Early on Tuesday morning the devil entered into Daisy Quantock, probably by means of subconscious11 telepathy, and she proceeded to go round the green at the morning parliament, and ask everybody to come in for a good romp7 on Saturday evening, and they all accepted. Georgie, Lucia and Olga were absentees, and so, making a house-to-house visitation she went first to Georgie. He with secret knowledge of the tableaux (indeed he was stitching himself a robe to be worn by King Cophetua at the time and hastily bundling it under the table) regretted that he was already engaged. This was rather mysterious, but he might have planned, for all Mrs Quantock knew, an evening when he would be “busy indoors,” and since those evenings were never to be pried12 upon, she asked no questions, but went off to Lucia’s to give her invitation there. There again she was met with a similarly mysterious refusal. Lucia much regretted that she and Peppino were unable to come, and she hoped Daisy would have a lovely party. Even as she spoke13, she heard her telephone bell ringing, and hurried off to find that Georgie, faithful lieutenant14, was acquainting her with the fact that Mrs Quantock was planning a party for Saturday; he did not know how far she had got. At that moment she had got just half-way to Old Place, walking at unusual speed. Lucia grasped the situation with amazing quickness, and cutting off Georgie with a snap, she abandoned all idea of her party being impromptu, and rang up Olga. She would secure her anyhow. . . .
The telephone was in the hall, and Olga, with her hat on, was just preparing to go out, when the bell sounded. The words of grateful acceptance were on her very lips when her front-door bell rang too, very long and insistently15 and had hardly left off when it began again. Olga opened the door herself and there was Mrs Quantock on the doorstep with her invitation for Saturday night. She was obliged to refuse, but promised to look in, if she was not very late in getting away from Mrs Lucas’s (and pop went the cat out of the bag). Another romp would be lovely.
Already the evils of decentralisation and overlapping16 were becoming manifest. Lucia rang up house after house, only to find that its inhabitants were already engaged. She had got Olga and Georgie, and could begin the good work of education and the crushing of rivalry17, not by force but by pure and refined example, but Mrs Quantock had got everybody else. In the old days this could never have happened for everything devolved round one central body. Now with the appearance of this other great star, all the known laws of gravity and attraction were upset.
Georgie, again summoned to the telephone, recommended an appeal to Mrs Quantock’s better nature, which Lucia rejected, doubting whether she had one.
“But what about the tableaux?” asked Georgie. “We three can’t very well do tableaux for Miss Olga to look at.”
Then Lucia showed herself truly great.
“The merit of the tableaux does not consist in the number of the audience,” she said.
She paused a moment.
“Have you got the Cophetua-robe to set properly?” she asked.
“Oh, it’ll do,” said Georgie dejectedly.
On Tuesday afternoon Olga rang up Lucia again to say that her husband was arriving that day, so might she bring him on Saturday? To this Lucia cordially assented18, but she felt that a husband and wife sitting together and looking at another husband and wife doing tableaux would be an unusual entertainment, and not characteristic of Riseholme’s best. She began to waver about the tableaux and to consider dinner instead. She also wondered whether she had been wronging dear Daisy, and whether she had a better nature after all. Perhaps Georgie might ascertain19.
Georgie was roused from a little fatigued20 nap by the telephone, for he had fallen asleep over King Cophetua’s robe. Lucia explained the situation and delicately suggested that it would be so easy for him to “pop in” to dear Daisy’s, and be very diplomatic. There was nobody like Georgie for tact21. So with a heavy yawn he popped in.
“You’ve come about this business on Saturday,” said Daisy unerringly. “Haven’t you?”
Georgie remembered his character for tact.
“How wonderful of you to guess that!” he said. “I thought we might see if we couldn’t arrange something, if we put our heads together. It’s such a pity to split up. We-I mean Lucia has got Miss Olga and her husband coming, and ——”
“And I’ve got everybody else,” said Daisy brightly. “And Miss Bracely is coming over here, if she gets away early. Probably with such a small party she will.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t count on that,” said he. “We are having some tableaux, and they always take longer than you think. Dear me, I shouldn’t have said that, as they were to be impromptu, but I really believe my head is going. You know how thorough Lucia is; she is taking a great deal of trouble about them.”
“I hadn’t heard about that,” said Mrs Quantock.
She thought a moment.
“Well; I don’t want to spoil Lucia’s evening,” she said, “for I’m sure nothing could be so ridiculous as three people doing tableaux for two others. And on the other hand, I don’t want her to spoil mine, for what’s to prevent her going on with the tableaux till church-time next morning if she wishes to keep Miss Bracely away from my house? I’m sure after the way she behaved about my Guru —— Well, never mind that. How would it be if we had the tableaux first at Lucia’s, and then came on here? If Lucia cares to suggest that to me, and my guests consent, I don’t mind doing that.”
By six o’clock on Tuesday evening therefore all the telephone bells of Riseholme were merrily ringing again. Mrs Quantock stipulated22 that Lucia’s party should end at 10.45 precisely23, if it didn’t end before, and that everyone should then be free to flock across to her house. She proposed a romp that should even outshine Olga’s, and was deep in the study of a manual of “Round Games,” which included “Hunt the Slipper24.” . . .
Georgie and Peppino took turns at the telephone, ringing up all Mrs Quantock’s guests, and informing them of the double pleasure which awaited them on Saturday. Since Georgie had let out the secret of the impromptu tableaux to Mrs Quantock there was no reason why the rest of Riseholme should not learn of this firsthand from The Hurst, instead of second-hand25 (with promises not to repeat it) from Mrs Quantock. It appeared that she had a better nature than Lucia credited her with, but to expect her not to tell everybody about the tableaux would be putting virtue26 to an unfair test.
“So that’s all settled,” said Georgie, as he returned with the last acceptance, “and how fortunately it has happened after all. But what a day it has been. Nothing but telephoning from morning till night. If we go on like this the company will pay a dividend27 this year, and return us some of our own pennies.”
Lucia had got a quantity of pearl beads28 and was stringing them for the tableau2 of Mary Queen of Scots.
“Now that everyone knows,” she said, “we might allow ourselves a little more elaboration in our preparations. There is an Elizabethan axe29 at the Ambermere Arms which I might borrow for Peppino. Then about the Brunnhilde tableau. It is dawn, is it not? We might have the stage quite dark when the curtain goes up, and turn up a lamp very slowly behind the scene, so that it shines on my face. A lamp being turned up very slowly is wonderfully effective. It produces a perfect illusion. Could you manage that with one hand and play the music of the awakening with the other, Georgino?”
“I’m quite sure I couldn’t,” said he.
“Well then Peppino must do it before he comes on. We will have movement in this tableau; I think that will be quite a new idea. Peppino shall come in-just two steps — when he has turned the lamp up, and he will take off my shield and armour30 ——”
“But the music will never last out,” cried Georgie. “I shall have to start earlier.”
“Yes, perhaps that would be better,” said Lucia calmly. “That real piece of chain-armour too, I am glad I remembered Peppino had that. Marshall is cleaning it now, and it will give a far finer effect than the tawdry stuff they use in opera. Then I sit up very slowly, and wave first my right arm and then my left, and then both. I should like to practise that now on the sofa!”
Lucia had just lain down, when the telephone sounded again and Georgie got up.
“That’s to announce a dividend,” he said, and tripped into the hall.
“Is that Mrs Lucas’?” said a voice he knew.
“Yes, Miss Olga,” he said, “and this is me.”
“Oh, Mr Georgie, how fortunate,” she said. “You can give my message now to Mrs Lucas, can’t you? I’m a perfect fool, you know, and horribly forgetful.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Georgie faintly.
“It’s about Saturday. I’ve just remembered that Georgie and I— not you, you know — are going away for the week, end. Will you tell Mrs Lucas how sorry I am?”
Georgie went back to the music room, where Lucia had just got both her arms waving. But at the sight of his face she dropped them and took a firm hold of herself.
“Well, what is it?” she said.
Georgie gave the message, and she got off the sofa, rising to her feet, while her mind rose to the occasion.
“I am sorry that Miss Bracely will not see our tableaux,” she said. “But as she was not acting31 in them I do not know that it makes much difference.”
A deadly flatness, although Olga’s absence made no difference, descended32 on the three. Lucia did not resume her arm-work, for after all these years her acting might be supposed to be good enough for Riseholme without further practice, and nothing more was heard of the borrowing of the axe from the Ambermere Arms. But having begun to thread her pearl-beads, she finished them; Georgie, however, cared no longer whether the gold border of King Cophetua’s mantle33 went quite round the back or not, and having tacked34 on the piece he was working at, rolled it up. It was just going to be an ordinary party, after all. His cup was empty.
But Lucia’s was not yet quite full, for at this moment Miss Lyall’s pony35 hip-bath stopped at the gate, and a small stableboy presented a note, which required an answer. In spite of all Lucia’s self-control, the immediate36 answer it got was a flush of heightened colour.
“Mere1 impertinence,” she said. “I will read it aloud.”
“Dear Mrs Lucas,
“I was in Riseholme this morning, and learn from Mrs Weston that Miss Bracely will be at your house on Saturday night. So I shall be enchanted37 to come to dinner after all. You must know that I make a rule of not going out in the evening, except for some special reason, but it would be a great pleasure to hear her sing again. I wonder if you would have dinner at 7:30 instead of 8, as I do not like being out very late.”
There was a short pause.
“Caro,“ said Lucia, trembling violently, “perhaps you would kindly38 tell Miss Lyall that I do not expect Miss Bracely on Saturday, and that I do not expect Lady Ambermere either.”
“My dear —” he began.
“I will do it myself then,” she said.
It was as Georgie walked home after the delivery of this message that he wanted to fly away and be at rest with Foljambe and Dicky. He had been frantically39 excited ever since Sunday at the idea of doing tableaux before Olga, and today in especial had been a mere feverish40 hash of telephoning and sewing which all ended in nothing at all, for neither tableaux nor romps41 seemed to hold the least attraction for him now that Olga was not going to be there. And then all at once it dawned on him that he must be in love with Olga, for why else should her presence or absence make such an astounding42 difference to him? He stopped dead opposite Mrs Quantock’s mulberry tree.
“More misery43! More unhappiness!” he said to himself. Really if life at Riseholme was to become a series of agitated44 days ending in devastating45 discoveries, the sooner he went away with Foljambe and Dicky the better. He did not quite know what it was like to be in love, for the nearest he had previously46 ever got to it was when he saw Olga awake on the mountain-top and felt that he had missed his vocation47 in not being Siegfried, but from that he guessed. This time, too, it was about Olga, not about her as framed in the romance of legend and song, but of her as she appeared at Riseholme, taking as she did now, an ecstatic interest in the affairs of the place. So short a time ago, when she contemplated48 coming here first, she had spoken of it as a lazy backwater. Now she knew better than that, for she could listen to Mrs Weston far longer than anybody else, and ask for more histories when even she had run dry. And yet Lucia seemed hardly to interest her at all. Georgie wondered why that was.
He raised his eyes as he muttered these desolated49 syllables50 and there was Olga just letting herself out of the front garden of the Old Place. Georgie’s first impulse was to affect not to see her, and turn into his bachelor house, but she had certainly seen him, and made so shrill51 and piercing a whistle on her fingers that, pretend as he would not to have seen her, it was ludicrous to appear not to have heard her. She beckoned52 to him.
“Georgie, the most awful thing has happened,” she said, as they came within speaking distance. “Oh, I called you Georgie by mistake then. When one once does that, one must go on doing it on purpose. Guess!” she said in the best Riseholme manner.
“You can come to Lucia’s party after all,” said he.
“No, I can’t. Well, you’ll never guess because you move in such high circles, so I’ll tell you. Mrs Weston’s Elizabeth is going to be married to Colonel Boucher’s Atkinson. I don’t know his Christian53 name, nor her surname, but they’re the ones!”
“You don’t say so!” said Georgie, stung for a moment out of his own troubles. “But will they both leave? What will either of the others do? Mrs Weston can’t have a manservant, and how on earth is she to get on without Elizabeth? Besides ——”
A faint flush mounted to his cheek.
“I know. You mean babies,” said Olga ruthlessly. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Georgie.
“Then why not say so? You and I were babies once, though no one is old enough to remember that, and we shouldn’t have liked our parents and friends to have blushed when they mentioned us. Georgie, you are a prude.”
“No, I’m not,” said Georgie, remembering he was probably in love with a married woman.
“It doesn’t matter whether you are or not. Now there’s only one thing that can happen to Mrs Weston and the Colonel. They must marry each other too. Then Atkinson can continue to be Colonel Boucher’s man and Elizabeth the parlour-maid, unless she is busy with what made you blush. Then they can get help in; you will lend them Foljambe, for instance. It’s time you began to be of some good in your wicked selfish life. So that’s settled. It only remains54 for us to make them marry each other.”
“Aren’t you getting on rather fast?” asked Georgie.
“I’m not getting on at all at present I’m only talking. Come into my house instantly, and we’ll drink vermouth. Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic55, but we’ll hope for the best.”
Presently they were seated in Olga’s music-room, with a bottle of vermouth between them.
“Now drink fair, Georgie,” she said, “and as you drink tell me all about the young people’s emotional history.”
“Atkinson and Elizabeth?” asked Georgie.
“No, my dear; Colonel Boucher and Mrs Weston. They have an emotional history. I am sure you all thought they were going to marry each other once. And they constantly dine together tete-a-tete. Now that’s a very good start. Are you quite sure he hasn’t got a wife and family in Egypt, or she a husband and family somewhere else? I don’t want to rake up family skeletons.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” said Georgie.
“Then we’ll take them as non-existent. You certainly would have heard of them if there were any, and very likely if there weren’t. And they both like eating, drinking and the latest intelligence. Don’t they?”
“Yes. But ——”
“But what? What more do you or they want? Isn’t that a better start for married life than many people get?”
“But aren’t they rather old?” asked Georgie.
“Not much older than you and me, and if it wasn’t that I’ve got my own Georgie, I would soon have somebody else’s. Do you know who I mean?”
“No!” said Georgie firmly. Though all this came at the end of a most harrowing day, it or the vermouth exhilarated him.
“Then I’ll tell you just what Mrs Weston told me. ‘He’s always been devoted56 to Lucia,’ said Mrs Weston, ‘and he has never looked at anybody else. There was Piggy Antrobus ——’ Now do you know who I mean?”
Georgie suddenly giggled57.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then don’t talk about yourself so much, my dear, and let us get to the point. Now this afternoon I dropped in to see Mrs Weston and as she was telling me about the tragedy, she said by accident (just as I called you Georgie just now by accident) ‘And I don’t know what Jacob will do without Atkinson.’ Now is or is not Colonel Boucher’s name Jacob? There you are then! That’s one side of the question. She called him Jacob by accident and so she’ll call him Jacob on purpose before very long.”
Olga nodded her head up and down in precise reproduction of Mrs Weston.
“I’d hardly got out of the house,” she said in exact imitation of Mrs Weston’s voice, “before I met Colonel Boucher. It would have been about three o’clock — no it couldn’t have been three, because I had got back home and was standing58 in the hall when it struck three, and my clock’s a shade fast if anything. Well; Colonel Boucher said to me, ‘Haw, hum, quite a domestic crisis, by Jove.’ And so I pretended I didn’t know, and he told me all about it. So I said ‘Well, it is a domestic crisis, and you’ll lose Atkinson.’ ‘Haw, hum,’ said he, ‘and poor Jane, I should say, Mrs Weston, will lose Elizabeth.’ There!”
She got up and lit a cigarette.
“Oh, Georgie, do you grasp the inwardness of that?” she said. “Their dear old hearts were laid bare by the trouble that had come upon them, and each of them spoke of the other, as each felt for the other. Probably neither of them had said Jacob or Jane in the whole course of their lives. But the Angel of the Lord descended and troubled the waters. If you think that’s profane59, have some more vermouth. It’s making me brilliant, though you wouldn’t have thought it. Now listen!”
She sat down again close to him, her face brimming with a humorous enthusiasm. Humour in Riseholme was apt to be a little unkind; if you mentioned the absurdities60 of your friends, there was just a speck61 of malice62 in your wit. But with her there was none of that, she gave an imitation of Mrs Weston with the most ruthless fidelity63, and yet it was kindly to the bottom. She liked her for talking in that emphatic64 voice and being so particular as to what time it was. “Now first of all you are coming to dine with me tonight,” said Olga.
“Oh, I’m afraid that tonight ——” began Georgie, shrinking from any further complications. He really must have a quiet evening, and go to bed very early.
“What are you afraid of tonight?” she asked. “You’re only going to wash your hair. You can do that tomorrow. So you and I, that’s two, and Mrs Weston and Colonel Jacob, that’s four, which is enough, and I don’t believe there’s anything to eat in the house. But there’s something to drink, which is my point. Not for you and me, mind; we’ve got to keep our heads and be clever. Don’t have any more vermouth. But Jane and Jacob are going to have quantities of champagne65. Not tipsy, you understand, but at their best, and unguardedly appreciative66 of each other and us. And when they go away, they will exchange a chaste67 kiss at Mrs Weston’s door, and she will ask him in. No! I think she’ll ask him in first. And when they wake up tomorrow morning, they will both wonder how they could possibly, and jointly68 ask themselves what everybody else will say. And then they’ll thank God and Olga and Georgie that they did, and live happily for an extraordinary number of years. My dear, how infinitely69 happier they will be together than they are being now. Funny old dears! Each at its own fireside, saying that it’s too old, bless them! And you and I will sing ‘Voice that breathed o’er Eden’ and in the middle our angel-voices will crack, and we will sob70 into our handkerchief, and Eden will be left breathing deeply all by itself like the Guru. Why did you never tell me about the Guru? Mrs Weston’s a better friend to me than you are, and I must ring for my cook — no I’ll telephone first to Jacob and Jane — and see what there is to eat afterwards. You will sit here quietly, and when I have finished I will tell you what your part is.”
During dinner, according to Olga’s plan of campaign, the conversation was to be general, because she hated to have two conversations going on when only four people were present, since she found that she always wanted to join in the other one. This was the main principle she inculcated on Georgie, stamping it on his memory by a simile71 of peculiar72 vividness. “Imagine there is an Elizabethan spittoon in the middle of the table,” she said, “and keep on firmly spitting into it. I want you when there’s any pause to spit about two things, one, how dreadfully unhappy both Jacob and Jane will be without their paragons73, the other, how pleasant is conversation and companionship. I shall be chaffing you, mind, all the time and saying you must get married. After dinner I shall probably stroll in the garden with Jacob. Don’t come. Keep him after dinner for some little time, for then’s my opportunity of talking to Jane, and give him at least three glasses of port. Gracious it’s time to dress, and the Lord prosper74 us.”
Georgie found himself the last to arrive, when he got back to Olga’s and all three of them shook hands rather as people shake hands before a funeral. They went into dinner at once and Olga instantly began, “How many years did you say your admirable Atkinson had been with you?” she asked Colonel Boucher.
“Twenty; getting on for twenty-one,” said he. “Great nuisance; ‘pon my word it’s worse than a nuisance.”
Georgie had a bright idea.
“But what’s a nuisance, Colonel?” he asked.
“Eh, haven’t you heard? I thought it would have been all over the place by now. Atkinson’s going to be married.”
“No!” said Georgie. “Whom to?”
Mrs Weston could not bear not to announce this herself. “To my Elizabeth,” she said. “Elizabeth came to me this morning. ‘May I speak to you a minute, ma’am?’ she asked, and I thought nothing more than that perhaps she had broken a tea-cup. ‘Yes,’ said I quite cheerfully, ‘and what have you come to tell me?’”
It was getting almost too tragic75 and Olga broke in.
“Let’s try to forget all about it, for an hour or two,” she said. “It was nice of you all to take pity on me and come and have dinner, otherwise I should have been quite alone. If there’s one thing I cannot bear it’s being alone in the evening. And to think that anybody chooses to be alone when he needn’t! Look at that wretch76 there,” and she pointed77 to Georgie, “who lives all by himself instead of marrying. Liking78 to be alone is the worst habit I know; much worse than drink.”
“Now do leave me alone,” said Georgie.
“I won’t, my dear, and when dinner is over Mrs Weston and I are going to put our heads together, and when you come out we shall announce to you the name of your bride. I should put a tax of twenty shillings on the pound on all bachelors; they should all marry or starve.”
Suddenly she turned to Colonel Boucher.
“Oh, Colonel,” she said. “What have I been saying? How dreadfully stupid of me not to remember that you were a bachelor too. But I wouldn’t have you starve for anything. Have some more fish instantly to shew you forgive me. Georgie change the subject you’re always talking about yourself.”
Georgie turned with admirable docility79 to Mrs Weston.
“It’s too miserable80 for you,” he said. “How will you get on without Elizabeth? How long has she been with you?”
Mrs Weston went straight back to where she had left off.
“So I said, ‘What have you come to tell me?’ quite cheerfully, thinking it was a tea-cup. And she said, ‘I’m going to be married, ma’am,’ and she blushed so prettily81 that you’d have thought she was a girl of twenty, though she was seventeen when she came to me — no, she was just eighteen, and that’s fifteen years ago, and that makes her thirty-three. ‘Well, Elizabeth,’ I said, ‘you haven’t told me yet who it is, but whether it’s the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Prince of Wales — for I felt I had to make a little joke like that — I hope you’ll make him as happy as you’ve made me all these years.’”
“You old darling,” said Olga. “I should have gone into hysterics, and forbade the banns.”
“No, Miss Bracely, you wouldn’t,” said Mrs Weston, “you’d have been just as thankful as me, that she’d got a good husband to take care of and to be taken care of by, because then she said, ‘Lor ma’am, it’s none of they — not them great folks. It’s the Colonel’s Atkinson.’ You ask the Colonel for Atkinson’s character, Miss Bracely, and then you’d be just as thankful as I was.”
“The Colonel’s Atkinson is a slow coach, just like Georgie,” said Olga. “He and Elizabeth have been living side by side all these years, and why couldn’t the man make up his mind before? The only redeeming82 circumstance is that he has done it now. Our poor Georgie now —”
“Now you’re going to be rude to Colonel Boucher again,” said Georgie. “Colonel, we’ve been asked here to be insulted.”
Colonel Boucher had nothing stronger than a mild tolerance83 for Georgie and rather enjoyed snubbing him.
“Well, if you call a glass of wine and a dinner like this an insult,” he said, “‘pon my word I don’t know what you’d call a compliment.”
“I know what I call a compliment,” said Olga, “and that’s your all coming to dine with me at such short notice. About Georgie’s approaching nuptials84 now —”
“You’re too tarsome” said he. “If you go on like that, I shan’t ask you to the wedding. Let’s talk about Elizabeth’s. When are they going to get married, Mrs Weston?”
“That’s what I said to Elizabeth. ‘Get an almanack, Elizabeth,’ said I, ‘so that you won’t choose a Sunday. Don’t say the 20th of next month without looking it out. But if the 20th isn’t a Sunday or a Friday mind, for though I don’t believe in such things, still you never know —’ There was Mrs Antrobus now,” said Mrs Weston suddenly, putting in a footnote to her speech to Elizabeth, “it was on a Friday she married, and within a year she got as deaf as you see her now. Then Mr Weston’s uncle, his uncle by marriage I should say, he was another Friday marriage and they missed their train when going off on their honeymoon85, and had to stay all night where they were without a sponge or a tooth brush between them, for all their luggage was in the train being whirled away to Torquay. ‘So make it the 20th, Elizabeth,’ I said, ‘if it isn’t a Friday or a Sunday, and I shall have time to look round me, and so will the Colonel, though I don’t expect that either of us will find your equals! And don’t cry, Elizabeth,’ I said, for she was getting quite watery86, ‘for if you cry about a marriage, what’ll be left for a funeral?’”
“Ha! Upon my word, I call that splendid of you,” said the Colonel. “I told Atkinson I wished I had never set eyes on him, before I wished him joy.”
Olga got up.
“Look after Colonel Boucher, Georgie,” she said, “and ring for anything you want. Look at the moon! Isn’t it heavenly. How Atkinson and Elizabeth must be enjoying it.”
The two men spent a half-hour of only moderately enjoyable conversation, for Georgie kept the grindstone of the misery of his lot without Atkinson, and the pleasure of companionship firmly to the Colonel’s nose. It was no use for him to attempt to change the subject to the approaching tableaux, to a vague rumour87 that Piggy had fallen face downwards88 in the ducking-pond, that Mrs Quantock and her husband had turned a table this afternoon with remarkable89 results, for it had tapped out that his name was Robert and hers Daisy. Whichever way he turned, Georgie herded90 him back on to the stony91 path that he had been bidden to take, with the result that when Georgie finally permitted him to go into the music-room, he was athirst for the more genial92 companionship of the ladies. Olga got up as they entered.
“Georgie’s so lazy,” she said, “that it’s no use asking him. But do let you and me have a turn up and down my garden, Colonel. There’s a divine moon and it’s quite warm.”
They stepped out into the windless night.
“Fancy it’s being October,” she said. “I don’t believe there is any winter in Riseholme, nor autumn either, for that matter. You are all so young, so deliciously young. Look at Georgie in there: he’s like a boy still, and as for Mrs Weston, she’s twenty-five: not a day older.”
“Yes, wonderful woman,” said he. “Always agreeable and lively. Handsome, too: I consider Mrs Weston a very handsome woman. Hasn’t altered an atom since I knew her.”
“That’s the wonderful thing about you all!” said she. “You are all just as brisk and young as you were ten years ago. It’s ridiculous. As for you, I’m not sure that you’re not the most ridiculous of the lot. I feel as if I had been having dinner with three delightful93 cousins a little younger — not much, but just a little — than myself. Gracious! How you all made me romp the other night here. What a pace you go, Colonel! What’s your walking like if you call this a stroll?”
Colonel Boucher moderated his pace. He thought Olga had been walking so quickly.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “Certainly Riseholme is a healthy bracing94 place. Perhaps we do keep our youth pretty well. God bless me, but the days go by without one’s noticing them. To think that I came here with Atkinson close on ten years ago.”
This did very well for Olga: she swiftly switched off onto it.
“It’s quite horrid95 for you losing your servant,” she said. “Servants do become friends, don’t they, especially to anyone living alone. Georgie and Foljambe, now! But I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if Foljambe had a mistress before very long.”
“No, really? I thought you were just chaffing him at dinner. Georgie marrying, is he? His wife’ll take some of his needlework off his hands. May I— ah — may I enquire96 the lady’s name?”
Olga decided97 to play a great card. She had just found it, so to speak, in her hand, and it was most tempting98. She stopped.
“But can’t you guess?” she said. “Surely I’m not absolutely on the wrong track?”
“Ah, Miss Antrobus,” said he. “The one I think they call Piggy. No, I should say there was nothing in that.”
“Oh, that had never occurred to me,” said she. “I daresay I’m quite wrong. I only judged from what I thought I noticed in poor Georgie. I daresay it’s only what he should have done ten years ago, but I fancy there’s a spark alive still. Let us talk about something else, though we won’t go in quite yet, shall we?” She felt quite safe in her apparent reluctance99 to tell him; the Riseholme gluttony for news made it imperative100 for him to ask more.
“Really, I must be very dull,” he said. “I daresay an eye new to the place sees more. Who is it, Miss Bracely?”
She laughed.
“Ah, how bad a man is at observing a man!” she said. “Didn’t you see Georgie at dinner? He hardly took his eyes off her.”
She had a great and glorious reward. Colonel Boucher’s face grew absolutely blank in the moonlight with sheer astonishment101.
“Well, you surprise me,” he said. “Surely a fine woman, though lame102, wouldn’t look at a needle-woman — well, leave it at that.”
He stamped his feet and put his hands in his pockets.
“It’s growing a bit chilly103,” he said. “You’ll be catching104 cold, Miss Bracely, and what will your husband say if he finds out I’ve been strolling about with you out of doors after dinner?”
“Yes, we’ll go in,” she said. “It is chilly. How thoughtful you are for me.”
Georgie little knowing the catspaw that had been made of him, found himself being detached from Mrs Weston by the Colonel, and this suited him very well, for presently Olga said she would sing, unless anybody minded, and called on him to accompany her. She stood just behind him, leaning over him sometimes with a hand on his shoulder, and sang three ruthless simple English songs, appropriate to the matter in hand. She sang, “I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly,” and “Sally in Our Alley,” and “Come Live with Me,” and sometimes beneath the rustle105 of leaves turned over she whispered to him, “Georgie, I’m cleverer than anybody ever was, and I shall die in the night,” she said once. Again more enigmatically she said, “I’ve been a cad, but I’ll tell you about it when they’ve gone. Stop behind.” And then some whiskey came in, and she insisted on the “young people” having some of that; finally she saw them off at the door, and came running back to Georgie. “I’ve been a cad,” she said, “because I hinted that you were in love with Mrs Weston. My dear, it was simply perfect! I believe it to have been the last straw, and if you don’t forgive me you needn’t. Wasn’t it clever? He simply couldn’t stand that, for it came on the top of your being so young.”
“Well, really —” said Georgie.
“I know. And I must be a cad again. I’m going up to my bedroom, you may come, too, if you like, because it commands a view of Church Road. I shouldn’t sleep a wink106 unless I knew that he had gone in with her. It’ll be precisely like Faust and Marguerite going into the house, and you and I are Mephistopheles and Martha. Come quick!”
From the dark of the window they watched Mrs Weston’s bath-chair being pushed up the lit road.
“It’s the Colonel pushing it,” whispered Olga, squeezing him into a corner of the window. “Look! There’s Tommy Luton on the path. Now they’ve stopped at her gate . . . I can’t bear the suspense107. . . . Oh, Georgie, they’ve gone in! And Atkinson will stop, and so will Elizabeth, and you’ve promised to lend them Foljambe. Which house will they live at, do you think? Aren’t you happy?”
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1
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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tableaux
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| n.舞台造型，（由活人扮演的）静态画面、场面；人构成的画面或场景( tableau的名词复数 )；舞台造型；戏剧性的场面；绚丽的场景 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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rehearsals
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| n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复 | |
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impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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romp
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| n.欢闹；v.嬉闹玩笑 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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12
pried
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开 | |
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13
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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14
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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20
fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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21
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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22
stipulated
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| vt.& vi.规定；约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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24
slipper
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| n.拖鞋 | |
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second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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dividend
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| n.红利，股息；回报，效益 | |
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beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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29
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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30
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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32
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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34
tacked
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| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
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35
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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38
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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40
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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41
romps
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| n.无忧无虑，快活( romp的名词复数 )v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的第三人称单数 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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42
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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43
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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44
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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45
devastating
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| adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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48
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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49
desolated
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| adj.荒凉的，荒废的 | |
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50
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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51
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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52
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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54
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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55
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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56
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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57
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
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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59
profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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60
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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61
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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62
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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63
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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64
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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65
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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66
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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67
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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68
jointly
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| ad.联合地，共同地 | |
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69
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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70
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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71
simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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72
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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73
paragons
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| n.模范( paragon的名词复数 )；典型；十全十美的人；完美无缺的人 | |
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74
prosper
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| v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣 | |
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75
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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76
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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77
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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78
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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79
docility
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| n.容易教，易驾驶，驯服 | |
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80
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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81
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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82
redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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83
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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84
nuptials
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| n.婚礼；婚礼( nuptial的名词复数 ) | |
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85
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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86
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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87
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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88
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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89
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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90
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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91
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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92
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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93
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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95
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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96
enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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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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98
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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99
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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100
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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101
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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102
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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103
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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104
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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105
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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106
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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107
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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