Concerning Mrs. Harold Piper at thirty-five, opinion was divided — women said she was still handsome; men said she was pretty no longer. And this was probably because the qualities in her beauty that women had feared and men had followed had vanished. Her eyes were still as large and as dark and as sad, but the mystery had departed; their sadness was no longer eternal, only human, and she had developed a habit, when she was startled or annoyed, of twitching1 her brows together and blinking several times. Her mouth also had lost: the red had receded2 and the faint down-turning of its corners when she smiled, that had added to the sadness of the eyes and been vaguely3 mocking and beautiful, was quite gone. When she smiled now the corners of her lips turned up. Back in the days when she revelled4 in her own beauty Evylyn had enjoyed that smile of hers — she had accentuated5 it. When she stopped accentuating6 it, it faded out and the last of her mystery with it.
Evylyn had ceased accentuating her smile within a month after the Freddy Gedney affair. Externally things had gone an very much as they had before. But in those few minutes during which she had discovered how much she loved her husband, Evylyn had realized how indelibly she had hurt him. For a month she struggled against aching silences, wild reproaches and accusations7 — she pled with him, made quiet, pitiful little love to him, and he laughed at her bitterly — and then she, too, slipped gradually into silence and a shadowy, impenetrable barrier dropped between them. The surge of love that had risen in her she lavished8 on Donald, her little boy, realizing him almost wonderingly as a part of her life.
The next year a piling up of mutual9 interests and responsibilities and some stray flicker10 from the past brought husband and wife together again — but after a rather pathetic flood of passion Evylyn realized that her great opportunity was gone. There simply wasn’t anything left. She might have been youth and love for both — but that time of silence had slowly dried up the springs of affection and her own desire to drink again of them was dead.
She began for the first time to seek women friends, to prefer books she had read before, to sew a little where she could watch her two children to whom she was devoted11. She worried about little things — if she saw crumbs12 on the dinner-table her mind drifted off the conversation: she was receding13 gradually into middle age.
Her thirty-fifth birthday had been an exceptionally busy one, for they were entertaining on short notice that night, as she stood in her bedroom window in the late afternoon she discovered that she was quite tired. Ten years before she would have lain down and slept, but now she had a feeling that things needed watching: maids were cleaning down-stairs, bric-à-brac was all over the floor, and there were sure to be grocery-men that had to be talked to imperatively14 — and then there was a letter to write Donald, who was fourteen and in his first year away at school.
She had nearly decided15 to lie down, nevertheless, when she heard a sudden familiar signal from little Julie down-stairs. She compressed her lips, her brows twitched16 together, and she blinked.
“Julie!” she called.
“Ah-h-h-ow!” prolonged Julie plaintively17. Then the voice of Hilda, the second maid, floated up the stairs.
“She cut herself a little, Mis’ Piper.”
Evylyn flew to her sewing-basket, rummaged18 until she found a torn handkerchief, and hurried downstairs. In a moment Julie was crying in her arms as she searched for the cut, faint, disparaging19 evidences of which appeared on Julie’s dress.
“My THU-umb!” explained Julie. “Oh-h-h-h, t’urts.”
“It was the bowl here, the he one,” said Hilda apologetically. “It was waitin’ on the floor while I polished the sideboard, and Julie come along an’ went to foolin’ with it. She yust scratch herself.”
Evylyn frowned heavily at Hilda, and twisting Julie decisively in her lap, began tearing strips of the handkerchief.
“Now — let’s see it, dear.”
Julie held it up and Evelyn pounced20.
“There!”
Julie surveyed her swathed thumb doubtfully. She crooked21 it; it waggled. A pleased, interested look appeared in her tear-stained face. She sniffled and waggled it again.
“You PRECIOUS!” cried Evylyn and kissed her, but before she left the room she levelled another frown at Hilda. Careless! Servants all that way nowadays. If she could get a good Irishwoman — but you couldn’t any more — and these Swedes ——
At five o’clock Harold arrived and, coming up to her room, threatened in a suspiciously jovial22 tone to kiss her thirty-five times for her birthday. Evylyn resisted.
“You’ve been drinking,” she said shortly, and then added qualitatively23, “a little. You know I loathe24 the smell of it.”
“Evie,” he said after a pause, seating himself in a chair by the window, “I can tell you something now. I guess you’ve known things haven’t beep going quite right down-town.”
She was standing25 at the window combing her hair, but at these words she turned and looked at him.
“How do you mean? You’ve always said there was room for more than one wholesale26 hardware house in town.” Her voice expressed some alarm.
“There WAS,” said Harold significantly, “but this Clarence Ahearn is a smart man.”
“I was surprised when you said he was coming to dinner.”
“Evie,” he went on, with another slap at his knee, “after January first ‘The Clarence Ahearn Company’ becomes ‘The Ahearn, Piper Company’— and ‘Piper Brothers’ as a company ceases to exist.”
Evylyn was startled. The sound of his name in second place was somehow hostile to her; still he appeared jubilant.
“I don’t understand, Harold.”
“Well, Evie, Ahearn has been fooling around with Marx. If those two had combined we’d have been the little fellow, struggling along, picking up smaller orders, hanging back on risks. It’s a question of capital, Evie, and ‘Ahearn and Marx’ would have had the business just like ‘Ahearn and Piper’ is going to now.” He paused and coughed and a little cloud of whiskey floated up to her nostrils27. “Tell you the truth, Evie, I’ve suspected that Ahearn’s wife had something to do with it. Ambitious little lady, I’m told. Guess she knew the Marxes couldn’t help her much here.”
“Is she — common?” asked Evie.
“Never met her, I’m sure — but I don’t doubt it. Clarence Ahearn’s name’s been up at the Country Club five months — no action taken.” He waved his hand disparagingly28. “Ahearn and I had lunch together to-day and just about clinched29 it, so I thought it’d be nice to have him and his wife up to-night — just have nine, mostly family. After all, it’s a big thing for me, and of course we’ll have to see something of them, Evie.”
“Yes,” said Evie thoughtfully, “I suppose we will.”
Evylyn was not disturbed over the social end of it — but the idea of “Piper Brothers” becoming “The Ahearn, Piper Company” startled her. It seemed like going down in the world.
Half an hour later, as she began to dress for dinner, she heard his voice from down-stairs.
“Oh, Evie, come down!”
She went out into the hall and called over the banister:
“What is it?”
“I want you to help me make some of that punch before dinner. ”
Hurriedly rehooking her dress, she descended30 the stairs and found him grouping the essentials on the dining-room table. She went to the sideboard and, lifting one of the bowls, carried it over.
“Oh, no,” he protested, “let’s use the big one. There’ll be Ahearn and his wife and you and I and Milton, that’s five, and Tom and Jessie, that’s seven: and your sister and Joe Ambler31, that’s nine. You don’t know how quick that stuff goes when YOU make it.”
“We’ll use this bowl,” she insisted. “It’ll hold plenty. You know how Tom is.”
Tom Lowrie, husband to Jessie, Harold’s first cousin, was rather inclined to finish anything in a liquid way that he began.
Harold shook his head.
“Don’t be foolish. That one holds only about three quarts and there’s nine of us, and the servants’ll want some — and it isn’t strong punch. It’s so much more cheerful to have a lot, Evie; we don’t have to drink all of it.”
“I say the small one.”
Again he shook his head obstinately32.
“No; be reasonable.”
“I AM reasonable,” she said shortly. “I don’t want any drunken men in the house.”
“Who said you did?”
“Then use the small bowl.”
“Now, Evie ——”
He grasped the smaller bowl to lift it back. Instantly her hands were on it, holding it down. There was a momentary33 struggle, and then, with a little exasperated34 grunt35, he raised his side, slipped it from her fingers, and carried it to the sideboard.
She looked at him and tried to make her expression contemptuous, but he only laughed. Acknowledging her defeat but disclaiming36 all future interest in the punch, she left the room.
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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revelled
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| v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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accentuated
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| v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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accentuating
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| v.重读( accentuate的现在分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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imperatively
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| adv.命令式地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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rummaged
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的过去式和过去分词 )； 已经海关检查 | |
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disparaging
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| adj.轻蔑的，毁谤的v.轻视( disparage的现在分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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pounced
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| v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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qualitatively
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| 质量上 | |
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loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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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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wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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disparagingly
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| adv.以贬抑的口吻，以轻视的态度 | |
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clinched
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| v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的过去式和过去分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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ambler
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| n.以溜步法走的马，慢慢走的人 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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disclaiming
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| v.否认( disclaim的现在分词 ) | |
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