On the night when Anthony had left for Camp Hooker one year before, all that was left of the beautiful Gloria Gilbert--her shell, her young and lovely body--moved up the broad marble steps of the Grand Central Station with the rhythm of the engine beating in her ears like a dream, and out onto Vanderbilt Avenue, where the huge bulk of the Biltmore overhung, the street and, down at its low, gleaming entrance, sucked in the many-colored opera-cloaks of gorgeously dressed girls. For a moment she paused by the taxi-stand and watched them--wondering that but a few years before she had been of their number, ever setting out for a radiant Somewhere, always just about to have that ultimate passionate1 adventure for which the girls' cloaks were delicate and beautifully furred, for which their cheeks were painted and their hearts higher than the transitory dome3 of pleasure that would engulf4 them, coiffure, cloak, and all.
It was growing colder and the men passing had flipped5 up the collars of their overcoats. This change was kind to her. It would have been kinder still had everything changed, weather, streets, and people, and had she been whisked away, to wake in some high, fresh-scented room, alone, and statuesque within and without, as in her virginal and colorful past.
Inside the taxicab she wept impotent tears. That she had not been happy with Anthony for over a year mattered little. Recently his presence had been no more than what it would awake in her of that memorable6 June. The Anthony of late, irritable7, weak, and poor, could do no less than make her irritable in turn--and bored with everything except the fact that in a highly imaginative and eloquent8 youth they had come together in an ecstatic revel9 of emotion. Because of this mutually vivid memory she would have done more for Anthony than for any other human--so when she got into the taxicab she wept passionately11, and wanted to call his name aloud.
Miserable12, lonesome as a forgotten child, she sat in the quiet apartment and wrote him a letter full of confused sentiment:
* * * * *
... _I can almost look down the tracks and see you going but without you, dearest, dearest, I can't see or hear or feel or think. Being apart--whatever has happened or will happen to us--is like begging for mercy from a storm, Anthony; it's like growing old. I want to kiss you so--in the back of your neck where your old black hair starts. Because I love you and whatever we do or say to each other, or have done, or have said, you've got to feel how much I do, how inanimate I am when you're gone. I can't even hate the damnable presence of PEOPLE, those people in the station who haven't any right to live--I can't resent them even though they're dirtying up our world, because I'm engrossed14 in wanting you so._
_If you hated me, if you were covered with sores like a leper, if you ran away with another woman or starved me or beat me--how absurd this sounds--I'd still want you, I'd still love you. I_ KNOW, _my darling._
_It's late--I have all the windows open and the air outside, is just as soft as spring, yet, somehow, much more young and frail15 than spring. Why do they make spring a young girl, why does that illusion dance and yodel its way for three months through the world's preposterous16 barrenness. Spring is a lean old plough horse with its ribs17 showing--it's a pile of refuse in a field, parched18 by the sun and the rain to an ominous19 cleanliness._
_In a few hours you'll wake up, my darling--and you'll be miserable, and disgusted with life. You'll be in Delaware or Carolina or somewhere and so unimportant. I don't believe there's any one alive who can contemplate20 themselves as an impermanent institution, as a luxury or an unnecessary evil. Very few of the people who accentuate21 the futility22 of life remark the futility of themselves. Perhaps they think that in proclaiming the evil of living they somehow salvage23 their own worth from the ruin--but they don't, even you and I...._
_ ... Still I can see you. There's blue haze24 about the trees where you'll be passing, too beautiful to be predominant. No, the fallow squares of earth will be most frequent--they'll be along beside the track like dirty coarse brown sheets drying in the sun, alive, mechanical, abominable25. Nature, slovenly26 old hag, has been sleeping in them with every old farmer or negro or immigrant who happened to covet27 her...._
_So you see that now you're gone I've written a letter all full of contempt and despair. And that just means that I love you, Anthony, with all there is to love with in your_
GLORIA.
* * * * *
When she had addressed the letter she went to her twin bed and lay down upon it, clasping Anthony's pillow in her arms as though by sheer force of emotion she could metamorphize it into his warm and living body. Two o'clock saw her dry-eyed, staring with steady persistent28 grief into the darkness, remembering, remembering unmercifully, blaming herself for a hundred fancied unkindnesses, making a likeness30 of Anthony akin29 to some martyred and transfigured Christ. For a time she thought of him as he, in his more sentimental31 moments, probably thought of himself.
At five she was still awake. A mysterious grinding noise that went on every morning across the areaway told her the hour. She heard an alarm clock ring, and saw a light make a yellow square on an illusory blank wall opposite. With the half-formed resolution of following him South immediately, her sorrow grew remote and unreal, and moved off from her as the dark moved westward33. She fell asleep.
When she awoke the sight of the empty bed beside her brought a renewal34 of misery35, dispelled36 shortly, however, by the inevitable37 callousness38 of the bright morning. Though she was not conscious of it, there was relief in eating breakfast without Anthony's tired and worried face opposite her. Now that she was alone she lost all desire to complain about the food. She would change her breakfasts, she thought--have a lemonade and a tomato sandwich instead of the sempiternal bacon and eggs and toast.
Nevertheless, at noon when she had called up several of her acquaintances, including the martial39 Muriel, and found each one engaged for lunch, she gave way to a quiet pity for herself and her loneliness. Curled on the bed with pencil and paper she wrote Anthony another letter.
Late in the afternoon arrived a special delivery, mailed from some small New Jersey40 town, and the familiarity of the phrasing, the almost audible undertone of worry and discontent, were so familiar that they comforted her. Who knew? Perhaps army discipline would harden Anthony and accustom41 him to the idea of work. She had immutable42 faith that the war would be over before he was called upon to fight, and meanwhile the suit would be won, and they could begin again, this time on a different basis. The first thing different would be that she would have a child. It was unbearable43 that she should be so utterly44 alone.
It was a week before she could stay in the apartment with the probability of remaining dry-eyed. There seemed little in the city that was amusing. Muriel had been shifted to a hospital in New Jersey, from which she took a metropolitan45 holiday only every other week, and with this defection Gloria grew to realize how few were the friends she had made in all these years of New York. The men she knew were in the army. "Men she knew"?--she had conceded vaguely46 to herself that all the men who had ever been in love with her were her friends. Each one of them had at a certain considerable time professed47 to value her favor above anything in life. But now--where were they? At least two were dead, half a dozen or more were married, the rest scattered48 from France to the Philippines. She wondered whether any of them thought of her, and how often, and in what respect. Most of them must still picture the little girl of seventeen or so, the adolescent siren of nine years before.
The girls, too, were gone far afield. She had never been popular in school. She had been too beautiful, too lazy, not sufficiently49 conscious of being a Farmover girl and a "Future Wife and Mother" in perpetual capital letters. And girls who had never been kissed hinted, with shocked expressions on their plain but not particularly wholesome50 faces, that Gloria had. Then these girls had gone east or west or south, married and become "people," prophesying51, if they prophesied52 about Gloria, that she would come to a bad end--not knowing that no endings were bad, and that they, like her, were by no means the mistresses of their destinies.
Gloria told over to herself the people who had visited them in the gray house at Marietta. It had seemed at the time that they were always having company--she had indulged in an unspoken conviction that each guest was ever afterward54 slightly indebted to her. They owed her a sort of moral ten dollars apiece, and should she ever be in need she might, so to speak, borrow from them this visionary currency. But they were gone, scattered like chaff55, mysteriously and subtly vanished in essence or in fact.
By Christmas, Gloria's conviction that she should join Anthony had returned, no longer as a sudden emotion, but as a recurrent need. She decided56 to write him word of her coming, but postponed57 the announcement upon the advice of Mr. Haight, who expected almost weekly that the case was coming up for trial.
One day, early in January, as she was walking on Fifth Avenue, bright now with uniforms and hung with the flags of the virtuous58 nations, she met Rachael Barnes, whom she had not seen for nearly a year. Even Rachael, whom she had grown to dislike, was a relief from ennui59, and together they went to the Ritz for tea.
After a second cocktail60 they became enthusiastic. They liked each other. They talked about their husbands, Rachael in that tone of public vainglory, with private reservations, in which wives are wont61 to speak.
"Rodman's abroad in the Quartermaster Corps62. He's a captain. He was bound he would go, and he didn't think he could get into anything else."
"Anthony's in the Infantry63." The words in their relation to the cocktail gave Gloria a sort of glow. With each sip64 she approached a warm and comforting patriotism65.
"By the way," said Rachael half an hour later, as they were leaving, "can't you come up to dinner to-morrow night? I'm having two awfully66 sweet officers who are just going overseas. I think we ought to do all we can to make it attractive for them."
Gloria accepted gladly. She took down the address--recognizing by its number a fashionable apartment building on Park Avenue.
"It's been awfully good to have seen you, Rachael."
"It's been wonderful. I've wanted to."
With these three sentences a certain night in Marietta two summers before, when Anthony and Rachael had been unnecessarily attentive67 to each other, was forgiven--Gloria forgave Rachael, Rachael forgave Gloria. Also it was forgiven that Rachael had been witness to the greatest disaster in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Patch--
Compromising with events time moves along.
THE WILES69 OF CAPTAIN COLLINS
The two officers were captains of the popular craft, machine gunnery. At dinner they referred to themselves with conscious boredom70 as members of the "Suicide Club"--in those days every recondite71 branch of the service referred to itself as the Suicide Club. One of the captains--Rachael's captain, Gloria observed--was a tall horsy man of thirty with a pleasant mustache and ugly teeth. The other, Captain Collins, was chubby72, pink-faced, and inclined to laugh with abandon every time he caught Gloria's eye. He took an immediate32 fancy to her, and throughout dinner showered her with inane73 compliments. With her second glass of champagne74 Gloria decided that for the first time in months she was thoroughly75 enjoying herself.
After dinner it was suggested that they all go somewhere and dance. The two officers supplied themselves with bottles of liquor from Rachael's sideboard--a law forbade service to the military--and so equipped they went through innumerable fox trots76 in several glittering caravanseries along Broadway, faithfully alternating partners--while Gloria became more and more uproarious and more and more amusing to the pink-faced captain, who seldom bothered to remove his genial77 smile at all.
At eleven o'clock to her great surprise she was in the minority for staying out. The others wanted to return to Rachael's apartment--to get some more liquor, they said. Gloria argued persistently78 that Captain Collins's flask79 was half full--she had just seen it--then catching80 Rachael's eye she received an unmistakable wink81. She deduced, confusedly, that her hostess wanted to get rid of the officers and assented82 to being bundled into a taxicab outside.
Captain Wolf sat on the left with Rachael on his knees. Captain Collins sat in the middle, and as he settled himself he slipped his arm about Gloria's shoulder. It rested there lifelessly for a moment and then tightened83 like a vise. He leaned over her.
"You're awfully pretty," he whispered.
"Thank you kindly84, sir." She was neither pleased nor annoyed. Before Anthony came so many arms had done likewise that it had become little more than a gesture, sentimental but without significance.
Up in Rachael's long front room a low fire and two lamps shaded with orange silk gave all the light, so that the corners were full of deep and somnolent85 shadows. The hostess, moving about in a dark-figured gown of loose chiffon, seemed to accentuate the already sensuous86 atmosphere. For a while they were all four together, tasting the sandwiches that waited on the tea table--then Gloria found herself alone with Captain Collins on the fireside lounge; Rachael and Captain Wolf had withdrawn87 to the other side of the room, where they were conversing88 in subdued89 voices.
"I wish you weren't married," said Collins, his face a ludicrous travesty90 of "in all seriousness."
"Why?" She held out her glass to be filled with a high-ball.
"Don't drink any more," he urged her, frowning.
"Why not?"
"You'd be nicer--if you didn't."
Gloria caught suddenly the intended suggestion of the remark, the atmosphere he was attempting to create. She wanted to laugh--yet she realized that there was nothing to laugh at. She had been enjoying the evening, and she had no desire to go home--at the same time it hurt her pride to be flirted91 with on just that level.
"Pour me another drink," she insisted.
"Please--"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" she cried in exasperation92.
"Very well." He yielded with ill grace.
Then his arm was about her again, and again she made no protest. But when his pink cheek came close she leaned away.
"You're awfully sweet," he said with an aimless air.
She began to sing softly, wishing now that he would take down his arm. Suddenly her eye fell on an intimate scene across the room--Rachael and Captain Wolf were engrossed in a long kiss. Gloria shivered slightly--she knew not why.... Pink face approached again.
"You shouldn't look at them," he whispered. Almost immediately his other arm was around her ... his breath was on her cheek. Again absurdity93 triumphed over disgust, and her laugh was a weapon that needed no edge of words.
"Oh, I thought you were a sport," he was saying.
"What's a sport?"
"Why, a person that likes to--to enjoy life."
"Is kissing you generally considered a joyful94 affair?"
They were interrupted as Rachael and Captain Wolf appeared suddenly before them.
"It's late, Gloria," said Rachael--she was flushed and her hair was dishevelled. "You'd better stay here all night."
For an instant Gloria thought the officers were being dismissed. Then she understood, and, understanding, got to her feet as casually96 as she was able.
Uncomprehendingly Rachael continued:
"You can have the room just off this one. I can lend you everything you need."
Collins's eyes implored97 her like a dog's; Captain Wolf's arm had settled familiarly around Rachael's waist; they were waiting.
But the lure98 of promiscuity99, colorful, various, labyrinthine100, and ever a little odorous and stale, had no call or promise for Gloria. Had she so desired she would have remained, without hesitation101, without regret; as it was she could face coolly the six hostile and offended eyes that followed her out into the hall with forced politeness and hollow words.
"_He_ wasn't even sport, enough to try to take me home," she thought in the taxi, and then with a quick surge of resentment102: "How _utterly_ common!"
GALLANTRY
In February she had an experience of quite a different sort. Tudor Baird, an ancient flame, a young man whom at one time she had fully2 intended to marry, came to New York by way of the Aviation Corps, and called upon her. They went several times to the theatre, and within a week, to her great enjoyment104, he was as much in love with her as ever. Quite deliberately105 she brought it about, realizing too late that she had done a mischief106. He reached the point of sitting with her in miserable silence whenever they went out together.
A Scroll107 and Keys man at Yale, he possessed108 the correct reticences of a "good egg," the correct notions of chivalry109 and _noblesse oblige_--and, of course but unfortunately, the correct biases110 and the correct lack of ideas--all those traits which Anthony had taught her to despise, but which, nevertheless, she rather admired. Unlike the majority of his type, she found that he was not a bore. He was handsome, witty111 in a light way, and when she was with him she felt that because of some quality he possessed--call it stupidity, loyalty112, sentimentality, or something not quite as definite as any of the three--he would have done anything in his power to please her.
He told her this among other things, very correctly and with a ponderous113 manliness114 that masked a real suffering. Loving him not at all she grew sorry for him and kissed him sentimentally115 one night because he was so charming, a relic116 of a vanishing generation which lived a priggish and graceful117 illusion and was being replaced by less gallant103 fools. Afterward she was glad she had kissed him, for next day when his plane fell fifteen hundred feet at Mineola a piece of a gasolene engine smashed through his heart.
GLORIA ALONE
When Mr. Haight told her that the trial would not take place until autumn she decided that without telling Anthony she would go into the movies. When he saw her successful, both histrionically and financially, when he saw that she could have her will of Joseph Bloeckman, yielding nothing in return, he would lose his silly prejudices. She lay awake half one night planning her career and enjoying her successes in anticipation118, and the next morning she called up "Films Par13 Excellence119." Mr. Bloeckman was in Europe.
But the idea had gripped her so strongly this time that she decided to go the rounds of the moving picture employment agencies. As so often had been the case, her sense of smell worked against her good intentions. The employment agency smelt120 as though it had been dead a very long time. She waited five minutes inspecting her unprepossessing competitors--then she walked briskly out into the farthest recesses121 of Central Park and remained so long that she caught a cold. She was trying to air the employment agency out of her walking suit.
In the spring she began to gather from Anthony's letters--not from any one in particular but from their culminative effect--that he did not want her to come South. Curiously122 repeated excuses that seemed to haunt him by their very insufficiency occurred with Freudian regularity123. He set them down in each letter as though he feared he had forgotten them the last time, as though it were desperately124 necessary to impress her with them. And the dilutions125 of his letters with affectionate diminutives126 began to be mechanical and unspontaneous--almost as though, having completed the letter, he had looked it over and literally127 stuck them in, like epigrams in an Oscar Wilde play. She jumped to the solution, rejected it, was angry and depressed128 by turns--finally she shut her mind to it proudly, and allowed an increasing coolness to creep into her end of the correspondence.
Of late she had found a good deal to occupy her attention. Several aviators129 whom she had met through Tudor Baird came into New York to see her and two other ancient beaux turned up, stationed at Camp Dix. As these men were ordered overseas they, so to speak, handed her down to their friends. But after another rather disagreeable experience with a potential Captain Collins she made it plain that when any one was introduced to her he should be under no misapprehensions as to her status and personal intentions.
When summer came she learned, like Anthony, to watch the officers' casualty list, taking a sort of melancholy130 pleasure in hearing of the death of some one with whom she had once danced a german and in identifying by name the younger brothers of former suitors--thinking, as the drive toward Paris progressed, that here at length went the world to inevitable and well-merited destruction.
She was twenty-seven. Her birthday fled by scarcely noticed. Years before it had frightened her when she became twenty, to some extent when she reached twenty-six--but now she looked in the glass with calm self-approval seeing the British freshness of her complexion131 and her figure boyish and slim as of old.
She tried not to think of Anthony. It was as though she were writing to a stranger. She told her friends that he had been made a corporal and was annoyed when they were politely unimpressed. One night she wept because she was sorry for him--had he been even slightly responsive she would have gone to him without hesitation on the first train-whatever he was doing he needed to be taken care of spiritually, and she felt that now she would be able to do even that. Recently, without his continual drain upon her moral strength she found herself wonderfully revived. Before he left she had been inclined through sheer association to brood on her wasted opportunities--now she returned to her normal state of mind, strong, disdainful, existing each day for each day's worth. She bought a doll and dressed it; one week she wept over "Ethan Frome"; the next she revelled132 in some novels of Galsworthy's, whom she liked for his power of recreating, by spring in darkness, that illusion of young romantic love to which women look forever forward and forever back.
In October Anthony's letters multiplied, became almost frantic--then suddenly ceased. For a worried month it needed all her powers of control to refrain from leaving immediately for Mississippi. Then a telegram told her that he had been in the hospital and that she could expect him in New York within ten days. Like a figure in a dream he came back into her life across the ballroom133 on that November evening--and all through long hours that held familiar gladness she took him close to her breast, nursing an illusion of happiness and security she had not thought that she would know again.
DISCOMFITURE134 OF THE GENERALS
After a week Anthony's regiment135 went back to the Mississippi camp to be discharged. The officers shut themselves up in the compartments136 on the Pullman cars and drank the whiskey they had bought in New York, and in the coaches the soldiers got as drunk as possible also--and pretended whenever the train stopped at a village that they were just returned from France, where they had practically put an end to the German army. As they all wore overseas caps and claimed that they had not had time to have their gold service stripes sewed on, the yokelry of the seaboard were much impressed and asked them how they liked the trenches--to which they replied "Oh, _boy!_" with great smacking137 of tongues and shaking of heads. Some one took a piece of chalk and scrawled138 on the side of the train, "We won the war--now we're going home," and the officers laughed and let it stay. They were all getting what swagger they could out of this ignominious139 return.
As they rumbled140 on toward camp, Anthony was uneasy lest he should find Dot awaiting him patiently at the station. To his relief he neither saw nor heard anything of her and thinking that were she still in town she would certainly attempt to communicate with him, he concluded that she had gone--whither he neither knew nor cared. He wanted only to return to Gloria--Gloria reborn and wonderfully alive. When eventually he was discharged he left his company on the rear of a great truck with a crowd who had given tolerant, almost sentimental, cheers for their officers, especially for Captain Dunning. The captain, on his part, had addressed them with tears in his eyes as to the pleasure, etc., and the work, etc., and time not wasted, etc., and duty, etc. It was very dull and human; having given ear to it Anthony, whose mind was freshened by his week in New York, renewed his deep loathing141 for the military profession and all it connoted. In their childish hearts two out of every three professional officers considered that wars were made for armies and not armies for wars. He rejoiced to see general and field-officers riding desolately144 about the barren camp deprived of their commands. He rejoiced to hear the men in his company laugh scornfully at the inducements tendered them to remain in the army. They were to attend "schools." He knew what these "schools" were.
Two days later he was with Gloria in New York.
ANOTHER WINTER
Late one February afternoon Anthony came into the apartment and groping through the little hall, pitch-dark in the winter dusk, found Gloria sitting by the window. She turned as he came in.
"What did Mr. Haight have to say?" she asked listlessly.
"Nothing," he answered, "usual thing. Next month, perhaps."
She looked at him closely; her ear attuned145 to his voice caught the slightest thickness in the dissyllable.
"You've been drinking," she remarked dispassionately.
"Couple glasses."
"Oh."
He yawned in the armchair and there was a moment's silence between them. Then she demanded suddenly:
"Did you go to Mr. Haight? Tell me the truth."
"No." He smiled weakly. "As a matter of fact I didn't have time."
"I thought you didn't go.... He sent for you."
"I don't give a damn. I'm sick of waiting around his office. You'd think he was doing _me_ a favor." He glanced at Gloria as though expecting moral support, but she had turned back to her contemplation of the dubious148 and unprepossessing out-of-doors.
"I feel rather weary of life to-day," he offered tentatively. Still she was silent. "I met a fellow and we talked in the Biltmore bar."
The dusk had suddenly deepened but neither of them made any move to turn on the lights. Lost in heaven knew what contemplation, they sat there until a flurry of snow drew a languid sigh from Gloria.
"What've you been doing?" he asked, finding the silence oppressive.
"Reading a magazine--all full of idiotic149 articles by prosperous authors about how terrible it is for poor people to buy silk shirts. And while I was reading it I could think of nothing except how I wanted a gray squirrel coat--and how we can't afford one."
"Yes, we can."
"Oh, no."
"Oh, yes! If you want a fur coat you can have one."
Her voice coming through the dark held an implication of scorn.
"You mean we can sell another bond?"
"If necessary. I don't want to go without things. We have spent a lot, though, since I've been back."
"Oh, shut up!" she said in irritation150.
"Why?"
"Because I'm sick and tired of hearing you talk about what we've spent or what we've done. You came back two months ago and we've been on some sort of a party practically every night since. We've both wanted to go out, and we've gone. Well, you haven't heard me complain, have you? But all you do is whine151, whine, whine. I don't care any more what we do or what becomes of us and at least I'm consistent. But I will _not_ tolerate your complaining and calamity-howling----"
"You're not very pleasant yourself sometimes, you know."
"I'm under no obligations to be. You're not making any attempt to make things different."
"But I am--"
"Huh! Seems to me I've heard that before. This morning you weren't going to touch another thing to drink until you'd gotten a position. And you didn't even have the spunk152 to go to Mr. Haight when he sent for you about the suit."
Anthony got to his feet and switched on the lights.
"See here!" he cried, blinking, "I'm getting sick of that sharp tongue of yours."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"Do you think _I'm_ particularly happy?" he continued, ignoring her question. "Do you think I don't know we're not living as we ought to?"
In an instant Gloria stood trembling beside him.
"I won't _stand_ it!" she burst out. "I won't be lectured to. You and your suffering! You're just a pitiful weakling and you always have been!"
They faced one another idiotically, each of them unable to impress the other, each of them tremendously, achingly, bored. Then she went into the bedroom and shut the door behind her.
His return had brought into the foreground all their pre-bellum exasperations. Prices had risen alarmingly and in perverse153 ratio their income had shrunk to a little over half of its original size. There had been the large retainer's fee to Mr. Haight; there were stocks bought at one hundred, now down to thirty and forty and other investments that were not paying at all. During the previous spring Gloria had been given the alternative of leaving the apartment or of signing a year's lease at two hundred and twenty-five a month. She had signed it. Inevitably154 as the necessity for economy had increased they found themselves as a pair quite unable to save. The old policy of prevarication155 was resorted to. Weary of their incapabilities they chattered156 of what they would do--oh--to-morrow, of how they would "stop going on parties" and of how Anthony would go to work. But when dark came down Gloria, accustomed to an engagement every night, would feel the ancient restlessness creeping over her. She would stand in the doorway157 of the bedroom, chewing furiously at her fingers and sometimes meeting Anthony's eyes as he glanced up from his book. Then the telephone, and her nerves would relax, she would answer it with ill-concealed eagerness. Some one was coming up "for just a few minutes"--and oh, the weariness of pretense158, the appearance of the wine table, the revival159 of their jaded160 spirits--and the awakening161, like the mid-point of a sleepless162 night in which they moved.
As the winter passed with the march of the returning troops along Fifth Avenue they became more and more aware that since Anthony's return their relations had entirely163 changed. After that reflowering of tenderness and passion each of them had returned into some solitary164 dream unshared by the other and what endearments165 passed between them passed, it seemed, from empty heart to empty heart, echoing hollowly the departure of what they knew at last was gone.
Anthony had again made the rounds of the metropolitan newspapers and had again been refused encouragement by a motley of office boys, telephone girls, and city editors. The word was: "We're keeping any vacancies166 open for our own men who are still in France." Then, late in March, his eye fell on an advertisement in the morning paper and in consequence he found at last the semblance167 of an occupation.
* * * * *
YOU CAN SELL!!!
_Why not earn while you learn?_
_Our salesmen make $50-$200 weekly_.
* * * * *
There followed an address on Madison Avenue, and instructions to appear at one o'clock that afternoon. Gloria, glancing over his shoulder after one of their usual late breakfasts, saw him regarding it idly.
"Why don't you try it?" she suggested.
"Oh--it's one of these crazy schemes."
"It might not be. At least it'd be experience."
At her urging he went at one o'clock to the appointed address, where he found himself one of a dense168 miscellany of men waiting in front of the door. They ranged from a messenger-boy evidently misusing169 his company's time to an immemorial individual with a gnarled body and a gnarled cane170. Some of the men were seedy, with sunken cheeks and puffy pink eyes--others were young; possibly still in high school. After a jostled fifteen minutes during which they all eyed one another with apathetic171 suspicion there appeared a smart young shepherd clad in a "waist-line" suit and wearing the manner of an assistant rector who herded173 them up-stairs into a large room, which resembled a school-room and contained innumerable desks. Here the prospective174 salesmen sat down--and again waited. After an interval175 a platform at the end of the hall was clouded with half a dozen sober but sprightly176 men who, with one exception, took seats in a semicircle facing the audience.
The exception was the man who seemed the soberest, the most sprightly and the youngest of the lot, and who advanced to the front of the platform. The audience scrutinized177 him hopefully. He was rather small and rather pretty, with the commercial rather than the thespian178 sort of prettiness. He had straight blond bushy brows and eyes that were almost preposterously179 honest, and as he reached the edge of his rostrum he seemed to throw these eyes out into the audience, simultaneously180 extending his arm with two fingers outstretched. Then while he rocked himself to a state of balance an expectant silence settled over the hall. With perfect assurance the young man had taken his listeners in hand and his words when they came were steady and confident and of the school of "straight from the shoulder."
"Men!"--he began, and paused. The word died with a prolonged echo at the end of the hall, the faces regarding him, hopefully, cynically181, wearily, were alike arrested, engrossed. Six hundred eyes were turned slightly upward. With an even graceless flow that reminded Anthony of the rolling of bowling182 balls he launched himself into the sea of exposition.
"This bright and sunny morning you picked up your favorite newspaper and you found an advertisement which made the plain, unadorned statement that _you_ could sell. That was all it said--it didn't say 'what,' it didn't say 'how,' it didn't say 'why.' It just made one single solitary assertion that _you_ and _you_ and _you_"--business of pointing--"could sell. Now my job isn't to make a success of you, because every man is born a success, he makes himself a failure; it's not to teach you how to talk, because each man is a natural orator184 and only makes himself a clam185; my business is to tell you one thing in a way that will make you _know_ it--it's to tell you that _you_ and _you_ and _you_ have the heritage of money and prosperity waiting for you to come and claim it."
At this point an Irishman of saturnine186 appearance rose from his desk near the rear of the hall and went out.
"That man thinks he'll go look for it in the beer parlor187 around the corner. (Laughter.) He won't find it there. Once upon a time I looked for it there myself (laughter), but that was before I did what every one of you men no matter how young or how old, how poor or how rich (a faint ripple188 of satirical laughter), can do. It was before I found--_myself_!
"Now I wonder if any of you men know what a 'Heart Talk' is. A 'Heart Talk' is a little book in which I started, about five years ago, to write down what I had discovered were the principal reasons for a man's failure and the principal reasons for a man's success--from John D. Rockerfeller back to John D. Napoleon (laughter), and before that, back in the days when Abel sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. There are now one hundred of these 'Heart Talks.' Those of you who are sincere, who are interested in our proposition, above all who are dissatisfied with the way things are breaking for you at present will be handed one to take home with you as you go out yonder door this afternoon.
"Now in my own pocket I have four letters just received concerning 'Heart Talks.' These letters have names signed to them that are familiar in every house-hold in the U.S.A. Listen to this one from Detroit:
* * * * *
"DEAR MR. CARLETON:
"I want to order three thousand more copies of 'Heart Talks' for distribution among my salesmen. They have done more for getting work out of the men than any bonus proposition ever considered. I read them myself constantly, and I desire to heartily189 congratulate you on getting at the roots of the biggest problem that faces our generation to-day--the problem of salesmanship. The rock bottom on which the country is founded is the problem of salesmanship. With many felicitations I am
"Yours very cordially,
"HENRY W. TERRAL."
* * * * *
He brought the name out in three long booming triumphancies--pausing for it to produce its magical effect. Then he read two more letters, one from a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners and one from the president of the Great Northern Doily Company.
"And now," he continued, "I'm going to tell you in a few words what the proposition is that's going to _make_ those of you who go into it in the right spirit. Simply put, it's this: 'Heart Talks' have been incorporated as a company. We're going to put these little pamphlets into the hands of every big business organization, every salesman, and every man who _knows_--I don't say 'thinks,' I say _'knows'_--that he can sell! We are offering some of the stock of the 'Heart Talks' concern upon the market, and in order that the distribution may be as wide as possible, and in order also that we can furnish a living, concrete, flesh-and-blood example of what salesmanship is, or rather what it may be, we're going to give those of you who are the real thing a chance to sell that stock. Now, I don't care what you've tried to sell before or how you've tried to sell it. It don't matter how old you are or how young you are. I only want to know two things--first, do you _want_ success, and, second, will you work for it?
"My name is Sammy Carleton. Not 'Mr.' Carleton, but just plain Sammy. I'm a regular no-nonsense man with no fancy frills about me. I want you to call me Sammy.
"Now this is all I'm going to say to you to-day. To-morrow I want those of you who have thought it over and have read the copy of 'Heart Talks' which will be given to you at the door, to come back to this same room at this same time, then we'll, go into the proposition further and I'll explain to you what I've found the principles of success to be. I'm going to make you _feel_ that _you_ and _you_ and _you_ can sell!"
Mr. Carleton's voice echoed for a moment through the hall and then died away. To the stamping of many feet Anthony was pushed and jostled with the crowd out of the room.
FURTHER ADVENTURES WITH "HEART TALKS"
With an accompaniment of ironic190 laughter Anthony told Gloria the story of his commercial adventure. But she listened without amusement.
"You're going to give up again?" she demanded coldly.
"Why--you don't expect me to--"
"I never expected anything of you."
He hesitated.
"Well--I can't see the slightest benefit in laughing myself sick over this sort of affair. If there's anything older than the old story, it's the new twist."
It required an astonishing amount of moral energy on Gloria's part to intimidate191 him into returning, and when he reported next day, somewhat depressed from his perusal192 of the senile bromides skittishly193 set forth194 in "Heart Talks on Ambition," he found only fifty of the original three hundred awaiting the appearance of the vital and compelling Sammy Carleton. Mr. Carleton's powers of vitality195 and compulsion were this time exercised in elucidating196 that magnificent piece of speculation--how to sell. It seemed that the approved method was to state one's proposition and then to say not "And now, will you buy?"--this was not the way--oh, no!--the way was to state one's proposition and then, having reduced one's adversary197 to a state of exhaustion198, to deliver oneself of the categorical imperative199: "Now see here! You've taken up my time explaining this matter to you. You've admitted my points--all I want to ask is how many do you want?"
As Mr. Carleton piled assertion upon assertion Anthony began to feel a sort of disgusted confidence in him. The man appeared to know what he was talking about. Obviously prosperous, he had risen to the position of instructing others. It did not occur to Anthony that the type of man who attains200 commercial success seldom knows how or why, and, as in his grandfather's case, when he ascribes reasons, the reasons are generally inaccurate201 and absurd.
Anthony noted142 that of the numerous old men who had answered the original advertisement, only two had returned, and that among the thirty odd who assembled on the third day to get actual selling instructions from Mr. Carleton, only one gray head was in evidence. These thirty were eager converts; with their mouths they followed the working of Mr. Carleton's mouth; they swayed in their seats with enthusiasm, and in the intervals202 of his talk they spoke53 to each other in tense approving whispers. Yet of the chosen few who, in the words of Mr. Carleton, "were determined203 to get those deserts that rightly and truly belonged to them," less than half a dozen combined even a modicum204 of personal appearance with that great gift of being a "pusher." But they were told that they were all natural pushers--it was merely necessary that they should believe with a sort of savage206 passion in what they were selling. He even urged each one to buy some stock himself, if possible, in order to increase his own sincerity207.
On the fifth day then, Anthony sallied into the street with all the sensations of a man wanted by the police. Acting208 according to instructions he selected a tall office building in order that he might ride to the top story and work downward, stopping in every office that had a name on the door. But at the last minute he hesitated. Perhaps it would be more practicable to acclimate209 himself to the chilly210 atmosphere which he felt was awaiting him by trying a few offices on, say, Madison Avenue. He went into an arcade211 that seemed only semi-prosperous, and seeing a sign which read Percy B. Weatherbee, Architect, he opened the door heroically and entered. A starchy young woman looked up questioningly.
"Can I see Mr. Weatherbee?" He wondered if his voice sounded tremulous.
She laid her hand tentatively on the telephone-receiver.
"What's the name, please?"
"He wouldn't--ah--know me. He wouldn't know my name."
"What's your business with him? You an insurance agent?"
"Oh, no, nothing like that!" denied Anthony hurriedly. "Oh, no. It's a--it's a personal matter." He wondered if he should have said this. It had all sounded so simple when Mr. Carleton had enjoined212 his flock:
"Don't allow yourself to be kept out! Show them you've made up your mind to talk to them, and they'll listen."
The girl succumbed213 to Anthony's pleasant, melancholy face, and in a moment the door to the inner room opened and admitted a tall, splay-footed man with slicked hair. He approached Anthony with ill-concealed impatience214.
"You wanted to see me on a personal matter?"
"I wanted to talk to you," he said defiantly216.
"About what?"
"It'll take some time to explain."
"Well, what's it about?" Mr. Weatherbee's voice indicated rising irritation.
Then Anthony, straining at each word, each syllable146, began:
"I don't know whether or not you've ever heard of a series of pamphlets called 'Heart Talks'--"
"Good grief!" cried Percy B. Weatherbee, Architect, "are you trying to touch my heart?"
"No, it's business. 'Heart Talks' have been incorporated and we're putting some shares on the market--"
His voice faded slowly off, harassed217 by a fixed218 and contemptuous stare from his unwilling219 prey220. For another minute he struggled on, increasingly sensitive, entangled221 in his own words. His confidence oozed222 from him in great retching emanations that seemed to be sections of his own body. Almost mercifully Percy B. Weatherbee, Architect, terminated the interview:
"Good grief!" he exploded in disgust, "and you call that a _personal_ matter!" He whipped about and strode into his private office, banging the door behind him. Not daring to look at the stenographer223, Anthony in some shameful224 and mysterious way got himself from the room. Perspiring225 profusely226 he stood in the hall wondering why they didn't come and arrest him; in every hurried look he discerned infallibly a glance of scorn.
After an hour and with the help of two strong whiskies he brought himself up to another attempt. He walked into a plumber227's shop, but when he mentioned his business the plumber began pulling on his coat in a great hurry, gruffly announcing that he had to go to lunch. Anthony remarked politely that it was futile228 to try to sell a man anything when he was hungry, and the plumber heartily agreed.
This episode encouraged Anthony; he tried to think that had the plumber not been bound for lunch he would at least have listened.
Passing by a few glittering and formidable bazaars229 he entered a grocery store. A talkative proprietor230 told him that before buying any stocks he was going to see how the armistice231 affected232 the market. To Anthony this seemed almost unfair. In Mr. Carleton's salesman's Utopia the only reason prospective buyers ever gave for not purchasing stock was that they doubted it to be a promising68 investment. Obviously a man in that state was almost ludicrously easy game, to be brought down merely by the judicious233 application of the correct selling points. But these men--why, actually they weren't considering buying anything at all.
Anthony took several more drinks before he approached his fourth man, a real-estate agent; nevertheless, he was floored with a coup147 as decisive as a syllogism234. The real-estate agent said that he had three brothers in the investment business. Viewing himself as a breaker-up of homes Anthony apologized and went out.
After another drink he conceived the brilliant plan of selling the stock to the bartenders along Lexington Avenue. This occupied several hours, for it was necessary to take a few drinks in each place in order to get the proprietor in the proper frame of mind to talk business. But the bartenders one and all contended that if they had any money to buy bonds they would not be bartenders. It was as though they had all convened235 and decided upon that rejoinder. As he approached a dark and soggy five o'clock he found that they were developing a still more annoying tendency to turn him off with a jest.
At five, then, with a tremendous effort at concentration he decided that he must put more variety into his canvassing236. He selected a medium-sized delicatessen store, and went in. He felt, illuminatingly237, that the thing to do was to cast a spell not only over the storekeeper but over all the customers as well--and perhaps through the psychology238 of the herd172 instinct they would buy as an astounded239 and immediately convinced whole.
"Af'ernoon," he began in a loud thick voice. "Ga l'il prop'sition."
If he had wanted silence he obtained it. A sort of awe240 descended241 upon the half-dozen women marketing242 and upon the gray-haired ancient who in cap and apron243 was slicing chicken.
Anthony pulled a batch244 of papers from his flapping briefcase245 and waved them cheerfully.
"Buy a bon'," he suggested, "good as liberty bon'!" The phrase pleased him and he elaborated upon it. "Better'n liberty bon'. Every one these bon's worth _two_ liberty bon's." His mind made a hiatus and skipped to his peroration246, which he delivered with appropriate gestures, these being somewhat marred247 by the necessity of clinging to the counter with one or both hands.
"Now see here. You taken up my time. I don't want know _why_ you won't buy. I just want you say _why_. Want you say _how many!_"
At this point they should have approached him with check-books and fountain pens in hand. Realizing that they must have missed a cue Anthony, with the instincts of an actor, went back and repeated his finale.
"Now see here! You taken up my time. You followed prop'sition. You agreed 'th reasonin'? Now, all I want from _you_ is, how many lib'ty bon's?"
"See here!" broke in a new voice. A portly man whose face was adorned183 with symmetrical scrolls248 of yellow hair had come out of a glass cage in the rear of the store and was bearing down upon Anthony. "See here, you!"
"How many?" repeated the salesman sternly. "You taken up my time--"
"Hey, you!" cried the proprietor, "I'll have you taken up by the police."
"You mos' cert'nly won't!" returned Anthony with fine defiance249. "All I want know is how many."
From here and there in the store went up little clouds of comment and expostulation.
"How terrible!"
"He's disgracefully drunk."
The proprietor grasped Anthony's arm sharply.
"Get out, or I'll call a policeman."
Some relics252 of rationality moved Anthony to nod and replace his bonds clumsily in the case.
"How many?" he reiterated253 doubtfully.
"The whole force if necessary!" thundered his adversary, his yellow mustache trembling fiercely.
"Sell 'em all a bon'."
With this Anthony turned, bowed gravely to his late auditors254, and wabbled from the store. He found a taxicab at the corner and rode home to the apartment. There he fell sound asleep on the sofa, and so Gloria found him, his breath filling the air with an unpleasant pungency255, his hand still clutching his open brief case.
Except when Anthony was drinking, his range of sensation had become less than that of a healthy old man and when prohibition256 came in July he found that, among those who could afford it, there was more drinking than ever before. One's host now brought out a bottle upon the slightest pretext257. The tendency to display liquor was a manifestation258 of the same instinct that led a man to deck his wife with jewels. To have liquor was a boast, almost a badge of respectability.
In the mornings Anthony awoke tired, nervous, and worried. Halcyon259 summer twilights and the purple chill of morning alike left him unresponsive. Only for a brief moment every day in the warmth and renewed life of a first high-ball did his mind turn to those opalescent260 dreams of future pleasure--the mutual10 heritage of the happy and the damned. But this was only for a little while. As he grew drunker the dreams faded and he became a confused spectre, moving in odd crannies of his own mind, full of unexpected devices, harshly contemptuous at best and reaching sodden261 and dispirited depths. One night in June he had quarrelled violently with Maury over a matter of the utmost triviality. He remembered dimly next morning that it had been about a broken pint262 bottle of champagne. Maury had told him to sober up and Anthony's feelings had been hurt, so with an attempted gesture of dignity he had risen from the table and seizing Gloria's arm half led, half shamed her into a taxicab outside, leaving Maury with three dinners ordered and tickets for the opera.
This sort of semi-tragic fiasco had become so usual that when they occurred he was no longer stirred into making amends263. If Gloria protested--and of late she was more likely to sink into contemptuous silence--he would either engage in a bitter defense264 of himself or else stalk dismally265 from the apartment. Never since the incident on the station platform at Redgate had he laid his hands on her in anger--though he was withheld266 often only by some instinct that itself made him tremble with rage. Just as he still cared more for her than for any other creature, so did he more intensely and frequently hate her.
So far, the judges of the Appellate Division had failed to hand down a decision, but after another postponement267 they finally affirmed the decree of the lower court--two justices dissenting268. A notice of appeal was served upon Edward Shuttleworth. The case was going to the court of last resort, and they were in for another interminable wait. Six months, perhaps a year. It had grown enormously unreal to them, remote and uncertain as heaven.
Throughout the previous winter one small matter had been a subtle and omnipresent irritant--the question of Gloria's gray fur coat. At that time women enveloped269 in long squirrel wraps could be seen every few yards along Fifth Avenue. The women were converted to the shape of tops. They seemed porcine and obscene; they resembled kept women in the concealing270 richness, the feminine animality of the garment. Yet--Gloria wanted a gray squirrel coat.
Discussing the matter--or, rather, arguing it, for even more than in the first year of their marriage did every discussion take the form of bitter debate full of such phrases as "most certainly," "utterly outrageous," "it's so, nevertheless," and the ultra-emphatic "regardless"--they concluded that they could not afford it. And so gradually it began to stand as a symbol of their growing financial anxiety.
To Gloria the shrinkage of their income was a remarkable271 phenomenon, without explanation or precedent--that it could happen at all within the space of five years seemed almost an intended cruelty, conceived and executed by a sardonic272 God. When they were married seventy-five hundred a year had seemed ample for a young couple, especially when augmented273 by the expectation of many millions. Gloria had failed to realize that it was decreasing not only in amount but in purchasing power until the payment of Mr. Haight's retaining fee of fifteen thousand dollars made the fact suddenly and startlingly obvious. When Anthony was drafted they had calculated their income at over four hundred a month, with the dollar even then decreasing in value, but on his return to New York they discovered an even more alarming condition of affairs. They were receiving only forty-five hundred a year from their investments. And though the suit over the will moved ahead of them like a persistent mirage274 and the financial danger-mark loomed275 up in the near distance they found, nevertheless, that living within their income was impossible.
So Gloria went without the squirrel coat and every day upon Fifth Avenue she was a little conscious of her well-worn, half-length leopard276 skin, now hopelessly old-fashioned. Every other month they sold a bond, yet when the bills were paid it left only enough to be gulped277 down hungrily by their current expenses. Anthony's calculations showed that their capital would last about seven years longer. So Gloria's heart was very bitter, for in one week, on a prolonged hysterical278 party during which Anthony whimsically divested279 himself of coat, vest, and shirt in a theatre and was assisted out by a posse of ushers205, they spent twice what the gray squirrel coat would have cost.
It was November, Indian summer rather, and a warm, warm night--which was unnecessary, for the work of the summer was done. Babe Ruth had smashed the home-run record for the first time and Jack280 Dempsey had broken Jess Willard's cheek-bone out in Ohio. Over in Europe the usual number of children had swollen281 stomachs from starvation, and the diplomats282 were at their customary business of making the world safe for new wars. In New York City the proletariat were being "disciplined," and the odds283 on Harvard were generally quoted at five to three. Peace had come down in earnest, the beginning of new days.
Up in the bedroom of the apartment on Fifty-seventh Street Gloria lay upon her bed and tossed from side to side, sitting up at intervals to throw off a superfluous284 cover and once asking Anthony, who was lying awake beside her, to bring her a glass of ice-water. "Be sure and put ice in it," she said with insistence285; "it isn't cold enough the way it comes from the faucet286."
Looking through the frail curtains she could see the rounded moon over the roofs and beyond it on the sky the yellow glow from Times Square--and watching the two incongruous lights, her mind worked over an emotion, or rather an interwoven complex of emotions, that had occupied it through the day, and the day before that and back to the last time when she could remember having thought clearly and consecutively287 about anything--which must have been while Anthony was in the army.
She would be twenty-nine in February. The month assumed an ominous and inescapable significance--making her wonder, through these nebulous half-fevered hours whether after all she had not wasted her faintly tired beauty, whether there was such a thing as use for any quality bounded by a harsh and inevitable mortality.
Years before, when she was twenty-one, she had written in her diary: "Beauty is only to be admired, only to be loved-to be harvested carefully and then flung at a chosen lover like a gift of roses. It seems to me, so far as I can judge clearly at all, that my beauty should be used like that...."
And now, all this November day, all this desolate143 day, under a sky dirty and white, Gloria had been thinking that perhaps she had been wrong. To preserve the integrity of her first gift she had looked no more for love. When the first flame and ecstasy288 had grown dim, sunk down, departed, she had begun preserving--what? It puzzled her that she no longer knew just what she was preserving--a sentimental memory or some profound and fundamental concept of honor. She was doubting now whether there had been any moral issue involved in her way of life--to walk unworried and unregretful along the gayest of all possible lanes and to keep her pride by being always herself and doing what it seemed beautiful that she should do. From the first little boy in an Eton collar whose "girl" she had been, down to the latest casual man whose eyes had grown alert and appreciative289 as they rested upon her, there was needed only that matchless candor290 she could throw into a look or clothe with an inconsequent clause--for she had talked always in broken clauses--to weave about her immeasurable illusions, immeasurable distances, immeasurable light. To create souls in men, to create fine happiness and fine despair she must remain deeply proud--proud to be inviolate291, proud also to be melting, to be passionate and possessed.
She knew that in her breast she had never wanted children. The reality, the earthiness, the intolerable sentiment of child-bearing, the menace to her beauty--had appalled292 her. She wanted to exist only as a conscious flower, prolonging and preserving itself. Her sentimentality could cling fiercely to her own illusions, but her ironic soul whispered that motherhood was also the privilege of the female baboon293. So her dreams were of ghostly children only--the early, the perfect symbols of her early and perfect love for Anthony.
In the end then, her beauty was all that never failed her. She had never seen beauty like her own. What it meant ethically294 or aesthetically295 faded before the gorgeous concreteness of her pink-and-white feet, the clean perfectness of her body, and the baby mouth that was like the material symbol of a kiss.
She would be twenty-nine in February. As the long night waned296 she grew supremely297 conscious that she and beauty were going to make use of these next three months. At first she was not sure for what, but the problem resolved itself gradually into the old lure of the screen. She was in earnest now. No material want could have moved her as this fear moved her. No matter for Anthony, Anthony the poor in spirit, the weak and broken man with bloodshot eyes, for whom she still had moments of tenderness. No matter. She would be twenty-nine in February--a hundred days, so many days; she would go to Bloeckman to-morrow.
With the decision came relief. It cheered her that in some manner the illusion of beauty could be sustained, or preserved perhaps in celluloid after the reality had vanished. Well--to-morrow.
The next day she felt weak and ill. She tried to go out, and saved herself from collapse298 only by clinging to a mail box near the front door. The Martinique elevator boy helped her up-stairs, and she waited on the bed for Anthony's return without energy to unhook her brassiere.
For five days she was down with influenza299, which, just as the month turned the corner into winter, ripened300 into double pneumonia301. In the feverish302 perambulations of her mind she prowled through a house of bleak303 unlighted rooms hunting for her mother. All she wanted was to be a little girl, to be efficiently304 taken care of by some yielding yet superior power, stupider and steadier than herself. It seemed that the only lover she had ever wanted was a lover in a dream.
"ODI PROFANUM VULGUS"
One day in the midst of Gloria's illness there occurred a curious incident that puzzled Miss McGovern, the trained nurse, for some time afterward. It was noon, but the room in which the patient lay was dark and quiet. Miss McGovern was standing95 near the bed mixing some medicine, when Mrs. Patch, who had apparently305 been sound asleep, sat up and began to speak vehemently306:
"Millions of people," she said, "swarming307 like rats, chattering308 like apes, smelling like all hell ... monkeys! Or lice, I suppose. For one really exquisite309 palace ... on Long Island, say--or even in Greenwich ... for one palace full of pictures from the Old World and exquisite things--with avenues of trees and green lawns and a view of the blue sea, and lovely people about in slick dresses ... I'd sacrifice a hundred thousand of them, a million of them." She raised her hand feebly and snapped her fingers. "I care nothing for them--understand me?"
The look she bent310 upon Miss McGovern at the conclusion of this speech was curiously elfin, curiously intent. Then she gave a short little laugh polished with scorn, and tumbling backward fell off again to sleep.
Miss McGovern was bewildered. She wondered what were the hundred thousand things that Mrs. Patch would sacrifice for her palace. Dollars, she supposed--yet it had not sounded exactly like dollars.
THE MOVIES
It was February, seven days before her birthday, and the great snow that had filled up the cross-streets as dirt fills the cracks in a floor had turned to slush and was being escorted to the gutters311 by the hoses of the street-cleaning department. The wind, none the less bitter for being casual, whipped in through the open windows of the living room bearing with it the dismal secrets of the areaway and clearing the Patch apartment of stale smoke in its cheerless circ
收听单词发音 |
1
passionate
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
dome
|
|
| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
engulf
|
|
| vt.吞没，吞食 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
flipped
|
|
| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
memorable
|
|
| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
irritable
|
|
| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
eloquent
|
|
| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
revel
|
|
| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
mutual
|
|
| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
passionately
|
|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
par
|
|
| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
engrossed
|
|
| adj.全神贯注的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
frail
|
|
| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
preposterous
|
|
| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
ribs
|
|
| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
parched
|
|
| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
ominous
|
|
| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
contemplate
|
|
| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
accentuate
|
|
| v.着重，强调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
futility
|
|
| n.无用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
salvage
|
|
| v.救助，营救，援救；n.救助，营救 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
haze
|
|
| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
abominable
|
|
| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
slovenly
|
|
| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
covet
|
|
| vt.垂涎；贪图(尤指属于他人的东西) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
persistent
|
|
| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
akin
|
|
| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
likeness
|
|
| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
sentimental
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
westward
|
|
| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
renewal
|
|
| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
dispelled
|
|
| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
callousness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
martial
|
|
| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
jersey
|
|
| n.运动衫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
accustom
|
|
| vt.使适应，使习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
immutable
|
|
| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
unbearable
|
|
| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
metropolitan
|
|
| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
professed
|
|
| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
wholesome
|
|
| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
prophesying
|
|
| v.预告，预言( prophesy的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
prophesied
|
|
| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
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： |
|
|
|
|
54
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
chaff
|
|
| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
postponed
|
|
| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
virtuous
|
|
| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
ennui
|
|
| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
cocktail
|
|
| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
wont
|
|
| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
corps
|
|
| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
infantry
|
|
| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
sip
|
|
| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
patriotism
|
|
| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
attentive
|
|
| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
promising
|
|
| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
wiles
|
|
| n.（旨在欺骗或吸引人的）诡计，花招；欺骗，欺诈( wile的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
boredom
|
|
| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
recondite
|
|
| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
chubby
|
|
| adj.丰满的，圆胖的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
inane
|
|
| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
champagne
|
|
| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
thoroughly
|
|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
trots
|
|
| 小跑，急走( trot的名词复数 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
genial
|
|
| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
persistently
|
|
| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
flask
|
|
| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
catching
|
|
| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
wink
|
|
| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
assented
|
|
| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
tightened
|
|
| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
somnolent
|
|
| adj.想睡的，催眠的；adv.瞌睡地；昏昏欲睡地；使人瞌睡地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
sensuous
|
|
| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
withdrawn
|
|
| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
conversing
|
|
| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
subdued
|
|
| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
travesty
|
|
| n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
flirted
|
|
| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
exasperation
|
|
| n.愤慨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
absurdity
|
|
| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
joyful
|
|
| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
casually
|
|
| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
implored
|
|
| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
lure
|
|
| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
promiscuity
|
|
| n.混杂，混乱；（男女的）乱交 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
labyrinthine
|
|
| adj.如迷宫的；复杂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
hesitation
|
|
| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
gallant
|
|
| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
enjoyment
|
|
| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
mischief
|
|
| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
scroll
|
|
| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
chivalry
|
|
| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
biases
|
|
| 偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
witty
|
|
| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
loyalty
|
|
| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
ponderous
|
|
| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
manliness
|
|
| 刚毅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
sentimentally
|
|
| adv.富情感地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
relic
|
|
| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
anticipation
|
|
| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
excellence
|
|
| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
smelt
|
|
| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
recesses
|
|
| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
regularity
|
|
| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
dilutions
|
|
| n.稀释( dilution的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
diminutives
|
|
| n.微小( diminutive的名词复数 )；昵称，爱称 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
127
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
depressed
|
|
| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
aviators
|
|
| 飞机驾驶员，飞行员( aviator的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
complexion
|
|
| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
revelled
|
|
| v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
ballroom
|
|
| n.舞厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
discomfiture
|
|
| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
regiment
|
|
| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
compartments
|
|
| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
smacking
|
|
| 活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
scrawled
|
|
| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
ignominious
|
|
| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
rumbled
|
|
| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
loathing
|
|
| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
desolate
|
|
| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
desolately
|
|
| 荒凉地，寂寞地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
attuned
|
|
| v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
syllable
|
|
| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
coup
|
|
| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
dubious
|
|
| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
idiotic
|
|
| adj.白痴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
irritation
|
|
| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
whine
|
|
| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
spunk
|
|
| n.勇气，胆量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
perverse
|
|
| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
inevitably
|
|
| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
prevarication
|
|
| n.支吾；搪塞；说谎；有枝有叶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
chattered
|
|
| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
doorway
|
|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
pretense
|
|
| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
revival
|
|
| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
jaded
|
|
| adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
awakening
|
|
| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
sleepless
|
|
| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
endearments
|
|
| n.表示爱慕的话语，亲热的表示( endearment的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
vacancies
|
|
| n.空房间( vacancy的名词复数 )；空虚；空白；空缺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
semblance
|
|
| n.外貌，外表 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
dense
|
|
| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
misusing
|
|
| v.使用…不当( misuse的现在分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
cane
|
|
| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
apathetic
|
|
| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
herd
|
|
| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
herded
|
|
| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
prospective
|
|
| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
interval
|
|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
sprightly
|
|
| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
scrutinized
|
|
| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
thespian
|
|
| adj.戏曲的；n.演员；悲剧演员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
preposterously
|
|
| adv.反常地；荒谬地；荒谬可笑地；不合理地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
simultaneously
|
|
| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
cynically
|
|
| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
bowling
|
|
| n.保龄球运动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
adorned
|
|
| [计]被修饰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
orator
|
|
| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
clam
|
|
| n.蛤，蛤肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
saturnine
|
|
| adj.忧郁的，沉默寡言的，阴沉的，感染铅毒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
parlor
|
|
| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
ripple
|
|
| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
heartily
|
|
| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
ironic
|
|
| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
intimidate
|
|
| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
perusal
|
|
| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
skittishly
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
vitality
|
|
| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
elucidating
|
|
| v.阐明，解释( elucidate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
adversary
|
|
| adj.敌手，对手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
exhaustion
|
|
| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
imperative
|
|
| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
attains
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
inaccurate
|
|
| adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
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： |
|
|
|
|
203
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
modicum
|
|
| n.少量，一小份 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
ushers
|
|
| n.引座员( usher的名词复数 )；招待员；门房；助理教员v.引，领，陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
207
sincerity
|
|
| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
208
acting
|
|
| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
209
acclimate
|
|
| v.使服水土，使习惯于新环境 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
210
chilly
|
|
| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
211
arcade
|
|
| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
212
enjoined
|
|
| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
213
succumbed
|
|
| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
214
impatience
|
|
| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
215
quailed
|
|
| 害怕，发抖，畏缩( quail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
216
defiantly
|
|
| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
217
harassed
|
|
| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
218
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
219
unwilling
|
|
| adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
220
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
221
entangled
|
|
| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
222
oozed
|
|
| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
223
stenographer
|
|
| n.速记员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
224
shameful
|
|
| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
225
perspiring
|
|
| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
226
profusely
|
|
| ad.abundantly | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
227
plumber
|
|
| n.(装修水管的)管子工 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
228
futile
|
|
| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
229
bazaars
|
|
| （东方国家的）市场( bazaar的名词复数 )； 义卖； 义卖市场； （出售花哨商品等的）小商品市场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
230
proprietor
|
|
| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
231
armistice
|
|
| n.休战，停战协定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
232
affected
|
|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
233
judicious
|
|
| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
234
syllogism
|
|
| n.演绎法，三段论法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
235
convened
|
|
| 召开( convene的过去式 )； 召集； （为正式会议而）聚集； 集合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
236
canvassing
|
|
| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的现在分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
237
illuminatingly
|
|
| adv.照亮地，启蒙地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
238
psychology
|
|
| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
239
astounded
|
|
| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
240
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
241
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
242
marketing
|
|
| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
243
apron
|
|
| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
244
batch
|
|
| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
245
briefcase
|
|
| n.手提箱，公事皮包 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
246
peroration
|
|
| n.（演说等之）结论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
247
marred
|
|
| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
248
scrolls
|
|
| n.（常用于录写正式文件的）纸卷( scroll的名词复数 )；卷轴；涡卷形（装饰）；卷形花纹v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的第三人称单数 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
249
defiance
|
|
| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
250
raving
|
|
| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
251
maniac
|
|
| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
252
relics
|
|
| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
253
reiterated
|
|
| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
254
auditors
|
|
| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
255
pungency
|
|
| n.（气味等的）刺激性；辣；（言语等的）辛辣；尖刻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
256
prohibition
|
|
| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
257
pretext
|
|
| n.借口，托词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
258
manifestation
|
|
| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
259
halcyon
|
|
| n.平静的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
260
opalescent
|
|
| adj.乳色的，乳白的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
261
sodden
|
|
| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
262
pint
|
|
| n.品脱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
263
amends
|
|
| n. 赔偿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
264
defense
|
|
| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
265
dismally
|
|
| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
266
withheld
|
|
| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
267
postponement
|
|
| n.推迟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
268
dissenting
|
|
| adj.不同意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
269
enveloped
|
|
| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
270
concealing
|
|
| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
271
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
272
sardonic
|
|
| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
273
Augmented
|
|
| adj.增音的 动词augment的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
274
mirage
|
|
| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
275
loomed
|
|
| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
276
leopard
|
|
| n.豹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
277
gulped
|
|
| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
278
hysterical
|
|
| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
279
divested
|
|
| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
280
jack
|
|
| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
281
swollen
|
|
| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
282
diplomats
|
|
| n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
283
odds
|
|
| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
284
superfluous
|
|
| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
285
insistence
|
|
| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
286
faucet
|
|
| n.水龙头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
287
consecutively
|
|
| adv.连续地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
288
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
289
appreciative
|
|
| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
290
candor
|
|
| n.坦白，率真 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
291
inviolate
|
|
| adj.未亵渎的，未受侵犯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
292
appalled
|
|
| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
293
baboon
|
|
| n.狒狒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
294
ethically
|
|
| adv.在伦理上，道德上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
295
aesthetically
|
|
| adv.美地，艺术地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
296
waned
|
|
| v.衰落( wane的过去式和过去分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
297
supremely
|
|
| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
298
collapse
|
|
| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
299
influenza
|
|
| n.流行性感冒，流感 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
300
ripened
|
|
| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
301
pneumonia
|
|
| n.肺炎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
302
feverish
|
|
| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
303
bleak
|
|
| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
304
efficiently
|
|
| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
305
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
306
vehemently
|
|
| adv. 热烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
307
swarming
|
|
| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
308
chattering
|
|
| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
309
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
310
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
311
gutters
|
|
| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |