And, naturally, the city caught the contagious9 air of entré--the working girls, poor ugly souls, wrapping soap in the factories and showing finery in the big stores, dreamed that perhaps in the spectacular excitement of this winter they might obtain for themselves the coveted10 male--as in a muddled11 carnival12 crowd an inefficient13 pickpocket14 may consider his chances increased. And the chimneys commenced to smoke and the subway's foulness15 was freshened. And the actresses came out in new plays and the publishers came out with new books and the Castles came out with new dances. And the railroads came out with new schedules containing new mistakes instead of the old ones that the commuters had grown used to....
The City was coming out!
Anthony, walking along Forty-second Street one afternoon under a steel-gray sky, ran unexpectedly into Richard Caramel emerging from the Manhattan Hotel barber shop. It was a cold day, the first definitely cold day, and Caramel had on one of those knee-length, sheep-lined coats long worn by the working men of the Middle West, that were just coming into fashionable approval. His soft hat was of a discreet16 dark brown, and from under it his clear eye flamed like a topaz. He stopped Anthony enthusiastically, slapping him on the arms more from a desire to keep himself warm than from playfulness, and, after his inevitable17 hand shake, exploded into sound.
"Cold as the devil--Good Lord, I've been working like the deuce all day till my room got so cold I thought I'd get pneumonia18. Darn landlady19 economizing20 on coal came up when I yelled over the stairs for her for half an hour. Began explaining why and all. God! First she drove me crazy, then I began to think she was sort of a character, and took notes while she talked--so she couldn't see me, you know, just as though I were writing casually21--"
He had seized Anthony's arm and walking him briskly up Madison Avenue.
"Where to?"
"Nowhere in particular."
"Well, then what's the use?" demanded Anthony.
They stopped and stared at each other, and Anthony wondered if the cold made his own face as repellent as Dick Caramel's, whose nose was crimson22, whose bulging24 brow was blue, whose yellow unmatched eyes were red and watery25 at the rims23. After a moment they began walking again.
"Done some good work on my novel." Dick was looking and talking emphatically at the sidewalk. "But I have to get out once in a while." He glanced at Anthony apologetically, as though craving26 encouragement.
"I have to talk. I guess very few people ever really _think_, I mean sit down and ponder and have ideas in sequence. I do my thinking in writing or conversation. You've got to have a start, sort of--something to defend or contradict--don't you think?"
Anthony grunted27 and withdrew his arm gently.
"I don't mind carrying you, Dick, but with that coat--"
"I mean," continued Richard Caramel gravely, "that on paper your first paragraph contains the idea you're going to damn or enlarge on. In conversation you've got your vis-à-vis's last statement--but when you simply _ponder_, why, your ideas just succeed each other like magic-lantern pictures and each one forces out the last."
They passed Forty-fifth Street and slowed down slightly. Both of them lit cigarettes and blew tremendous clouds of smoke and frosted breath into the air.
"Let's walk up to the Plaza28 and have an egg-nog," suggested Anthony. "Do you good. Air'll get the rotten nicotine29 out of your lungs. Come on--I'll let you talk about your book all the way."
"I don't want to if it bores you. I mean you needn't do it as a favor." The words tumbled out in haste, and though he tried to keep his face casual it screwed up uncertainly. Anthony was compelled to protest: "Bore me? I should say not!"
"Got a cousin--" began Dick, but Anthony interrupted by stretching out his arms and breathing forth30 a low cry of exultation31.
"Good weather!" he exclaimed, "isn't it? Makes me feel about ten. I mean it makes me feel as I should have felt when I was ten. Murderous! Oh, God! one minute it's my world, and the next I'm the world's fool. To-day it's my world and everything's easy, easy. Even Nothing is easy!"
"Got a cousin up at the Plaza. Famous girl. We can go up and meet her. She lives there in the winter--has lately anyway--with her mother and father."
"Didn't know you had cousins in New York."
"Her name's Gloria. She's from home--Kansas City. Her mother's a practising Bilphist, and her father's quite dull but a perfect gentleman."
"What are they? Literary material?"
"They try to be. All the old man does is tell me he just met the most wonderful character for a novel. Then he tells me about some idiotic32 friend of his and then he says: '_There_'s a character for you! Why don't you write him up? Everybody'd be interested in _him_.' Or else he tells me about Japan or Paris, or some other very obvious place, and says: 'Why don't you write a story about that place? That'd be a wonderful setting for a story!'"
"How about the girl?" inquired Anthony casually, "Gloria--Gloria what?"
"Gilbert. Oh, you've heard of her--Gloria Gilbert. Goes to dances at colleges--all that sort of thing."
"I've heard her name."
"Good-looking--in fact damned attractive."
They reached Fiftieth Street and turned over toward the Avenue.
"I don't care for young girls as a rule," said Anthony, frowning.
This was not strictly33 true. While it seemed to him that the average debutante34 spent every hour of her day thinking and talking about what the great world had mapped out for her to do during the next hour, any girl who made a living directly on her prettiness interested him enormously.
"Gloria's darn nice--not a brain in her head."
Anthony laughed in a one-syllabled snort.
"By that you mean that she hasn't a line of literary patter."
"No, I don't."
"Dick, you know what passes as brains in a girl for you. Earnest young women who sit with you in a corner and talk earnestly about life. The kind who when they were sixteen argued with grave faces as to whether kissing was right or wrong--and whether it was immoral35 for freshmen36 to drink beer."
Richard Caramel was offended. His scowl37 crinkled like crushed paper.
"No--" he began, but Anthony interrupted ruthlessly.
"Oh, yes; kind who just at present sit in corners and confer on the latest Scandinavian Dante available in English translation."
Dick turned to him, a curious falling in his whole countenance38. His question was almost an appeal.
"What's the matter with you and Maury? You talk sometimes as though I were a sort of inferior."
Anthony was confused, but he was also cold and a little uncomfortable, so he took refuge in attack.
"I don't think your brains matter, Dick."
"Of course they matter!" exclaimed Dick angrily. "What do you mean? Why don't they matter?"
"You might know too much for your pen."
"I couldn't possibly."
"I can imagine," insisted Anthony, "a man knowing too much for his talent to express. Like me. Suppose, for instance, I have more wisdom than you, and less talent. It would tend to make me inarticulate. You, on the contrary, have enough water to fill the pail and a big enough pail to hold the water."
"I don't follow you at all," complained Dick in a crestfallen39 tone. Infinitely40 dismayed, he seemed to bulge41 in protest. He was staring intently at Anthony and caroming off a succession of passers-by, who reproached him with fierce, resentful glances.
"I simply mean that a talent like Wells's could carry the intelligence of a Spencer. But an inferior talent can only be graceful42 when it's carrying inferior ideas. And the more narrowly you can look at a thing the more entertaining you can be about it."
Dick considered, unable to decide the exact degree of criticism intended by Anthony's remarks. But Anthony, with that facility which seemed so frequently to flow from him, continued, his dark eyes gleaming in his thin face, his chin raised, his voice raised, his whole physical being raised:
"Say I am proud and sane43 and wise--an Athenian among Greeks. Well, I might fail where a lesser44 man would succeed. He could imitate, he could adorn45, he could be enthusiastic, he could be hopefully constructive46. But this hypothetical me would be too proud to imitate, too sane to be enthusiastic, too sophisticated to be Utopian, too Grecian to adorn."
"Then you don't think the artist works from his intelligence?"
"No. He goes on improving, if he can, what he imitates in the way of style, and choosing from his own interpretation47 of the things around him what constitutes material. But after all every writer writes because it's his mode of living. Don't tell me you like this 'Divine Function of the Artist' business?"
"I'm not accustomed even to refer to myself as an artist."
"Dick," said Anthony, changing his tone, "I want to beg your pardon."
"Why?"
"For that outburst. I'm honestly sorry. I was talking for effect."
Somewhat mollified, Dick rejoined:
"I've often said you were a Philistine48 at heart."
It was a crackling dusk when they turned in under the white fa?ade of the Plaza and tasted slowly the foam49 and yellow thickness of an egg-nog. Anthony looked at his companion. Richard Caramel's nose and brow were slowly approaching a like pigmentation; the red was leaving the one, the blue deserting the other. Glancing in a mirror, Anthony was glad to find that his own skin had not discolored. On the contrary, a faint glow had kindled50 in his cheeks--he fancied that he had never looked so well.
"Enough for me," said Dick, his tone that of an athlete in training. "I want to go up and see the Gilberts. Won't you come?"
"Why--yes. If you don't dedicate me to the parents and dash off in the corner with Dora."
"Not Dora--Gloria."
A clerk announced them over the phone, and ascending51 to the tenth floor they followed a winding52 corridor and knocked at 1088. The door was answered by a middle-aged53 lady--Mrs. Gilbert herself.
"How do you do?" She spoke54 in the conventional American lady-lady language. "Well, I'm _aw_fully glad to see you--"
Hasty interjections by Dick, and then:
"Mr. Pats? Well, do come in, and leave your coat there." She pointed55 to a chair and changed her inflection to a deprecatory laugh full of minute gasps56. "This is really lovely--lovely. Why, Richard, you haven't been here for _so_ long--no!--no!" The latter monosyllables served half as responses, half as periods, to some vague starts from Dick. "Well, do sit down and tell me what you've been doing."
One crossed and recrossed; one stood and bowed ever so gently; one smiled again and again with helpless stupidity; one wondered if she would ever sit down at length one slid thankfully into a chair and settled for a pleasant call.
"I suppose it's because you've been busy--as much as anything else," smiled Mrs. Gilbert somewhat ambiguously. The "as much as anything else" she used to balance all her more rickety sentences. She had two other ones: "at least that's the way I look at it" and "pure and simple"--these three, alternated, gave each of her remarks an air of being a general reflection on life, as though she had calculated all causes and, at length, put her finger on the ultimate one.
Richard Caramel's face, Anthony saw, was now quite normal. The brow and cheeks were of a flesh color, the nose politely inconspicuous. He had fixed57 his aunt with the bright-yellow eye, giving her that acute and exaggerated attention that young males are accustomed to render to all females who are of no further value.
"Are you a writer too, Mr. Pats? ... Well, perhaps we can all bask58 in Richard's fame."--Gentle laughter led by Mrs. Gilbert.
"Gloria's out," she said, with an air of laying down an axiom from which she would proceed to derive59 results. "She's dancing somewhere. Gloria goes, goes, goes. I tell her I don't see how she stands it. She dances all afternoon and all night, until I think she's going to wear herself to a shadow. Her father is very worried about her."
She smiled from one to the other. They both smiled.
She was composed, Anthony perceived, of a succession of semicircles and parabolas, like those figures that gifted folk make on the typewriter: head, arms, bust60, hips61, thighs62, and ankles were in a bewildering tier of roundnesses. Well ordered and clean she was, with hair of an artificially rich gray; her large face sheltered weather-beaten blue eyes and was adorned63 with just the faintest white mustache.
"I always say," she remarked to Anthony, "that Richard is an ancient soul."
In the tense pause that followed, Anthony considered a pun--something about Dick having been much walked upon.
"We all have souls of different ages," continued Mrs. Gilbert radiantly; "at least that's what I say."
"Perhaps so," agreed Anthony with an air of quickening to a hopeful idea. The voice bubbled on:
"Gloria has a very young soul--irresponsible, as much as anything else. She has no sense of responsibility."
"She's sparkling, Aunt Catherine," said Richard pleasantly. "A sense of responsibility would spoil her. She's too pretty."
"Well," confessed Mrs. Gilbert, "all I know is that she goes and goes and goes--"
The number of goings to Gloria's discredit64 was lost in the rattle65 of the door-knob as it turned to admit Mr. Gilbert.
He was a short man with a mustache resting like a small white cloud beneath his undistinguished nose. He had reached the stage where his value as a social creature was a black and imponderable negative. His ideas were the popular delusions66 of twenty years before; his mind steered67 a wabbly and anaemic course in the wake of the daily newspaper editorials. After graduating from a small but terrifying Western university, he had entered the celluloid business, and as this required only the minute measure of intelligence he brought to it, he did well for several years--in fact until about 1911, when he began exchanging contracts for vague agreements with the moving picture industry. The moving picture industry had decided68 about 1912 to gobble him up, and at this time he was, so to speak, delicately balanced on its tongue. Meanwhile he was supervising manager of the Associated Mid-western Film Materials Company, spending six months of each year in New York and the remainder in Kansas City and St. Louis. He felt credulously70 that there was a good thing coming to him--and his wife thought so, and his daughter thought so too.
He disapproved71 of Gloria: she stayed out late, she never ate her meals, she was always in a mix-up--he had irritated her once and she had used toward him words that he had not thought were part of her vocabulary. His wife was easier. After fifteen years of incessant72 guerilla warfare73 he had conquered her--it was a war of muddled optimism against organized dulness, and something in the number of "yes's" with which he could poison a conversation had won him the victory.
"Yes-yes-yes-yes," he would say, "yes-yes-yes-yes. Let me see. That was the summer of--let me see--ninety-one or ninety-two--Yes-yes-yes-yes----"
Fifteen years of yes's had beaten Mrs. Gilbert. Fifteen further years of that incessant unaffirmative affirmative, accompanied by the perpetual flicking74 of ash-mushrooms from thirty-two thousand cigars, had broken her. To this husband of hers she made the last concession75 of married life, which is more complete, more irrevocable, than the first--she listened to him. She told herself that the years had brought her tolerance--actually they had slain76 what measure she had ever possessed77 of moral courage.
She introduced him to Anthony.
"This is Mr. Pats," she said.
The young man and the old touched flesh; Mr. Gilbert's hand was soft, worn away to the pulpy78 semblance79 of a squeezed grapefruit. Then husband and wife exchanged greetings--he told her it had grown colder out; he said he had walked down to a news-stand on Forty-fourth Street for a Kansas City paper. He had intended to ride back in the bus but he had found it too cold, yes, yes, yes, yes, too cold.
Mrs. Gilbert added flavor to his adventure by being impressed with his courage in braving the harsh air.
"Well, you _are_ spunky!" she exclaimed admiringly. "You _are_ spunky. I wouldn't have gone out for anything."
Mr. Gilbert with true masculine impassivity disregarded the awe80 he had excited in his wife. He turned to the two young men and triumphantly81 routed them on the subject of the weather. Richard Caramel was called on to remember the month of November in Kansas. No sooner had the theme been pushed toward him, however, than it was violently fished back to be lingered over, pawed over, elongated83, and generally devitalized by its sponsor.
The immemorial thesis that the days somewhere were warm but the nights very pleasant was successfully propounded84 and they decided the exact distance on an obscure railroad between two points that Dick had inadvertently mentioned. Anthony fixed Mr. Gilbert with a steady stare and went into a trance through which, after a moment, Mrs. Gilbert's smiling voice penetrated85:
"It seems as though the cold were damper here--it seems to eat into my bones."
As this remark, adequately yessed, had been on the tip of Mr. Gilbert's tongue, he could not be blamed for rather abruptly86 changing the subject.
"Where's Gloria?"
"She ought to be here any minute."
"Have you met my daughter, Mr.----?"
"Haven't had the pleasure. I've heard Dick speak of her often."
"She and Richard are cousins."
"Yes?" Anthony smiled with some effort. He was not used to the society of his seniors, and his mouth was stiff from superfluous87 cheerfulness. It was such a pleasant thought about Gloria and Dick being cousins. He managed within the next minute to throw an agonized88 glance at his friend.
Richard Caramel was afraid they'd have to toddle89 off.
Mrs. Gilbert was tremendously sorry.
Mr. Gilbert thought it was too bad.
Mrs. Gilbert had a further idea--something about being glad they'd come, anyhow, even if they'd only seen an old lady 'way too old to flirt90 with them. Anthony and Dick evidently considered this a sly sally, for they laughed one bar in three-four time.
Would they come again soon?
"Oh, yes."
Gloria would be _aw_fully sorry!
"Good-by----"
"Good-by----"
Smiles!
Smiles!
Bang!
Two disconsolate91 young men walking down the tenth-floor corridor of the Plaza in the direction of the elevator.
A LADY'S LEGS
Behind Maury Noble's attractive indolence, his irrelevance92 and his easy mockery, lay a surprising and relentless93 maturity94 of purpose. His intention, as he stated it in college, had been to use three years in travel, three years in utter leisure--and then to become immensely rich as quickly as possible.
His three years of travel were over. He had accomplished95 the globe with an intensity96 and curiosity that in any one else would have seemed pedantic97, without redeeming98 spontaneity, almost the self-editing of a human Baedeker; but, in this case, it assumed an air of mysterious purpose and significant design--as though Maury Noble were some predestined anti-Christ, urged by a preordination to go everywhere there was to go along the earth and to see all the billions of humans who bred and wept and slew99 each other here and there upon it.
Back in America, he was sallying into the search for amusement with the same consistent absorption. He who had never taken more than a few cocktails100 or a pint102 of wine at a sitting, taught himself to drink as he would have taught himself Greek--like Greek it would be the gateway103 to a wealth of new sensations, new psychic104 states, new reactions in joy or misery105.
His habits were a matter for esoteric speculation106. He had three rooms in a bachelor apartment on Forty-forth street, but he was seldom to be found there. The telephone girl had received the most positive instructions that no one should even have his ear without first giving a name to be passed upon. She had a list of half a dozen people to whom he was never at home, and of the same number to whom he was always at home. Foremost on the latter list were Anthony Patch and Richard Caramel.
Maury's mother lived with her married son in Philadelphia, and there Maury went usually for the week-ends, so one Saturday night when Anthony, prowling the chilly107 streets in a fit of utter boredom108, dropped in at the Molton Arms he was overjoyed to find that Mr. Noble was at home.
His spirits soared faster than the flying elevator. This was so good, so extremely good, to be about to talk to Maury--who would be equally happy at seeing him. They would look at each other with a deep affection just behind their eyes which both would conceal109 beneath some attenuated110 raillery. Had it been summer they would have gone out together and indolently sipped111 two long Tom Collinses, as they wilted112 their collars and watched the faintly diverting round of some lazy August cabaret. But it was cold outside, with wind around the edges of the tall buildings and December just up the street, so better far an evening together under the soft lamplight and a drink or two of Bushmill's, or a thimbleful of Maury's Grand Marnier, with the books gleaming like ornaments113 against the walls, and Maury radiating a divine inertia114 as he rested, large and catlike, in his favorite chair.
There he was! The room closed about Anthony, warmed him. The glow of that strong persuasive115 mind, that temperament116 almost Oriental in its outward impassivity, warmed Anthony's restless soul and brought him a peace that could be likened only to the peace a stupid woman gives. One must understand all--else one must take all for granted. Maury filled the room, tigerlike, godlike. The winds outside were stilled; the brass117 candlesticks on the mantel glowed like tapers118 before an altar.
"What keeps you here to-day?" Anthony spread himself over a yielding sofa and made an elbow-rest among the pillows.
"Just been here an hour. Tea dance--and I stayed so late I missed my train to Philadelphia."
"Strange to stay so long," commented Anthony curiously119.
"Rather. What'd you do?"
"Geraldine. Little usher120 at Keith's. I told you about her."
"Oh!"
"Paid me a call about three and stayed till five. Peculiar121 little soul--she gets me. She's so utterly122 stupid."
Maury was silent.
"Strange as it may seem," continued Anthony, "so far as I'm concerned, and even so far as I know, Geraldine is a paragon123 of virtue124."
He had known her a month, a girl of nondescript and nomadic125 habits. Someone had casually passed her on to Anthony, who considered her amusing and rather liked the chaste126 and fairylike kisses she had given him on the third night of their acquaintance, when they had driven in a taxi through the Park. She had a vague family--a shadowy aunt and uncle who shared with her an apartment in the labyrinthine127 hundreds. She was company, familiar and faintly intimate and restful. Further than that he did not care to experiment--not from any moral compunction, but from a dread128 of allowing any entanglement129 to disturb what he felt was the growing serenity130 of his life.
"She has two stunts," he informed Maury; "one of them is to get her hair over her eyes some way and then blow it out, and the other is to say 'You cra-a-azy!' when some one makes a remark that's over her head. It fascinates me. I sit there hour after hour, completely intrigued131 by the maniacal132 symptoms she finds in my imagination."
Maury stirred in his chair and spoke.
"Remarkable133 that a person can comprehend so little and yet live in such a complex civilization. A woman like that actually takes the whole universe in the most matter-of-fact way. From the influence of Rousseau to the bearing of the tariff134 rates on her dinner, the whole phenomenon is utterly strange to her. She's just been carried along from an age of spearheads and plunked down here with the equipment of an archer135 for going into a pistol duel136. You could sweep away the entire crust of history and she'd never know the difference."
"I wish our Richard would write about her."
"Anthony, surely you don't think she's worth writing about."
"As much as anybody," he answered, yawning. "You know I was thinking to-day that I have a great confidence in Dick. So long as he sticks to people and not to ideas, and as long as his inspirations come from life and not from art, and always granting a normal growth, I believe he'll be a big man."
"I should think the appearance of the black note-book would prove that he's going to life."
Anthony raised himself on his elbow and answered eagerly:
"He tries to go to life. So does every author except the very worst, but after all most of them live on predigested food. The incident or character may be from life, but the writer usually interprets it in terms of the last book he read. For instance, suppose he meets a sea captain and thinks he's an original character. The truth is that he sees the resemblance between the sea captain and the last sea captain Dana created, or who-ever creates sea captains, and therefore he knows how to set this sea captain on paper. Dick, of course, can set down any consciously picturesque137, character-like character, but could he accurately138 transcribe139 his own sister?"
Then they were off for half an hour on literature.
"A classic," suggested Anthony, "is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity to take the place of its fashion...."
After a time the subject temporarily lost its tang. The interest of the two young men was not particularly technical. They were in love with generalities. Anthony had recently discovered Samuel Butler and the brisk aphorisms140 in the note-book seemed to him the quintessence of criticism. Maury, his whole mind so thoroughly141 mellowed142 by the very hardness of his scheme of life, seemed inevitably143 the wiser of the two, yet in the actual stuff of their intelligences they were not, it seemed, fundamentally different.
They drifted from letters to the curiosities of each other's day.
"Whose tea was it?"
"People named Abercrombie."
"Why'd you stay late? Meet a luscious144 débutante?"
"Yes."
"Did you really?" Anthony's voice lifted in surprise.
"Not a débutante exactly. Said she came out two winters ago in Kansas City."
"Sort of left-over?"
"No," answered Maury with some amusement, "I think that's the last thing I'd say about her. She seemed--well, somehow the youngest person there."
"Not too young to make you miss a train."
"Young enough. Beautiful child."
Anthony chuckled145 in his one-syllable snort.
"Oh, Maury, you're in your second childhood. What do you mean by beautiful?"
Maury gazed helplessly into space.
"Well, I can't describe her exactly--except to say that she was beautiful. She was--tremendously alive. She was eating gum-drops."
"What!"
"It was a sort of attenuated vice146. She's a nervous kind--said she always ate gum-drops at teas because she had to stand around so long in one place."
"What'd you talk about--Bergson? Bilphism? Whether the one-step is immoral?"
Maury was unruffled; his fur seemed to run all ways.
"As a matter of fact we did talk on Bilphism. Seems her mother's a Bilphist. Mostly, though, we talked about legs."
Anthony rocked in glee.
"My God! Whose legs?"
"Hers. She talked a lot about hers. As though they were a sort of choice bric-à-brac. She aroused a great desire to see them."
"What is she--a dancer?"
"No, I found she was a cousin of Dick's."
Anthony sat upright so suddenly that the pillow he released stood on end like a live thing and dove to the floor.
"Name's Gloria Gilbert?" he cried.
"Yes. Isn't she remarkable?"
"I'm sure I don't know--but for sheer dulness her father--"
"Well," interrupted Maury with implacable conviction, "her family may be as sad as professional mourners but I'm inclined to think that she's a quite authentic147 and original character. The outer signs of the cut-and-dried Yale prom girl and all that--but different, very emphatically different."
"Go on, go on!" urged Anthony. "Soon as Dick told me she didn't have a brain in her head I knew she must be pretty good."
"Did he say that?"
"Swore to it," said Anthony with another snorting laugh.
"Well, what he means by brains in a woman is--"
"I know," interrupted Anthony eagerly, "he means a smattering of literary misinformation."
"That's it. The kind who believes that the annual moral let-down of the country is a very good thing or the kind who believes it's a very ominous148 thing. Either pince-nez or postures149. Well, this girl talked about legs. She talked about skin too--her own skin. Always her own. She told me the sort of tan she'd like to get in the summer and how closely she usually approximated it."
"You sat enraptured150 by her low alto?"
"By her low alto! No, by tan! I began thinking about tan. I began to think what color I turned when I made my last exposure about two years ago. I did use to get a pretty good tan. I used to get a sort of bronze, if I remember rightly."
Anthony retired151 into the cushions, shaken with laughter.
"She's got you going--oh, Maury! Maury the Connecticut life-saver. The human nutmeg. Extra! Heiress elopes with coast-guard because of his luscious pigmentation! Afterward152 found to be Tasmanian strain in his family!"
Maury sighed; rising he walked to the window and raised the shade.
"Snowing hard."
Anthony, still laughing quietly to himself, made no answer.
"Another winter." Maury's voice from the window was almost a whisper. "We're growing old, Anthony. I'm twenty-seven, by God! Three years to thirty, and then I'm what an undergraduate calls a middle-aged man."
Anthony was silent for a moment.
"You _are_ old, Maury," he agreed at length. "The first signs of a very dissolute and wabbly senescence--you have spent the afternoon talking about tan and a lady's legs."
Maury pulled down the shade with a sudden harsh snap.
"Idiot!" he cried, "that from you! Here I sit, young Anthony, as I'll sit for a generation or more and watch such gay souls as you and Dick and Gloria Gilbert go past me, dancing and singing and loving and hating one another and being moved, being eternally moved. And I am moved only by my lack of emotion. I shall sit and the snow will come--oh, for a Caramel to take notes--and another winter and I shall be thirty and you and Dick and Gloria will go on being eternally moved and dancing by me and singing. But after you've all gone I'll be saying things for new Dicks to write down, and listening to the disillusions153 and cynicisms and emotions of new Anthonys--yes, and talking to new Glorias about the tans of summers yet to come."
The firelight flurried up on the hearth154. Maury left the window, stirred the blaze with a poker155, and dropped a log upon the andirons. Then he sat back in his chair and the remnants of his voice faded in the new fire that spit red and yellow along the bark.
"After all, Anthony, it's you who are very romantic and young. It's you who are infinitely more susceptible156 and afraid of your calm being broken. It's me who tries again and again to be moved--let myself go a thousand times and I'm always me. Nothing--quite--stirs me.
"Yet," he murmured after another long pause, "there was something about that little girl with her absurd tan that was eternally old--like me."
TURBULENCE157
Anthony turned over sleepily in his bed, greeting a patch of cold sun on his counterpane, crisscrossed with the shadows of the leaded window. The room was full of morning. The carved chest in the corner, the ancient and inscrutable wardrobe, stood about the room like dark symbols of the obliviousness158 of matter; only the rug was beckoning159 and perishable160 to his perishable feet, and Bounds, horribly inappropriate in his soft collar, was of stuff as fading as the gauze of frozen breath he uttered. He was close to the bed, his hand still lowered where he had been jerking at the upper blanket, his dark-brown eyes fixed imperturbably161 upon his master.
"Bows!" muttered the drowsy162 god. "Thachew, Bows?"
"It's I, sir."
Anthony moved his head, forced his eyes wide, and blinked triumphantly.
"Bounds."
"Yes, sir?"
"Can you get off--yeow-ow-oh-oh-oh God!--" Anthony yawned insufferably and the contents of his brain seemed to fall together in a dense163 hash. He made a fresh start.
"Can you come around about four and serve some tea and sandwiches or something?"
"Yes, sir."
Anthony considered with chilling lack of inspiration. "Some sandwiches," he repeated helplessly, "oh, some cheese sandwiches and jelly ones and chicken and olive, I guess. Never mind breakfast."
The strain of invention was too much. He shut his eyes wearily, let his head roll to rest inertly164, and quickly relaxed what he had regained165 of muscular control. Out of a crevice166 of his mind crept the vague but inevitable spectre of the night before--but it proved in this case to be nothing but a seemingly interminable conversation with Richard Caramel, who had called on him at midnight; they had drunk four bottles of beer and munched167 dry crusts of bread while Anthony listened to a reading of the first part of "The Demon168 Lover."
--Came a voice now after many hours. Anthony disregarded it, as sleep closed over him, folded down upon him, crept up into the byways of his mind.
Suddenly he was awake, saying: "What?"
"For how many, sir?" It was still Bounds, standing169 patient and motionless at the foot of the bed--Bounds who divided his manner among three gentlemen.
"How many what?"
"I think, sir, I'd better know how many are coming. I'll have to plan for the sandwiches, sir."
"Two," muttered Anthony huskily; "lady and a gentleman."
Bounds said, "Thank you, sir," and moved away, bearing with him his humiliating reproachful soft collar, reproachful to each of the three gentlemen, who only demanded of him a third.
After a long time Anthony arose and drew an opalescent170 dressing171 grown of brown and blue over his slim pleasant figure. With a last yawn he went into the bathroom, and turning on the dresser light (the bathroom had no outside exposure) he contemplated172 himself in the mirror with some interest. A wretched apparition173, he thought; he usually thought so in the morning--sleep made his face unnaturally174 pale. He lit a cigarette and glanced through several letters and the morning Tribune.
An hour later, shaven and dressed, he was sitting at his desk looking at a small piece of paper he had taken out of his wallet. It was scrawled176 with semi-legible memoranda177: "See Mr. Howland at five. Get hair-cut. See about Rivers' bill. Go book-store."
--And under the last: "Cash in bank, $690 (crossed out), $612 (crossed out), $607."
Finally, down at the bottom and in a hurried scrawl175: "Dick and Gloria Gilbert for tea."
This last item brought him obvious satisfaction. His day, usually a jelly-like creature, a shapeless, spineless thing, had attained178 Mesozoic structure. It was marching along surely, even jauntily179, toward a climax180, as a play should, as a day should. He dreaded181 the moment when the backbone182 of the day should be broken, when he should have met the girl at last, talked to her, and then bowed her laughter out the door, returning only to the melancholy183 dregs in the teacups and the gathering184 staleness of the uneaten sandwiches.
There was a growing lack of color in Anthony's days. He felt it constantly and sometimes traced it to a talk he had had with Maury Noble a month before. That anything so ingenuous185, so priggish, as a sense of waste should oppress him was absurd, but there was no denying the fact that some unwelcome survival of a fetish had drawn186 him three weeks before down to the public library, where, by the token of Richard Caramel's card, he had drawn out half a dozen books on the Italian Renaissance187. That these books were still piled on his desk in the original order of carriage, that they were daily increasing his liabilities by twelve cents, was no mitigation of their testimony188. They were cloth and morocco witnesses to the fact of his defection. Anthony had had several hours of acute and startling panic.
In justification189 of his manner of living there was first, of course, The Meaninglessness of Life. As aides and ministers, pages and squires190, butlers and lackeys191 to this great Khan there were a thousand books glowing on his shelves, there was his apartment and all the money that was to be his when the old man up the river should choke on his last morality. From a world fraught192 with the menace of débutantes and the stupidity of many Geraldines he was thankfully delivered--rather should he emulate193 the feline194 immobility of Maury and wear proudly the culminative wisdom of the numbered generations.
Over and against these things was something which his brain persistently195 analyzed197 and dealt with as a tiresome198 complex but which, though logically disposed of and bravely trampled199 under foot, had sent him out through the soft slush of late November to a library which had none of the books he most wanted. It is fair to analyze196 Anthony as far as he could analyze himself; further than that it is, of course, presumption200. He found in himself a growing horror and loneliness. The idea of eating alone frightened him; in preference he dined often with men he detested201. Travel, which had once charmed him, seemed at length, unendurable, a business of color without substance, a phantom203 chase after his own dream's shadow.
--If I am essentially204 weak, he thought, I need work to do, work to do. It worried him to think that he was, after all, a facile mediocrity, with neither the poise205 of Maury nor the enthusiasm of Dick. It seemed a tragedy to want nothing--and yet he wanted something, something. He knew in flashes what it was--some path of hope to lead him toward what he thought was an imminent206 and ominous old age.
After cocktails and luncheon207 at the University Club Anthony felt better. He had run into two men from his class at Harvard, and in contrast to the gray heaviness of their conversation his life assumed color. Both of them were married: one spent his coffee time in sketching208 an extra-nuptial adventure to the bland209 and appreciative210 smiles of the other. Both of them, he thought, were Mr. Gilberts in embryo211; the number of their "yes's" would have to be quadrupled, their natures crabbed212 by twenty years--then they would be no more than obsolete213 and broken machines, pseudo-wise and valueless, nursed to an utter senility by the women they had broken.
Ah, he was more than that, as he paced the long carpet in the lounge after dinner, pausing at the window to look into the harried214 street. He was Anthony Patch, brilliant, magnetic, the heir of many years and many men. This was his world now--and that last strong irony215 he craved216 lay in the offing.
With a stray boyishness he saw himself a power upon the earth; with his grandfather's money he might build his own pedestal and be a Talleyrand, a Lord Verulam. The clarity of his mind, its sophistication, its versatile217 intelligence, all at their maturity and dominated by some purpose yet to be born would find him work to do. On this minor218 his dream faded--work to do: he tried to imagine himself in Congress rooting around in the litter of that incredible pigsty219 with the narrow and porcine brows he saw pictured sometimes in the rotogravure sections of the Sunday newspapers, those glorified220 proletarians babbling221 blandly222 to the nation the ideas of high school seniors! Little men with copy-book ambitions who by mediocrity had thought to emerge from mediocrity into the lustreless223 and unromantic heaven of a government by the people--and the best, the dozen shrewd men at the top, egotistic and cynical224, were content to lead this choir8 of white ties and wire collar-buttons in a discordant225 and amazing hymn226, compounded of a vague confusion between wealth as a reward of virtue and wealth as a proof of vice, and continued cheers for God, the Constitution, and the Rocky Mountains!
Lord Verulam! Talleyrand!
Back in his apartment the grayness returned. His cocktails had died, making him sleepy, somewhat befogged and inclined to be surly. Lord Verulam--he? The very thought was bitter. Anthony Patch with no record of achievement, without courage, without strength to be satisfied with truth when it was given him. Oh, he was a pretentious227 fool, making careers out of cocktails and meanwhile regretting, weakly and secretly, the collapse228 of an insufficient229 and wretched idealism. He had garnished230 his soul in the subtlest taste and now he longed for the old rubbish. He was empty, it seemed, empty as an old bottle--
The buzzer231 rang at the door. Anthony sprang up and lifted the tube to his ear. It was Richard Caramel's voice, stilted232 and facetious233:
"Announcing Miss Gloria Gilbert."
"How do you do?" he said, smiling and holding the door ajar.
Dick bowed.
"Gloria, this is Anthony."
"Well!" she cried, holding out a little gloved hand. Under her fur coat her dress was Alice-blue, with white lace crinkled stiffly about her throat.
"Let me take your things."
Anthony stretched out his arms and the brown mass of fur tumbled into them.
"Thanks."
"What do you think of her, Anthony?" Richard Caramel demanded barbarously. "Isn't she beautiful?"
"Well!" cried the girl defiantly--withal unmoved.
She was dazzling--alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance. Her hair, full of a heavenly glamour234, was gay against the winter color of the room.
Anthony moved about, magician-like, turning the mushroom lamp into an orange glory. The stirred fire burnished235 the copper236 andirons on the hearth--
"I'm a solid block of ice," murmured Gloria casually, glancing around with eyes whose irises237 were of the most delicate and transparent238 bluish white. "What a slick fire! We found a place where you could stand on an iron-bar grating, sort of, and it blew warm air up at you--but Dick wouldn't wait there with me. I told him to go on alone and let me be happy."
Conventional enough this. She seemed talking for her own pleasure, without effort. Anthony, sitting at one end of the sofa, examined her profile against the foreground of the lamp: the exquisite239 regularity240 of nose and upper lip, the chin, faintly decided, balanced beautifully on a rather short neck. On a photograph she must have been completely classical, almost cold--but the glow of her hair and cheeks, at once flushed and fragile, made her the most living person he had ever seen.
"... Think you've got the best name I've heard," she was saying, still apparently241 to herself; her glance rested on him a moment and then flitted past him--to the Italian bracket-lamps clinging like luminous242 yellow turtles at intervals244 along the walls, to the books row upon row, then to her cousin on the other side. "Anthony Patch. Only you ought to look sort of like a horse, with a long narrow face--and you ought to be in tatters."
"That's all the Patch part, though. How should Anthony look?"
"You look like Anthony," she assured him seriously--he thought she had scarcely seen him--"rather majestic," she continued, "and solemn."
Anthony indulged in a disconcerted smile.
"Only I like alliterative names," she went on, "all except mine. Mine's too flamboyant245. I used to know two girls named Jinks, though, and just think if they'd been named anything except what they were named--Judy Jinks and Jerry Jinks. Cute, what? Don't you think?" Her childish mouth was parted, awaiting a rejoinder.
"Everybody in the next generation," suggested Dick, "will be named Peter or Barbara--because at present all the piquant246 literary characters are named Peter or Barbara."
Anthony continued the prophecy:
"Of course Gladys and Eleanor, having graced the last generation of heroines and being at present in their social prime, will be passed on to the next generation of shop-girls--"
"Displacing Ella and Stella," interrupted Dick.
"And Pearl and Jewel," Gloria added cordially, "and Earl and Elmer and Minnie."
"And then I'll come along," remarked Dick, "and picking up the obsolete name, Jewel, I'll attach it to some quaint2 and attractive character and it'll start its career all over again."
Her voice took up the thread of subject and wove along with faintly upturning, half-humorous intonations247 for sentence ends--as though defying interruption--and intervals of shadowy laughter. Dick had told her that Anthony's man was named Bounds--she thought that was wonderful! Dick had made some sad pun about Bounds doing patchwork248, but if there was one thing worse than a pun, she said, it was a person who, as the inevitable come-back to a pun, gave the perpetrator a mock-reproachful look.
"Where are you from?" inquired Anthony. He knew, but beauty had rendered him thoughtless.
"Kansas City, Missouri."
"They put her out the same time they barred cigarettes."
"Did they bar cigarettes? I see the hand of my holy grandfather."
"He's a reformer or something, isn't he?"
"I blush for him."
"So do I," she confessed. "I detest202 reformers, especially the sort who try to reform me."
"Are there many of those?"
"Dozens. It's 'Oh, Gloria, if you smoke so many cigarettes you'll lose your pretty complexion249!' and 'Oh, Gloria, why don't you marry and settle down?'"
Anthony agreed emphatically while he wondered who had had the temerity250 to speak thus to such a personage.
"And then," she continued, "there are all the subtle reformers who tell you the wild stories they've heard about you and how they've been sticking up for you."
He saw, at length, that her eyes were gray, very level and cool, and when they rested on him he understood what Maury had meant by saying she was very young and very old. She talked always about herself as a very charming child might talk, and her comments on her tastes and distastes were unaffected and spontaneous.
"I must confess," said Anthony gravely, "that even _I_'ve heard one thing about you."
Alert at once, she sat up straight. Those eyes, with the grayness and eternity252 of a cliff of soft granite253, caught his.
"Tell me. I'll believe it. I always believe anything any one tells me about myself--don't you?"
"Invariably!" agreed the two men in unison254.
"Well, tell me."
"I'm not sure that I ought to," teased Anthony, smiling unwillingly255. She was so obviously interested, in a state of almost laughable self-absorption.
"He means your nickname," said her cousin.
"What name?" inquired Anthony, politely puzzled.
Instantly she was shy--then she laughed, rolled back against the cushions, and turned her eyes up as she spoke:
"Coast-to-Coast Gloria." Her voice was full of laughter, laughter undefined as the varying shadows playing between fire and lamp upon her hair. "O Lord!"
Still Anthony was puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
"_Me_, I mean. That's what some silly boys coined for _me_."
"Don't you see, Anthony," explained Dick, "traveller of a nation-wide notoriety and all that. Isn't that what you've heard? She's been called that for years--since she was seventeen."
Anthony's eyes became sad and humorous.
"Who's this female Methuselah you've brought in here, Caramel?"
She disregarded this, possibly rather resented it, for she switched back to the main topic.
"What _have_ you heard of me?"
"Something about your physique."
"Oh," she said, coolly disappointed, "that all?"
"Your tan."
"My tan?" She was puzzled. Her hand rose to her throat, rested there an instant as though the fingers were feeling variants256 of color.
"Do you remember Maury Noble? Man you met about a month ago. You made a great impression."
She thought a moment.
"I remember--but he didn't call me up."
"He was afraid to, I don't doubt."
It was black dark without now and Anthony wondered that his apartment had ever seemed gray--so warm and friendly were the books and pictures on the walls and the good Bounds offering tea from a respectful shadow and the three nice people giving out waves of interest and laughter back and forth across the happy fire.
DISSATISFACTION
On Thursday afternoon Gloria and Anthony had tea together in the grill257 room at the Plaza. Her fur-trimmed suit was gray--"because with gray you _have_ to wear a lot of paint," she explained--and a small toque sat rakishly on her head, allowing yellow ripples258 of hair to wave out in jaunty259 glory. In the higher light it seemed to Anthony that her personality was infinitely softer--she seemed so young, scarcely eighteen; her form under the tight sheath, known then as a hobble-skirt, was amazingly supple260 and slender, and her hands, neither "artistic261" nor stubby, were small as a child's hands should be.
As they entered, the orchestra were sounding the preliminary whimpers to a maxixe, a tune262 full of castanets and facile faintly languorous263 violin harmonies, appropriate to the crowded winter grill teeming264 with an excited college crowd, high-spirited at the approach of the holidays. Carefully, Gloria considered several locations, and rather to Anthony's annoyance265 paraded him circuitously266 to a table for two at the far side of the room. Reaching it she again considered. Would she sit on the right or on the left? Her beautiful eyes and lips were very grave as she made her choice, and Anthony thought again how na?ve was her every gesture; she took all the things of life for hers to choose from and apportion267, as though she were continually picking out presents for herself from an inexhaustible counter.
Abstractedly she watched the dancers for a few moments, commenting murmurously as a couple eddied268 near.
"There's a pretty girl in blue"--and as Anthony looked obediently--" there! No. behind you--there!"
"Yes," he agreed helplessly.
"You didn't see her."
"I'd rather look at you."
"I know, but she was pretty. Except that she had big ankles."
"Was she?--I mean, did she?" he said indifferently.
A girl's salutation came from a couple dancing close to them.
"Hello, Gloria! O Gloria!"
"Hello there."
"Who's that?" he demanded.
"I don't know. Somebody." She caught sight of another face. "Hello, Muriel!" Then to Anthony: "There's Muriel Kane. Now I think she's attractive, 'cept not very."
Anthony chuckled appreciatively.
"Attractive, 'cept not very," he repeated.
She smiled--was interested immediately.
"Why is that funny?" Her tone was pathetically intent.
"It just was."
"Do you want to dance?"
"Do you?"
"Sort of. But let's sit," she decided.
"And talk about you? You love to talk about you, don't you?"
"Yes." Caught in a vanity, she laughed.
"I imagine your autobiography269 would be a classic."
"Dick says I haven't got one."
"Dick!" he exclaimed. "What does he know about you?"
"Nothing. But he says the biography of every woman begins with the first kiss that counts, and ends when her last child is laid in her arms."
"He's talking from his book."
"He says unloved women have no biographies--they have histories."
Anthony laughed again.
"Surely you don't claim to be unloved!"
"Well, I suppose not."
"Then why haven't you a biography? Haven't you ever had a kiss that counted?" As the words left his lips he drew in his breath sharply as though to suck them back. This _baby_!
"I don't know what you mean 'counts,'" she objected.
"I wish you'd tell me how old you are."
"Twenty-two," she said, meeting his eyes gravely. "How old did you think?"
"About eighteen."
"I'm going to start being that. I don't like being twenty-two. I hate it more than anything in the world."
"Being twenty-two?"
"No. Getting old and everything. Getting married."
"Don't you ever want to marry?"
"I don't want to have responsibility and a lot of children to take care of."
Evidently she did not doubt that on her lips all things were good. He waited rather breathlessly for her next remark, expecting it to follow up her last. She was smiling, without amusement but pleasantly, and after an interval243 half a dozen words fell into the space between them:
"I wish I had some gum-drops."
"You shall!" He beckoned270 to a waiter and sent him to the cigar counter.
"D'you mind? I love gum-drops. Everybody kids me about it because I'm always whacking271 away at one--whenever my daddy's not around."
"Not at all.--Who are all these children?" he asked suddenly. "Do you know them all?"
"Why--no, but they're from--oh, from everywhere, I suppose. Don't you ever come here?"
"Very seldom. I don't care particularly for 'nice girls.'"
Immediately he had her attention. She turned a definite shoulder to the dancers, relaxed in her chair, and demanded:
"What _do_ you do with yourself?"
Thanks to a cocktail101 Anthony welcomed the question. In a mood to talk, he wanted, moreover, to impress this girl whose interest seemed so tantalizingly272 elusive--she stopped to browse273 in unexpected pastures, hurried quickly over the inobviously obvious. He wanted to pose. He wanted to appear suddenly to her in novel and heroic colors. He wanted to stir her from that casualness she showed toward everything except herself.
"I do nothing," he began, realizing simultaneously274 that his words were to lack the debonair275 grace he craved for them. "I do nothing, for there's nothing I can do that's worth doing."
"Well?" He had neither surprised her nor even held her, yet she had certainly understood him, if indeed he had said aught worth understanding.
"Don't you approve of lazy men?"
She nodded.
"I suppose so, if they're gracefully276 lazy. Is that possible for an American?"
"Why not?" he demanded, discomfited277.
But her mind had left the subject and wandered up ten floors.
"My daddy's mad at me," she observed dispassionately.
"Why? But I want to know just why it's impossible for an American to be gracefully idle"--his words gathered conviction--"it astonishes me. It--it--I don't understand why people think that every young man ought to go down-town and work ten hours a day for the best twenty years of his life at dull, unimaginative work, certainly not altruistic279 work."
He broke off. She watched him inscrutably. He waited for her to agree or disagree, but she did neither.
"Don't you ever form judgments280 on things?" he asked with some exasperation281.
She shook her head and her eyes wandered back to the dancers as she answered:
"I don't know. I don't know anything about--what you should do, or what anybody should do."
She confused him and hindered the flow of his ideas. Self-expression had never seemed at once so desirable and so impossible.
"Well," he admitted apologetically, "neither do I, of course, but--"
"I just think of people," she continued, "whether they seem right where they are and fit into the picture. I don't mind if they don't do anything. I don't see why they should; in fact it always astonishes me when anybody does anything."
"You don't want to do anything?"
"I want to sleep."
For a second he was startled, almost as though she had meant this literally282.
"Sleep?"
"Sort of. I want to just be lazy and I want some of the people around me to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe--and I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be graceful and companionable for me. But I never want to change people or get excited over them."
"You're a quaint little determinist," laughed Anthony. "It's your world, isn't it?"
"Well--" she said with a quick upward glance, "isn't it? As long as I'm--young."
She had paused slightly before the last word and Anthony suspected that she had started to say "beautiful." It was undeniably what she had intended.
Her eyes brightened and he waited for her to enlarge on the theme. He had drawn her out, at any rate--he bent283 forward slightly to catch the words.
But "Let's dance!" was all she said.
That winter afternoon at the Plaza was the first of a succession of "dates" Anthony made with her in the blurred284 and stimulating285 days before Christmas. Invariably she was busy. What particular strata286 of the city's social life claimed her he was a long time finding out. It seemed to matter very little. She attended the semi-public charity dances at the big hotels; he saw her several times at dinner parties in Sherry's, and once as he waited for her to dress, Mrs. Gilbert, apropos287 of her daughter's habit of "going," rattled288 off an amazing holiday programme that included half a dozen dances to which Anthony had received cards.
He made engagements with her several times for lunch and tea--the former were hurried and, to him at least, rather unsatisfactory occasions, for she was sleepy-eyed and casual, incapable289 of concentrating upon anything or of giving consecutive290 attention to his remarks. When after two of these sallow meals he accused her of tendering him the skin and bones of the day she laughed and gave him a tea-time three days off. This was infinitely more satisfactory.
One Sunday afternoon just before Christmas he called up and found her in the lull291 directly after some important but mysterious quarrel: she informed him in a tone of mingled292 wrath293 and amusement that she had sent a man out of her apartment--here Anthony speculated violently--and that the man had been giving a little dinner for her that very night and that of course she wasn't going. So Anthony took her to supper.
"Let's go to something!" she proposed as they went down in the elevator. "I want to see a show, don't you?"
Inquiry294 at the hotel ticket desk disclosed only two Sunday night "concerts."
"They're always the same," she complained unhappily, "same old Yiddish comedians295. Oh, let's go somewhere!"
To conceal a guilty suspicion that he should have arranged a performance of some kind for her approval Anthony affected251 a knowing cheerfulness.
"We'll go to a good cabaret."
"I've seen every one in town."
"Well, we'll find a new one."
She was in wretched humor; that was evident. Her gray eyes were granite now indeed. When she wasn't speaking she stared straight in front of her as if at some distasteful abstraction in the lobby.
"Well, come on, then."
He followed her, a graceful girl even in her enveloping296 fur, out to a taxicab, and, with an air of having a definite place in mind, instructed the driver to go over to Broadway and then turn south. He made several casual attempts at conversation but as she adopted an impenetrable armor of silence and answered him in sentences as morose297 as the cold darkness of the taxicab he gave up, and assuming a like mood fell into a dim gloom.
A dozen blocks down Broadway Anthony's eyes were caught by a large and unfamiliar298 electric sign spelling "Marathon" in glorious yellow script, adorned with electrical leaves and flowers that alternately vanished and beamed upon the wet and glistening299 street. He leaned and rapped on the taxi-window and in a moment was receiving information from a colored doorman: Yes, this was a cabaret. Fine cabaret. Bes' showina city!
"Shall we try it?"
With a sigh Gloria tossed her cigarette out the open door and prepared to follow it; then they had passed under the screaming sign, under the wide portal, and up by a stuffy300 elevator into this unsung palace of pleasure.
The gay habitats of the very rich and the very poor, the very dashing and the very criminal, not to mention the lately exploited very Bohemian, are made known to the awed82 high school girls of Augusta, Georgia, and Redwing, Minnesota, not only through the bepictured and entrancing spreads of the Sunday theatrical301 supplements but through the shocked and alarmful eyes of Mr. Rupert Hughes and other chroniclers of the mad pace of America. But the excursions of Harlem onto Broadway, the deviltries of the dull and the revelries of the respectable are a matter of esoteric knowledge only to the participants themselves.
A tip circulates--and in the place knowingly mentioned, gather the lower moral-classes on Saturday and Sunday nights--the little troubled men who are pictured in the comics as "the Consumer" or "the Public." They have made sure that the place has three qualifications: it is cheap; it imitates with a sort of shoddy and mechanical wistfulness the glittering antics of the great cafes in the theatre district; and--this, above all, important--it is a place where they can "take a nice girl," which means, of course, that every one has become equally harmless, timid, and uninteresting through lack of money and imagination.
There on Sunday nights gather the credulous69, sentimental302, underpaid, overworked people with hyphenated occupations: book-keepers, ticket-sellers, office-managers, salesmen, and, most of all, clerks--clerks of the express, of the mail, of the grocery, of the brokerage, of the bank. With them are their giggling303, over-gestured, pathetically pretentious women, who grow fat with them, bear them too many babies, and float helpless and uncontent in a colorless sea of drudgery304 and broken hopes.
They name these brummagem cabarets after Pullman cars. The "Marathon"! Not for them the salacious similes305 borrowed from the cafés of Paris! This is where their docile306 patrons bring their "nice women," whose starved fancies are only too willing to believe that the scene is comparatively gay and joyous307, and even faintly immoral. This is life! Who cares for the morrow?
Abandoned people!
Anthony and Gloria, seated, looked about them. At the next table a party of four were in process of being joined by a party of three, two men and a girl, who were evidently late--and the manner of the girl was a study in national sociology. She was meeting some new men--and she was pretending desperately308. By gesture she was pretending and by words and by the scarcely perceptible motionings of her eyelids309 that she belonged to a class a little superior to the class with which she now had to do, that a while ago she had been, and presently would again be, in a higher, rarer air. She was almost painfully refined--she wore a last year's hat covered with violets no more yearningly310 pretentious and palpably artificial than herself.
Fascinated, Anthony and Gloria watched the girl sit down and radiate the impression that she was only condescendingly present. For _me_, her eyes said, this is practically a slumming expedition, to be cloaked with belittling311 laughter and semi-apologetics.
--And the other women passionately278 poured out the impression that though they were in the crowd they were not of it. This was not the sort of place to which they were accustomed; they had dropped in because it was near by and convenient--every party in the restaurant poured out that impression ... who knew? They were forever changing class, all of them--the women often marrying above their opportunities, the men striking suddenly a magnificent opulence312: a sufficiently313 preposterous314 advertising315 scheme, a celestialized ice cream cone316. Meanwhile, they met here to eat, closing their eyes to the economy displayed in infrequent changings of table-cloths, in the casualness of the cabaret performers, most of all in the colloquial317 carelessness and familiarity of the waiters. One was sure that these waiters were not impressed by their patrons. One expected that presently they would sit at the tables ...
"Do you object to this?" inquired Anthony.
Gloria's face warmed and for the first time that evening she smiled.
"I love it," she said frankly318. It was impossible to doubt her. Her gray eyes roved here and there, drowsing, idle or alert, on each group, passing to the next with unconcealed enjoyment319, and to Anthony were made plain the different values of her profile, the wonderfully alive expressions of her mouth, and the authentic distinction of face and form and manner that made her like a single flower amidst a collection of cheap bric-à-brac. At her happiness, a gorgeous sentiment welled into his eyes, choked him up, set his nerves a-tingle, and filled his throat with husky and vibrant320 emotion. There was a hush321 upon the room. The careless violins and saxophones, the shrill322 rasping complaint of a child near by, the voice of the violet-hatted girl at the next table, all moved slowly out, receded323, and fell away like shadowy reflections on the shining floor--and they two, it seemed to him, were alone and infinitely remote, quiet. Surely the freshness of her cheeks was a gossamer324 projection325 from a land of delicate and undiscovered shades; her hand gleaming on the stained table-cloth was a shell from some far and wildly virginal sea....
Then the illusion snapped like a nest of threads; the room grouped itself around him, voices, faces, movement; the garish326 shimmer327 of the lights overhead became real, became portentous328; breath began, the slow respiration329 that she and he took in time with this docile hundred, the rise and fall of bosoms330, the eternal meaningless play and interplay and tossing and reiterating331 of word and phrase--all these wrenched332 his senses open to the suffocating333 pressure of life--and then her voice came at him, cool as the suspended dream he had left behind.
"I belong here," she murmured, "I'm like these people."
For an instant this seemed a sardonic334 and unnecessary paradox335 hurled336 at him across the impassable distances she created about herself. Her entrancement had increased--her eyes rested upon a Semitic violinist who swayed his shoulders to the rhythm of the year's mellowest337 fox-trot:
"Something--goes Ring-a-ting-a-ling-a-ling Right in-your ear--"
Again she spoke, from the centre of this pervasive338 illusion of her own. It amazed him. It was like blasphemy339 from the mouth of a child.
"I'm like they are--like Japanese lanterns and crape paper, and the music of that orchestra."
"You're a young idiot!" he insisted wildly. She shook her blond head.
"No, I'm not. I _am_ like them.... You ought to see.... You don't know me." She hesitated and her eyes came back to him, rested abruptly on his, as though surprised at the last to see him there. "I've got a streak340 of what you'd call cheapness. I don't know where I get it but it's--oh, things like this and bright colors and gaudy341 vulgarity. I seem to belong here. These people could appreciate me and take me for granted, and these men would fall in love with me and admire me, whereas the clever men I meet would just analyze me and tell me I'm this because of this or that because of that."
--Anthony for the moment wanted fiercely to paint her, to set her down _now_, as she was, as, as with each relentless second she could never be again.
"What were you thinking?" she asked.
"Just that I'm not a realist," he said, and then: "No, only the romanticist preserves the things worth preserving."
Out of the deep sophistication of Anthony an understanding formed, nothing atavistic or obscure, indeed scarcely physical at all, an understanding remembered from the romancings of many generations of minds that as she talked and caught his eyes and turned her lovely head, she moved him as he had never been moved before. The sheath that held her soul had assumed significance--that was all. She was a sun, radiant, growing, gathering light and storing it--then after an eternity pouring it forth in a glance, the fragment of a sentence, to that part of him that cherished all beauty and all illusion.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
virtuous
|
|
| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
quaint
|
|
| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
jersey
|
|
| n.运动衫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
ineligible
|
|
| adj.无资格的，不适当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
broker
|
|
| n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
license
|
|
| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
pious
|
|
| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
choir
|
|
| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
contagious
|
|
| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
coveted
|
|
| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
muddled
|
|
| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
carnival
|
|
| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
inefficient
|
|
| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
pickpocket
|
|
| n.扒手；v.扒窃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
foulness
|
|
| n. 纠缠, 卑鄙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
discreet
|
|
| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
pneumonia
|
|
| n.肺炎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
landlady
|
|
| n.女房东，女地主 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
economizing
|
|
| v.节省，减少开支( economize的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
casually
|
|
| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
crimson
|
|
| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
rims
|
|
| n.（圆形物体的）边( rim的名词复数 )；缘；轮辋；轮圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
bulging
|
|
| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
watery
|
|
| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
craving
|
|
| n.渴望,热望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
grunted
|
|
| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
plaza
|
|
| n.广场，市场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
nicotine
|
|
| n.(化)尼古丁，烟碱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
exultation
|
|
| n.狂喜，得意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
idiotic
|
|
| adj.白痴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
debutante
|
|
| n.初入社交界的少女 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
immoral
|
|
| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
freshmen
|
|
| n.（中学或大学的）一年级学生( freshman的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
scowl
|
|
| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
countenance
|
|
| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
crestfallen
|
|
| adj. 挫败的，失望的，沮丧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
bulge
|
|
| n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
sane
|
|
| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
lesser
|
|
| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
adorn
|
|
| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
constructive
|
|
| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
interpretation
|
|
| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
philistine
|
|
| n.庸俗的人；adj.市侩的，庸俗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
foam
|
|
| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
kindled
|
|
| （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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
ascending
|
|
| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
middle-aged
|
|
| adj.中年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
gasps
|
|
| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
bask
|
|
| vt.取暖，晒太阳，沐浴于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
derive
|
|
| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
bust
|
|
| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
hips
|
|
| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
thighs
|
|
| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
adorned
|
|
| [计]被修饰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
discredit
|
|
| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
rattle
|
|
| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
delusions
|
|
| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
steered
|
|
| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
credulous
|
|
| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
credulously
|
|
| adv.轻信地，易被瞒地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
disapproved
|
|
| v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
incessant
|
|
| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
warfare
|
|
| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
flicking
|
|
| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
concession
|
|
| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
slain
|
|
| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
pulpy
|
|
| 果肉状的，多汁的，柔软的； 烂糊； 稀烂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
semblance
|
|
| n.外貌，外表 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
triumphantly
|
|
| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
awed
|
|
| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
elongated
|
|
| v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
propounded
|
|
| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
penetrated
|
|
| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
superfluous
|
|
| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
agonized
|
|
| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
toddle
|
|
| v.（如小孩）蹒跚学步 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
flirt
|
|
| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
disconsolate
|
|
| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
irrelevance
|
|
| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
relentless
|
|
| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
maturity
|
|
| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
intensity
|
|
| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
pedantic
|
|
| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
redeeming
|
|
| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
slew
|
|
| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
cocktails
|
|
| n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
cocktail
|
|
| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
pint
|
|
| n.品脱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
gateway
|
|
| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
psychic
|
|
| n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
speculation
|
|
| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
chilly
|
|
| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
boredom
|
|
| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
conceal
|
|
| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
attenuated
|
|
| v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
sipped
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
wilted
|
|
| （使）凋谢，枯萎( wilt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
ornaments
|
|
| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
inertia
|
|
| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
persuasive
|
|
| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
temperament
|
|
| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
brass
|
|
| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
tapers
|
|
| （长形物体的）逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 )； 微弱的光； 极细的蜡烛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
usher
|
|
| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
paragon
|
|
| n.模范，典型 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
nomadic
|
|
| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
chaste
|
|
| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
labyrinthine
|
|
| adj.如迷宫的；复杂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
entanglement
|
|
| n.纠缠，牵累 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
serenity
|
|
| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
intrigued
|
|
| adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
maniacal
|
|
| adj.发疯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
tariff
|
|
| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
archer
|
|
| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
duel
|
|
| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
picturesque
|
|
| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
accurately
|
|
| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
transcribe
|
|
| v.抄写，誉写；改编(乐曲)；复制，转录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
aphorisms
|
|
| 格言，警句( aphorism的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
thoroughly
|
|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
mellowed
|
|
| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
inevitably
|
|
| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
luscious
|
|
| adj.美味的；芬芳的；肉感的，引与性欲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
chuckled
|
|
| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
vice
|
|
| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
authentic
|
|
| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
ominous
|
|
| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
postures
|
|
| 姿势( posture的名词复数 )； 看法； 态度； 立场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
enraptured
|
|
| v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
disillusions
|
|
| 使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭( disillusion的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
poker
|
|
| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
susceptible
|
|
| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
turbulence
|
|
| n.喧嚣，狂暴，骚乱，湍流 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
obliviousness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
beckoning
|
|
| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
perishable
|
|
| adj.（尤指食物）易腐的，易坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
imperturbably
|
|
| adv.泰然地，镇静地，平静地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
drowsy
|
|
| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
dense
|
|
| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
inertly
|
|
| adv.不活泼地，无生气地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
165
regained
|
|
| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
crevice
|
|
| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
munched
|
|
| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
demon
|
|
| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
opalescent
|
|
| adj.乳色的，乳白的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
dressing
|
|
| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
contemplated
|
|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
apparition
|
|
| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
unnaturally
|
|
| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
scrawl
|
|
| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
scrawled
|
|
| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
memoranda
|
|
| n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
jauntily
|
|
| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
climax
|
|
| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
dreaded
|
|
| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
backbone
|
|
| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
gathering
|
|
| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
ingenuous
|
|
| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
renaissance
|
|
| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
testimony
|
|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
justification
|
|
| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
squires
|
|
| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
lackeys
|
|
| n.听差( lackey的名词复数 )；男仆（通常穿制服）；卑躬屈膝的人；被待为奴仆的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
fraught
|
|
| adj.充满…的，伴有(危险等)的；忧虑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
emulate
|
|
| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
feline
|
|
| adj.猫科的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
persistently
|
|
| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
analyze
|
|
| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
analyzed
|
|
| v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
tiresome
|
|
| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
trampled
|
|
| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
presumption
|
|
| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
detested
|
|
| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
detest
|
|
| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
203
phantom
|
|
| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
poise
|
|
| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
imminent
|
|
| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
207
luncheon
|
|
| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
208
sketching
|
|
| n.草图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
209
bland
|
|
| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
210
appreciative
|
|
| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
211
embryo
|
|
| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
212
crabbed
|
|
| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
213
obsolete
|
|
| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
214
harried
|
|
| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
215
irony
|
|
| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
216
craved
|
|
| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
217
versatile
|
|
| adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
218
minor
|
|
| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
219
pigsty
|
|
| n.猪圈，脏房间 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
220
glorified
|
|
| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
221
babbling
|
|
| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
222
blandly
|
|
| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
223
lustreless
|
|
| adj.无光泽的，无光彩的，平淡乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
224
cynical
|
|
| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
225
discordant
|
|
| adj.不调和的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
226
hymn
|
|
| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
227
pretentious
|
|
| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
228
collapse
|
|
| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
229
insufficient
|
|
| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
230
garnished
|
|
| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
231
buzzer
|
|
| n.蜂鸣器；汽笛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
232
stilted
|
|
| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
233
facetious
|
|
| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
234
glamour
|
|
| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
235
burnished
|
|
| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
236
copper
|
|
| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
237
irises
|
|
| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
238
transparent
|
|
| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
239
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
240
regularity
|
|
| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
241
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
242
luminous
|
|
| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
243
interval
|
|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
244
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： |
|
|
|
|
245
flamboyant
|
|
| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
246
piquant
|
|
| adj.辛辣的，开胃的，令人兴奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
247
intonations
|
|
| n.语调，说话的抑扬顿挫( intonation的名词复数 )；（演奏或唱歌中的）音准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
248
patchwork
|
|
| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
249
complexion
|
|
| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
250
temerity
|
|
| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
251
affected
|
|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
252
eternity
|
|
| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
253
granite
|
|
| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
254
unison
|
|
| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
255
unwillingly
|
|
| adv.不情愿地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
256
variants
|
|
| n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
257
grill
|
|
| n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
258
ripples
|
|
| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
259
jaunty
|
|
| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
260
supple
|
|
| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
261
artistic
|
|
| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
262
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
263
languorous
|
|
| adj.怠惰的，没精打采的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
264
teeming
|
|
| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
265
annoyance
|
|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
266
circuitously
|
|
| 曲折地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
267
apportion
|
|
| vt.（按比例或计划）分配 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
268
eddied
|
|
| 起漩涡，旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
269
autobiography
|
|
| n.自传 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
270
beckoned
|
|
| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
271
whacking
|
|
| adj.（用于强调）巨大的v.重击，使劲打( whack的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
272
tantalizingly
|
|
| adv.…得令人着急，…到令人着急的程度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
273
browse
|
|
| vi.随意翻阅，浏览；(牛、羊等)吃草 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
274
simultaneously
|
|
| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
275
debonair
|
|
| adj.殷勤的，快乐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
276
gracefully
|
|
| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
277
discomfited
|
|
| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
278
passionately
|
|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
279
altruistic
|
|
| adj.无私的，为他人着想的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
280
judgments
|
|
| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
281
exasperation
|
|
| n.愤慨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
282
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
283
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
284
blurred
|
|
| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
285
stimulating
|
|
| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
286
strata
|
|
| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
287
apropos
|
|
| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
288
rattled
|
|
| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
289
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
290
consecutive
|
|
| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
291
lull
|
|
| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
292
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
293
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
294
inquiry
|
|
| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
295
comedians
|
|
| n.喜剧演员，丑角( comedian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
296
enveloping
|
|
| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
297
morose
|
|
| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
298
unfamiliar
|
|
| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
299
glistening
|
|
| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
300
stuffy
|
|
| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
301
theatrical
|
|
| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
302
sentimental
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
303
giggling
|
|
| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
304
drudgery
|
|
| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
305
similes
|
|
| （使用like或as等词语的）明喻( simile的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
306
docile
|
|
| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
307
joyous
|
|
| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
308
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
309
eyelids
|
|
| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
310
yearningly
|
|
| 怀念地，思慕地，同情地； 渴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
311
belittling
|
|
| 使显得微小，轻视，贬低( belittle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
312
opulence
|
|
| n.财富，富裕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
313
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
314
preposterous
|
|
| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
315
advertising
|
|
| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
316
cone
|
|
| n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
317
colloquial
|
|
| adj.口语的，会话的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
318
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
319
enjoyment
|
|
| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
320
vibrant
|
|
| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
321
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
322
shrill
|
|
| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
323
receded
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
324
gossamer
|
|
| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
325
projection
|
|
| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
326
garish
|
|
| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
327
shimmer
|
|
| v./n.发微光，发闪光；微光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
328
portentous
|
|
| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
329
respiration
|
|
| n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
330
bosoms
|
|
| 胸部( bosom的名词复数 )； 胸怀； 女衣胸部（或胸襟）； 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
331
reiterating
|
|
| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
332
wrenched
|
|
| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
333
suffocating
|
|
| a.使人窒息的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
334
sardonic
|
|
| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
335
paradox
|
|
| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
336
hurled
|
|
| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
337
mellowest
|
|
| 成熟的( mellow的最高级 )； （水果）熟透的； （颜色或声音）柔和的； 高兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
338
pervasive
|
|
| adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
339
blasphemy
|
|
| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
340
streak
|
|
| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
341
gaudy
|
|
| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |