He sat through the sweltering afternoon on the eastern terrace over a novel which he could not read. Last night he had held her passionately9 in his arms. Her surrender had been absolute and eloquent10 avowal11. Already the masculine instinct of possession spoke12. Why did she now elude13 him? He had counted on a morning of joy that would have eclipsed the night. Why had she gone? Deep thought brought comforting solution. To-morrow they were to migrate to Assouan. This was their last day in Luxor where, up to now, Lucilla had not made one single sketch2. Now, had she not told him in Brant?me that her object in going to Egypt was to paint it? Generously she had put aside her art for his sake—until the last moment. Of this last moment she was taking advantage. Still—why not a little word to him? He turned to his book. But the thrill of the great kiss pulsated14 through his veins15. He gave himself up to dreams.
Later in the afternoon, Watney-Holcombe, fly-whisk in one hand and handkerchief in the other, took him into the cool, darkened bar, and supplied him with icy drink and told him tales of his early days in San Francisco. A few other men lounged in and joined them. Desultory16 talk furnished an excuse for systematic17 imbibing18 of cold liquid. When Martin reached the upper air he found that Lucilla had already arrived and had gone to her room for rest. He only saw her when she came down late for dinner. She was dressed in a close-fitting charmeuse gown of a strange blue shade like an Egyptian evening. Her pleasant greeting differed no whit19 from that of twenty-four hours ago. Not by the flicker20 of a brown eyelash did she betray recollection of last night’s impassioned happenings.
She talked of her excursion to the eager and reproachful group. A sandstorm had ruined a masterpiece, her best brushes, her hair and old Hassan’s temper. She had swallowed half Sahara with her food. Her very donkey, cocking round an angry eye, had called her the most opprobrious21 term in his vocabulary—an ass4. Altogether she had enjoyed herself immensely.
“You ought to have come, Martin,” she said coolly.
He made the obvious retort. “You did not give me the chance.”
“If only you had been up at dawn,” she laughed.
“I was,” he replied. “I lay awake most of the night and I saw the sunrise from my bedroom window.”
“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “You were looking the wrong way. You were adoring the East while I was going out to the West.”
“All that is very pretty, but I’m dying of hunger,” said Watney-Holcombe, carrying her off to the dining room.
The rest followed. At table, she sat between her captor and Dangerfield, so that Martin had no private speech with her. After dinner Watney-Holcombe and Dangerfield wandered off to the bar to play billiards22. Martin declining an invitation to join them remained with the four ladies in the lounge. Lucilla had man?uvred herself into an unassailable position between the two married women. Martin and Maisie sat sketchily23 on the outskirts24 behind the coffee table. The band discoursed25 unexhilarating music. Talk languished26. At last Maisie sprang to her feet and took Martin unceremoniously by the arm.
Martin rose. “What can we do?”
“Anything. We can gaze at the stars and you can swear that you love me. Or we can go and look at Cook’s steamboat.”
“Will you come with us, Lucilla?” asked Martin.
She shook her head and smiled. “I’m far too tired and lazy.”
The girl, still holding his arm, swung him round. He had no choice but to obey. They walked along the quay28 as far as the northern end of the temple. By the time of their return Lucilla had gone to bed. She had become as elusive29 as a dream.
He did not capture her till the next morning on the railway station platform, before their train started. By a chance of which he took swift advantage, she stood some paces apart from the little group of friends. He carried her further away. Moments were precious; he went at once to the root of the matter.
“Lucilla, why are you avoiding me?”
She opened wide eyes. “Avoiding you, my dear Martin?”
“Yesterday you gave me no opportunity of speaking to you, and this morning it has been the same. And I’ve been in a fever of longing30 for a word with you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “And now you have me, what is the word?”
“I love you,” said Martin.
“Hush,” she whispered, with an involuntary glance round at the red-jerseyed porters and the stray passengers. “This is scarcely the place for a declaration.”
“The declaration was the night before last.”
“Hush!” she said again, and laid her gloved hand on his arm. But he insisted.
“You haven’t forgotten?”
“Not yet. How could I? You must give me time.”
“For what?” he asked.
“To forget.”
A horrible pain shot through him. “Do you want to forget all that has passed between us?”
She raised her eyes, frankly31, and laughed. “My dear boy, how can we go into such intimate matters among this rabble32?”
“Oh, my dear,” said Martin, “I am only asking a very simple question. Do you want to forget?”
“Perhaps not quite,” she replied softly, and the pain through his heart ceased and he held up his head and laughed, and then bent33 it towards her and asked forgiveness.
“Abjectly wretched,” he declared.
“That wouldn’t be a fit frame of mind for a six-hour stifling35 and dusty railway journey. So let us be happy while we can.”
At Assouan they went to the hotel on the little green island in the middle of the Nile. In the hope of her redeeming36 a half promise of early descent before dinner, he dressed betimes and waited in the long lounge, his eyes on the lift. She appeared at last, fresh, radiant, as though she had stepped out of the dawn. She sat beside him with an adorable suggestion of intimacy37.
“Martin,” she said, “I want you to make me a promise, will you?”
His eyes on hers, he promised blindly.
“Promise me to be good while we’re here.”
“Yes. Don’t you know what ‘good’ means? It means not to be tempestuous39 or foolish or inquisitive40.”
“I see,” said Martin, with a frown between his brows. “I mustn’t”—he hesitated—“I mustn’t do what I did the other night, and I mustn’t say that all my universe, earth and sun and moon and stars are packed in this”—his fingers met the drapery of her bodice in a fugitive41, delicate touch—“and I mustn’t ask you any questions about what you may be thinking.”
There was a new tone in his voice, a new expression in his eyes and about the corners of his lips, all of which she was quick to note. She cast him a swift glance of apprehension42, and her smile faded.
“You set out the position with startling concreteness.”
“I do,” said he. “Up to a couple of days ago I worshipped you as a divine abstraction. The night before last, things, to use your words, became startlingly concrete. You are none the less wonderful and adorable, but you have become the concrete woman of flesh and blood I want and would sell my soul for.”
She glanced at him again, anxiously, furtively43, half afraid. In such terms do none but masterful men speak to women; men who from experience of a deceitful sex know how to tear away ridiculous veils; or else men who, having no knowledge of woman whatever, suddenly awaken44 with primitive45 brutality46 to the sex instinct. Her subtle brain worked out the rapid solution. Her charming idea of making a man of Martin had succeeded beyond her most romantic expectations. She realised that facing him dry and cold, as she was doing now, would only develop a dramatic situation which would be cut uncomfortably short by the first careless friend who stepped out of the lift. She temporised, summoning the smile to her eyes.
“Anyway, you’ve promised.”
“I have,” said Martin.
“You see, you can’t stand with a pistol at my head whenever we meet alone. You must give me time.”
“To forget?”
“To make up my mind whether to forget or remember,” she declared radiantly. “Now what more do you want an embarrassed woman to say?”
Swiftly she had reassumed command. Martin yielded happily. “If it isn’t all I want,” said he, “it’s much more than I dared claim.”
She rose and he rose too. She passed her hand through his arm. “Come and see whether anybody has had the common sense to reserve a table for dinner.”
Thus during her royal pleasure, their semi-loverlike relations were established; rather perhaps were they nicely balanced on a knife-edge, the equilibrium48 dependent on her skill. As at Luxor, so at Assouan did they the things that those who go to Assouan do. They lounged about the hotel garden. They took the motor ferry to the little town on the mainland and wandered about the tiny bazaar49. They sailed on the Nile. They went to the merriest race meetings in heathendom, where you can back your fancy in camel, donkey or buffalo50 for a shilling upwards51 at the state pari-mutuel. They made an expedition to the Dam. The main occupation, as it is that of most who go to Assouan, was not to pass the time, but to sit in the sun and let the time pass. A golden fortnight or so slipped by. Martin lived as freely in his goddess’s company as he had done at Cairo or Luxor. She had ordained52 a period of probation53. All his delicacy54 of sentiment proclaimed her justified55. She comported56 herself as the most gracious of divinities, and the most warmly sympathetic of human women, leading him by all the delicate devices known to Olympus and Clapham Common, to lay bare to her his inmost soul. He told her all that he had to tell: much that he had told already: his childhood in Switzerland, his broken Cambridge career, his life at Margett’s Universal College, his adventures with Corinna, his waiterdom at Brant?me, his relations with Fortinbras, Bigourdin, Félise. The only thing in his simple past that he hid was his knowledge of the tragedy in the life of Fortinbras. “And then you came,” said he, “and touched my dull earth, and turned it into a New Jerusalem of ‘pure gold like unto clear glass.’?” And he told her of his consultation57 with the Dealer58 in Happiness, and his journey to London and his meeting with Corinna in the flimsy flat. It seemed to him that she had the divine power of taking his heart in her blue-veined hands and making it speak like that of a child. For everything in the world for which that heart had longed she had the genius to create expression.
In spite of all the delicious intimacy of such revelation he observed his compact loyally. For the quivering moment it was enough that she knew and accepted his love; it was enough to realise that when she smiled on him, she must remember unresentfully the few holy seconds of his embrace. And yet, when alone with her, in the moonlit garden, so near that accidental touch of arm or swinging touch of skirt or other delicate physical sense of her, was an essential part of their intercourse59, he wondered whether she had a notion of the madness that surged in his blood, of the tensity of the grip in which he held himself.
And so, lotus-eating, reckless of the future, happy only in the throbbing60 present, he remained with Lucilla and her friends at Assouan until the heat of spring drove them back to Cairo.
There, on the terrace of Shepheard’s, on the noon of his arrival, he found Fortinbras. The Dealer in Happiness, economically personally (though philosophically) conducted, had also visited Luxor and had brought away a rich harvest of observation. He bestowed61 it liberally on Martin, who, listening with perplexed62 brow, wondered whether he himself had brought away but chaff63. After a while Fortinbras enquired64:
“And the stock we wot of—is it still booming?”
Martin said: “I’ve been inconceivably happy. Don’t let us talk about it.”
Presently Lucilla and Mrs. Dangerfield joined them and Fortinbras was carried off to the Semiramis to lunch. It was a gay meal. The Watney-Holcombes had gathered in a few young soldiers, and youth asserted itself joyously65. Fortinbras, urbane66 and debonair67, laughed with the youngest. The subalterns thinking him a personage of high importance who was unbending for their benefit, paid him touching68 deference69. He exerted himself to please, dealing70 out happiness lavishly71; yet his bland72 eyes kept keen watch on Martin and Lucilla sitting together on the opposite side of the great round table. Once he caught and held her glance for a few seconds; then she flushed, as it seemed, angrily, and flung him an irrelevant73 question about Félise. When the meal was over and he had taken leave of his hosts, he said to Martin, who accompanied him to the West door by which he elected to emerge:
“Either you will never want me again, or you will want a friendly hand more than you have wanted a friendly hand in your life before—and I am leaving this land of enchantment74 the day after to-morrow. Dulce est dissipere etc. But dissipation is the thief of professional advancement75. If a dealer in cheaper and shoddier happiness arises in the quartier I am lost. There was already before I left, a conscientious76 and conscienceless Teuton who was trying to steal my thunder and retail77 it at the ignominous rate of a franc a reverberation78. I cannot afford to let things drift. Neither, my son,” he tapped the young man impressively on the shoulder. “Neither can you.”
Martin straightened himself, half resentful, and twirled his trim moustache.
“It’s all very well, my son,” said Fortinbras with his benevolent79 smile, “but all the let-Hell-come airs in the world can’t do anything else but intensify80 the fact that you’re a Soldier of Fortune. Faint heart—you know the jingle—and faintness of heart is not the attribute of a soldier. Good-bye, my dear Martin.” He held out his hand. “You will see me to-morrow at our usual haunt.”
Fortinbras waved adieu. Martin lit a cigarette and sat in a far corner of the verandah. The westering sun beat heavily on the striped awning81. Further along, by the door, a small group of visitors were gathered round an Indian juggler82. For the first time, almost, since his landing in Egypt, he permitted himself to think. A Soldier of Fortune. The words conveyed sinister83 significance: a predatory swash-buckler in search of any fortune to his hand: Lucilla’s fortune. Hitherto he had blinded himself to sordid84 considerations. He had dived, figuratively speaking, into his bag of sovereigns, as into a purse of Fortunatus. The magic of destiny would provide for his material wants. What to him, soul-centred on the ineffable85 woman, were such unimportant and mean preoccupations? He had lived in his dream. He had lived in his intoxication86. He had lived of late in the splendour of a seismic87 moment. And now, crash! he came to earth. A Soldier of Fortune. An adventurer. A swindler. The brutal47 commonsense88 aspect grinned in his face. On ship-board Fortinbras had warned him that he was an adventurer. He had not heeded89. . . . He was a Soldier of Fortune. He must strike the iron while it was hot. That was what Fortinbras meant. He must secure the heiress. He hated Fortinbras. The sudden realisation of his position devastated90 his soul. And yet he loved her. He desired her as he had not dreamed it to be in a man’s power to desire.
At last his glance rested on the little crowd around the Indian juggler; and then suddenly he became aware of her flashing like a dove among crows. Her lips and eyes were filled with a child’s laughter at the foolish conjuring91. When the trick was over she turned and, seeing him, smiled. He beckoned92. She complied, with the afterglow of amusement on her face; but when she came near him her expression changed.
“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked.
He pushed a chair for her. They sat.
“I must speak to you, once and for all,” he said.
“Don’t you think it’s rather public?”
“The Indian is going,” he replied, with an indicating gesture, “and the people too. It’s too hot for them to sit out here.”
“Then what about me?” she asked.
He sprang to his feet with an apology. She laughed.
“An accidental word from Fortinbras. He called me a Soldier of Fortune. The term isn’t pretty. You are a woman of great wealth. I am a man practically penniless. I have no position, no profession. I am what the world calls an adventurer.”
She protested. “That’s nonsense. You have been absolutely honest with me from first to last.”?’
“Honest in so far as I’ve not concealed94 my material situation. But honourable95? . . . If you had known in Brant?me that I had already dared to love you, would you have suggested my coming to Egypt?”
“Possibly not,” replied Lucilla, the shadow of an ironical96 smile playing about her lips. “But—we can be quite frank—I don’t see how you could have told me.”
“Of course I couldn’t,” he admitted. “But loving you as I did, I ought not to have come. It was not the part of an honourable man.”
His elbow on the arm of the cane97 chair and his chin on his hand he looked with haggard questioning into her eyes. She held his glance for a brief moment, then looked down at her blue-veined hands.
“You see,” he said, “you don’t deny it. That’s why I call myself an adventurer.”
Her eyes still downcast, she said: “You have no reason in the world to reproach yourself. As soon as you could, with decency98, tell me that you loved me, you did. And you made it clear to me long before you told me. And I don’t think,” she added in a low voice, “that I showed much indignation.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked.
She intertwined her fingers nervously99. “Sometimes a woman feels it good to be loved. And I’ve felt it good—and wonderful—all the time. Once—there was a man, years ago; but he’s dead. Since then other men have come along and I’ve turned them down as gently as I could. But no one has done the mad thing that you have done for my sake. And no one has been so simple and loyal—and strong. You are different. I have had the sense of being loved by a man pure and unstained. God knows you are without blame.”
“Then, my dear,” said he, bending his head vainly so as to catch her face otherwise than in profile and to meet the eyes hidden beneath the adorable brown lashes100, “what is to happen between us two?”
For answer, she made a little despairing gesture.
“If I had the right of an honest man seeking a woman in marriage,” he said, “I would take matters into my own hand. I would follow you all over the world until I won you somehow or the other.”
She turned on him in a flash of passion.
“God forbid I should do that,” said Martin.
She averted103 her head again. There was a span of silence. At the extreme end of the long deserted104 verandah, beneath the sun-baked awning, with only the occasional clatter105 of a carriage or the whirr of a motor breaking the stillness of this drowsy106 embankment of the Nile, they might have been miles away in the desert solitude107 under the palm-tree of Fortinbras’s dream.
Lucilla was the first to speak. “It is I who am to blame for everything. No; let me talk. I’ve got the courage to talk straight and you’ve got the courage to listen. You interested me at Brant?me. Your position there was so un-English. Of course I liked you. I thought you ought to be roused from stagnation108. It was just idle fancy that made me talk about Egypt. I thought it would do you good to cut everything and see the world. When I took Félise away with me and saw how she expanded and developed, I thought of you. I’ve done the same often before with girls, like Félise, who have never been given a chance, and it has been a fascinating amusement. I had never made the experiment with a man. I wanted to see how you would shape, what kind of impression all the new kind of life would make on you. I realise it now, but till now I haven’t, that all my so-called kindnesses to girls have been heartless experimenting. I could keep twenty girls in luxury for twenty years without considering the expense. That’s the curse of unlimited109 money! one abuses its power. . . . With you, of course, money didn’t come in. I hadn’t the insanity110 to ask you to be my guest, as I could ask young women. But money aside, I knew I could give you what I gave them; and from what Félise let drop I gathered you had some little private means. So I wrote to you—on the off-chance. I thought you would come. People, have a way of doing what I ask them. You were going to be the most fascinating amusement of all. You see, that’s how it was.”
She paused. His face hardened. “Well,” said he, “go on.”
“Can’t you guess the rest?”
“No,” said he, “I can’t.”
There was a note in his voice that seemed to tear her heart. She pressed both hands to her eyes.
“If you knew how I despise and hate myself!”
“No, no, my dear,” said Martin. He touched her shoulder, warm and soft. Only the convention of a diaphanous111 flimsy sleeve gave sanction. She let his hand remain there for a moment or two; then gripped it and flung it away. But the nervous clasp of her fingers denied resentment112. She turned a white face.
“I knew you loved me. It was good, as I’ve told you, to feel it. I meant to escape as I’ve escaped before. I don’t excuse myself. Then came the night at Luxor. I let myself go. It was a thing of the senses. Something snapped, as it has done in the case of millions of women under similar conditions. You could have done what you liked with me. I shall never forget if I live to be ninety. Do you think I’ve been sleeping peacefully all these nights ever since? I haven’t.”
“You must care for me—a little. The veriest little is all I dare ask for.”
“No, it isn’t,” she answered, meeting his eyes. “Don’t delude114 yourself. You are asking for everything. And if I had everything to give I would give it to you. You may think I have played with you heartlessly for the last three or four weeks. Any outsider knowing the bare facts would accuse me. Perhaps I ought to have sent you away; but I hadn’t the strength. There. That’s a confession115. Make what you will of it.”
“All I can make of it,” said Martin tremulously, “is that you’re the woman for me, and that you know it.”
“I do,” she said. “I’m up against facts and I face them squarely. On the other hand you’re not the man for me. If ever a woman has tried to love a man, I’ve tried to love you. That’s why I’ve made you stay. I’ve plucked my heart out—all, all but the roots. There’s a dead man there, at the roots”—she flung out both hands and her shoulders heaved—“and he is always up between us, and I can’t, I can’t. It’s no use. I must give myself altogether, or not at all. I’m not built for the half-and-half things.”
He sat grim, feeling more a stone than a man. She clutched his arm.
“Suppose I did marry you. By all the rules of the game I ought to. But it would only be misery116 for both of us. There would be twenty thousand causes for misery. Don’t you see?”
“I see everything,” said Martin. He rose and leaned both elbows on the verandah and faced her with bent brows. “I see everything. You have put your case very clearly. But suppose I say that you haven’t played the game. Suppose I say that you should have known that no man who wasn’t in love with you—except an imbecile—would have followed you to Egypt as I’ve done. Suppose I say that you’ve played havoc117 with my life. Suppose I instance everything that has passed between us, and I assert the rules of the game, and I ask you as a man, shaken to his centre with love of you, to marry me, what would you say?”
She rose and stood beside him, holding her head very proudly.
“Put upon my honour like that,” she replied, “I should have to say ‘Yes.’?”
He took both her hands in his and raised them to his lips.
“That’s all I want to know. But as I don’t reproach you, I’m not going to ask you, my dear. If I were Lord of the Earth or a millionth part of the earth I would laugh and take the risk. But as things are, I can’t accept your generosity118. You are the woman I love and shall always love. Good-bye and God bless you.”
He wrung119 her hand and marched down the verandah, his head in the air, looking a very gallant120 fellow. After a few seconds’ perplexity she ran swiftly in pursuit.
“Martin!” she cried.
He turned and awaited her approach.
“I feel I’ve behaved to you like the lowest of women. I’ll make my amends121 if you like. I’ll marry you. There!”
Martin stood racked with the great temptation. All his senses absorbed her beauty and her wonder. At length he asked:
“Do you love me?”
“I’ve told you all about that.”
“Then you don’t. . . . Yes or No? It’s a matter of two lives.”
“I’ve tried and I will try again.”
“But Yes or No?” he persisted.
“No,” she said.
Again he took her hands and kissed them.
“That ends it. If I married you, my dear, I should indeed be a Soldier of Fortune, and you would have every reason to despise me. Now it is really good-bye.”
Her gaze followed him until he disappeared into the hotel. Then she moved slowly to the balustrade baking in the sunshine, and leaning both elbows on it stared through a blur122 of tears at the detested123 beauty of the world.
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enquiring
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| a.爱打听的，显得好奇的 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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sketching
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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augured
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| v.预示，预兆，预言( augur的过去式和过去分词 )；成为预兆；占卜 | |
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gasping
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perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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passionately
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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avowal
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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pulsated
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| v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的过去式和过去分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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desultory
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systematic
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imbibing
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whit
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flicker
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opprobrious
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billiards
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sketchily
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outskirts
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discoursed
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languished
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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30
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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31
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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32
rabble
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| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
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33
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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34
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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35
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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36
redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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37
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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38
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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39
tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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40
inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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41
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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42
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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43
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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44
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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45
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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46
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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47
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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48
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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49
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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50
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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51
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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52
ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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53
probation
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| n.缓刑(期)，(以观后效的)察看；试用(期) | |
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54
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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55
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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56
comported
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| v.表现( comport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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58
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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59
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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60
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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61
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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63
chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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64
enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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65
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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66
urbane
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| adj.温文尔雅的，懂礼的 | |
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67
debonair
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| adj.殷勤的，快乐的 | |
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68
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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69
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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70
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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71
lavishly
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| adv.慷慨地，大方地 | |
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72
bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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73
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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74
enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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75
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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76
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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77
retail
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| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
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78
reverberation
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| 反响； 回响； 反射； 反射物 | |
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79
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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80
intensify
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| vt.加强；变强；加剧 | |
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81
awning
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| n.遮阳篷；雨篷 | |
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82
juggler
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| n. 变戏法者, 行骗者 | |
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83
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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84
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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85
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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86
intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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87
seismic
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| a.地震的，地震强度的 | |
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88
commonsense
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| adj.有常识的；明白事理的；注重实际的 | |
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89
heeded
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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91
conjuring
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| n.魔术 | |
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92
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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93
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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94
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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95
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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96
ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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97
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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98
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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99
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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100
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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101
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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102
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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103
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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104
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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105
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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106
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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107
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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108
stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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109
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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110
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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111
diaphanous
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| adj.(布)精致的，半透明的 | |
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112
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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113
defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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114
delude
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| vt.欺骗；哄骗 | |
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115
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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116
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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117
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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118
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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119
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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120
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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121
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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122
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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123
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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