, narrow, and yellow-brown,
[Pg 214]
ever so slightly Mongolian, he could see easily enough. That her nose was short, with a little tilt28 to it, was also a fact he had no difficulty in stating. As for her coloring, it was like that of a russet apple when the brown has a little gold in it and the red the brightness of carmine29. Her hair was saved from being ugly by running to the quaint30. Straight, black—black with a bluish gloss—it was worn not in the pigtail with which he was most familiar, but in two big plaits curved behind the ears, and secured he didn't know how. She reminded him of a colored picture he had seen of a Cambodian girl, a resemblance enhanced by the dark blue dress she wore, straight and formless down the length of her immature31, boylike figure, and marked at the waistline by a circle of gold braid.
But all these details were subordinate to something he had no power of defining. It was also something of which he was jealous as an injustice32 to Maisie Danker. If this girl had what poor Maisie had not it was because money gave her an advantage. It was the kind of advantage that wasn't fair. Because it wasn't fair, he felt it a challenge to his loyalty33.
Nevertheless, he could not accept Maisie's offhand34 judgments35 when between five and six that afternoon he told her of the incident.
This was at The Cherry Tree, one of those bowers36 of refreshment38 and dancing recently opened on their own slope of Beacon39 Hill. Bower37 was the word. What had once been the basement-kitchen and coal cellar of a small brick dwelling40 had been artfully converted into a long oval orchard41 of cherry trees, in
[Pg 215]
paper luxuriance of foliage42 and blossom. Within the boskage, and under Chinese lanterns, there were tables; out in the open was a center oval cleared for dancing. Somewhere out of sight a cracked fiddle43 and a flat piano rasped out the tango or some shred44 of "rag." With the briefest intervals45 for breath, this performance was continuous. The guests, who at that hour in the afternoon numbered no more than ten or twelve, forsook46 their refreshments47 to take the floor, or forsook the floor to return to their refreshments, just as the impulse moved them. They were chiefly working girls, young men at leisure because out of jobs, or sailors on shore. Except for an occasional hoarse48 or screechy49 laugh, the decorum was proper to solemnity.
It was the fourth or fifth time Tom and Maisie had come to this retreat, nominally50 that Tom should learn to dance, but really that they should commune together. To him the occasions were blissful for the reason that he had no one else in the world to commune with. To talk, to talk eagerly, to pour out the torrent51 of opinions boiling within him, meant more than that Maisie should understand him. Maisie didn't understand him. She only laughed and joked with pretty inanity52; but she let him talk. He talked about the books he liked and didn't like, about the advantages college men possessed53 over those who weren't college men, about what he knew of the banking54 system, about the good you conferred on the world and yourself when you saved your money and invested it. In none of these subjects was she interested; but now and then she could get a turn to talk of the movies,
[Pg 216]
the new dances, and love. That these subjects made him uneasy was not, from Maisie's point of view, a reason for avoiding them.
Each was concerned with the other, but beyond the other each was concerned most of all with the mystery called Life. To live was what they were after, to live strongly and deeply and vividly55 and hotly, and to do it with the pinched means and narrow opportunities which were all they could command. In his secret heart Tom Whitelaw knew that Maisie Danker was not the girl out of all the world he would have sought of his own accord, while Maisie Danker was equally aware that this boy two years younger than herself couldn't be the generous provider she was looking for. They were only like shipwrecked passengers thrown together on an island. They must make the best of each other. No other girl, hardly any other human being except Honey, had entered the social isolation56 in which he was marooned57, and as for her....
She was so cheery and game that she never referred to her home experiences otherwise than allusively58. From allusions59 he gathered that she was not with her aunt, Mrs. Danker, merely for pleasure or from pressure of affection. Her father was living; her stepmother was living too. There was a whole step-family of little brothers and sisters. Her father drank; her stepmother hated her; there was no room for her at home. All her life she had been knocked about. Even when she worked in the woolen61 mills she couldn't keep her wages. She had had fellows, but none of them was ever any good. The best of
[Pg 217]
them was a French Canadian who made big money, but he wouldn't marry her unless she "turned Catholic." "If he couldn't give up his church for me I couldn't give up mine for him; so there it was!" There was another fellow.... But as to him she said little. In speaking of him at all her face grew somber62, which it did rarely. Either because he had failed her, or to get her out of his clutches, Tom was not sure which, her aunt had offered her a home for the winter. "Gee, it makes me laff," was her own sole comment on her miseries63.
As Tom had dropped into the habit of telling her the small happenings of his uneventful life, he gave her, across the ice-cream sodas64, an account of what had just occurred between himself and Guy and Hildred Ansley.
She listened with what for her was gravity. "You've got to give some of them society girls the cold glassy eye," she informed him, judicially65. "If you don't you'll get it yourself, perhaps when you ain't expecting it."
"Oh, but this is only a little girl, not more than fourteen. She just seems grown up. That's the funny part of it."
"Not more than fourteen! Just seems grown up! Why, any of that bunch is forwarder at ten than I'd be at twenty. That's one thing I'd never be, not if men was scarcer than blue raspberries—forward. And yet some of them society buds'll be brassier than a knocker on a door."
"Oh, but this little Miss Ansley isn't that sort."
"You wouldn't know, not if she was running up
[Pg 218]
and down your throat. Any girl can get hold of a man if she makes him think she needs him bad enough."
"It wasn't she who needed me; it was her brother."
"A brother'll do. A grandmother'd do. If you can't bait your hook with a feather fly, you can take a bit of worm. But once a fella like you begins to take a shine to one of them...."
"Shine to one of them! Me?"
"Well, I suppose you'll be taking a shine to some girl some day. Why shouldn't you?"
"If I was going to do that...."
The point at which he suspended his sentence was that which piqued66 her especially. Her eyes were provocative67; her bright face alert.
"Well, if you were going to do that—what of it?"
The minute was one he was trying to evade68. As clearly as if he were fifty, he knew the folly69 of getting himself involved in an emotional entanglement70. Though he looked a young man, he was only a big boy. The most serious part of his preparation for life lay just ahead of him. If he didn't go to college....
And even more pressing than that consideration was the fact that in bringing Maisie to The Cherry Tree that afternoon he had come down to his last fifteen cents. At the beginning of their acquaintance he had had seven dollars and a half, hoarded71 preciously for needs connected with his education. Maisie had stampeded the whole treasure. To expect a man to spend money on her was as instinctive72 to Maisie as it is to a flower to expect the heavens to send rain.
[Pg 219]
She knew that at each mention of the movies or The Cherry Tree Tom squirmed in the anguish73 of financial disability, and that from the very hint of love he bolted like a colt from the bridle74; but when it came to what she considered as her due she was pitiless.
No epic75 has yet been written on the woes76 of the young man trying, on twenty-five dollars a week, let us say, to play up to the American girl's taste for spending money. His self-denials, his sordid77 shifts, his mortifications, his sense at times that his most unselfish efforts have been scorned, might inspire a series of episodes as tensely dramatic as those of Spoon River.
Tom had had one such experience on Maisie's birthday. She had talked so much of her birthday that a present became indispensable. To meet this necessity the extreme of his expenditure78 could be no more than fifty cents. To find for fifty cents something worthy79 of a lady already a connoisseur80 he ransacked81 Boston. Somewhere he had heard that a present might be modest so long as it was the best thing of its kind. The best thing of its kind he discovered was a toothbrush. It was not a common toothbrush except for the part that brushed the teeth. The handle was of mother-of-pearl, with an inlay in red enamel82. The price was forty-five cents.
Maisie laughed till she cried. "A toothbrush! A toothbrush! For a present that's something new! Gee, how the girls'll laff when I go back to Nashua and tell them that that's what a guy give me in Boston!"
The humiliation of straitened means was the more
[Pg 220]
galling to Tom Whitelaw, first because he was a giver, and then because he knew the value of money. With the value of money his mind was always playing, not from miserly motives83, but from those of social economy. Each time he "blew in," as he called it, a dollar on the girl he said to himself: "If I could have invested that dollar, it would have helped to run a factory, and have brought me in six or seven cents a year for all the rest of my life." He made this calculation to mark the wastage he was strewing84 along his path in the wild pace he was running.
There was something about Maisie which obliged you to play up to her. She was that sort of girl. If you didn't play up, the mere60 laughter in her eye made you feel your lack of the manly85 qualities. It was not her scorn she brought into play; it was her sense of fun; but to the boy of sixteen her sense of fun was terrible.
It was terrible, and yet it put him on his guard. He couldn't wholly give in to her. If she could make moves he could make them too, and perhaps as adroitly86. Her tantalizing87 question was ringing in his ears: If he was going to take a shine to any girl—what of it?
"Oh, if I was going to do that," he tossed off, "it would be to you."
"So that you haven't taken a shine to me—yet?"
"It depends on what you mean by a shine."
"What do you mean by it yourself?"
"I never have time to think." This was a happy
[Pg 221]
sentiment, and a safeguard. "It takes all I can do to remember that I've got to go to college."
"Damn college!"
He was so unsophisticated that the expression startled him. He hadn't supposed young ladies used it, not any more than they sneaked88 into barns or under bridges to smoke cigarettes.
"What's the use of damning college, when I've got to go?"
"You haven't got to go. A great strong fella like you ought to be earning his twenty per by this time. If you've got money in the bank, as you say you have...."
He trembled already for his treasure. "I haven't got it here. It's in a savings89 bank in New York."
"Oh, that's nothing! If you got it anywheres you can get at it with a check. Gee, if I had a few hundreds I'd have ten in my pocket at a time, I'll be hanged if I wouldn't. I don't believe you've got it, see. I know a lot o' guys that loves to put that sort of fluff over on a girl. Makes 'em feel big. But if they only knew what the girl thinks of them...." She jumped to her feet, allowing herself a little more vulgarity than she generally showed. "All right, old son, c'me awn! Let's have another twist. And for Gawd's sake don't bring down that hoof90 of yours till I get a chance to pull my Cinderella-slipper out of your way."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
aged
|
|
| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
prefix
|
|
| n.前缀；vt.加…作为前缀；置于前面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
waylaying
|
|
| v.拦截，拦路( waylay的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
tapestried
|
|
| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
6
faculty
|
|
| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
bolstered
|
|
| v.支持( bolster的过去式和过去分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
grotesque
|
|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
grotesqueness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
11
gild
|
|
| vt.给…镀金，把…漆成金色，使呈金色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
denuded
|
|
| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
sanctuary
|
|
| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
lair
|
|
| n.野兽的巢穴；躲藏处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
giggles
|
|
| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
embarrassment
|
|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
scrap
|
|
| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
wheeze
|
|
| n.喘息声，气喘声；v.喘息着说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
humiliation
|
|
| n.羞辱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
gee
|
|
| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
demure
|
|
| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
trifling
|
|
| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
tormented
|
|
| 饱受折磨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
amplification
|
|
| n.扩大，发挥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
tilt
|
|
| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
carmine
|
|
| n.深红色，洋红色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
quaint
|
|
| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
immature
|
|
| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
injustice
|
|
| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
loyalty
|
|
| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
offhand
|
|
| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
judgments
|
|
| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
bowers
|
|
| n.（女子的）卧室( bower的名词复数 )；船首锚；阴凉处；鞠躬的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
bower
|
|
| n.凉亭，树荫下凉快之处；闺房；v.荫蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
refreshment
|
|
| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
beacon
|
|
| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
dwelling
|
|
| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
orchard
|
|
| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
foliage
|
|
| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
fiddle
|
|
| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
shred
|
|
| v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
intervals
|
|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
forsook
|
|
| forsake的过去式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
refreshments
|
|
| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
hoarse
|
|
| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
screechy
|
|
| adj.声音尖锐的，喜欢尖声喊叫的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
nominally
|
|
| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
torrent
|
|
| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
inanity
|
|
| n.无意义，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
banking
|
|
| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
vividly
|
|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
isolation
|
|
| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
marooned
|
|
| adj.被围困的；孤立无援的；无法脱身的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
allusively
|
|
| adj.暗指的，影射，间接提到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
allusions
|
|
| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
woolen
|
|
| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
somber
|
|
| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
miseries
|
|
| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
sodas
|
|
| n.苏打( soda的名词复数 )；碱；苏打水；汽水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
judicially
|
|
| 依法判决地，公平地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
piqued
|
|
| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
provocative
|
|
| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
evade
|
|
| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
entanglement
|
|
| n.纠缠，牵累 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
hoarded
|
|
| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
instinctive
|
|
| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
anguish
|
|
| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
bridle
|
|
| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
epic
|
|
| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
woes
|
|
| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
sordid
|
|
| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
expenditure
|
|
| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
connoisseur
|
|
| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
ransacked
|
|
| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
enamel
|
|
| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
motives
|
|
| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
strewing
|
|
| v.撒在…上( strew的现在分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
manly
|
|
| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
adroitly
|
|
| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
tantalizing
|
|
| 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 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
sneaked
|
|
| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
savings
|
|
| n.存款，储蓄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
hoof
|
|
| n.(马，牛等的)蹄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |