That which is burned of the fire,
Cast it down, it is nothing worth
In the ways of the Heart’s Desire.
Foot or hand that offends,
Eye that shrinks from the goal,
And fare with the naked soul.
Mary did not tell Edward about the scene with David Blake.
“You know, Liz, he behaved shamefully2, but I don’t want there to be a quarrel with Edward, and it would be sure to make a quarrel. And then people would talk, and there’s no knowing what they would say. I think it would be perfectly3 dreadful to be talked about. I’m sure I can’t think how Katie Ellerton can stand it. Really, every one is talking about her.”
In her heart of hearts Mary was a little flattered at David’s last outburst. She would not for the world have admitted that this was the case, but it certainly contributed to her resolution not to tell Edward.
“I suppose some people would never forgive him,” she said to Elizabeth, “but I don’t think that’s right, do you? I don’t think it’s at all Christian4. I don’t think one ought to be hard. He might do something desperate. I saw him go into Katie Ellerton’s only this morning. I think I’ll write him a little note, not referring to anything of course, and ask him if he won’t come in to supper on Sundays. Then he’ll see that I mean to forgive him, and there won’t be any more fuss.”
Sunday appeared to be quite a suitable day upon which to resume the rôle of guardian5 angel. Mary felt a pleasant glow of virtue6 as she wrote her little note and sent it off to David.
David Blake did not accept either the invitation or the olive branch. His anger against Mary was still stronger than his craving7 for her presence. He wrote a polite excuse and sat all that evening with his eyes fixed8 upon a book, which he made no pretence9 of reading. He had more devils than one to contend with just now. David had a strong will, and he was putting the whole strength of it into fighting the other craving, the craving for drink. In his sudden heat of passion he had taken an oath that he meant to keep. He had been drunk, and Mary had laughed at him. Neither Mary nor any one else should have that cause for mocking laughter again, and he sat nightly with a decanter at his elbow.
“And,” as Mrs. Havergill remarked, “never touching10 a mortal drop,” because if he was to down the devil at all he meant to down him in a set battle, and not to spend his days in ignominious11 flight.
“Them sudden changes isn’t ’olesome, and I don’t hold with them, Sarah, my girl. One young man I knew, Maudsley ’is name was, he got the ’orrors, and died a-raving. And all through being cut off his drink too sudden. He broke ’is leg, and ’is mother, she said, ‘Now I’ll break ’im of the drink.’ A very strict Methody woman, were Jane Ann Maudsley. ‘Now I’ll break ’im,’ says she; and there she sits and watches ’im, and the pore feller ’ollering for whisky, just fair ’ollering. ‘Gemme a drop, Mother,’ says he. ‘Not I,’ says she. ‘It’s ’ell fire, William,’ says she. ‘I’m all on fire now, Mother,’ says he. ‘Better burn now than in ’ell, William,’ says Jane Ann; and then the ’orrors took him, and he died. A fine, proper young man as ever stepped, and very sweet on me before I took up with Havergill,” concluded Mrs. Havergill meditatively14, whilst Sarah shivered, and wished, as she afterwards confessed to a friend, “that Mrs. Havergill would be more cheerful like—just once in a way, for a change, as it were.”
“For she do fair give a girl the ’ump sometimes,” concluded Sarah, after what was for her quite a long speech.
Mrs. Havergill was a very buxom15 and comely16 person of unimpeachable17 respectability, but her fund of doleful reminiscence had depressed18 more than Sarah. David had been known to complain of it between jest and earnest. On one such occasion, at a tea-party to which Mary Chantrey had inveigled19 him, Miss Dobell ventured a mild protest.
“But she is such a treasure. Oh, yes. Your dear mother always found her so.”
David winced20 a little. His mother had not been dead very long then. He regarded Miss Dobell with gravity.
“I have always wondered,” he said, “whether it was an early apprenticeship21 to a ghoul which has imparted such a mortuary turn to Mrs. Havergill’s conversation, or whether it is due to the fact of her having a few drops of Harvey’s Sauce in her veins22.”
“Harvey’s Sauce?” inquired the bewildered Miss Dobell.
David explained in his best professional manner.
“I said Harvey’s Sauce because it is an old and cherished belief of mind that the same talented gentleman invented the sauce and composed the well-known ‘Meditations23 among the Tombs.’ The only point upon which I feel some uncertainty24 is this: Did he compose the Meditations because the sauce had disagreed with him, or did he invent the sauce as a sort of cheerful antidote25 to the Meditations? Now which do you suppose, Miss Dobell?”
Miss Dobell became very much fluttered.
“Oh, I’m afraid—” she began. “I really had no idea that Harvey’s Sauce was an unwholesome condiment26. Yes, indeed, I fear that I cannot be of any great assistance, or in fact of any assistance at all. No, oh, no. I fear, Dr. Blake, that you must ask some one else who is better informed than myself. Oh, yes.”
Afterwards she confided27 to Mary Chantrey that she had never heard of the work in question. “Have you, my dear?”
“No, never,” said Mary, who was not greatly attracted by the title. Girls of two-and-twenty with a disposition28 to meditate29 among the tombs are mercifully rare.
“But,” pursued little Miss Dobell with a virtuous30 lift of the chin, “the title has a religious sound—yes, quite a religious sound. I hope, oh, yes, indeed, I hope that Dr. Blake has no dreadful sceptical opinions. They are so very shocking,” and Mary said, “Yes, they are, and I hope not, too.” Even in those days she was a little inclined to play at being David’s guardian angel.
Those days were two years old now. Sometimes it seemed to David that they belonged to another life.
Meanwhile he had his devil to fight. In the days that followed he fought the devil, and beat him, but without either pride or pleasure in the victory, for, deprived of stimulant31, he fell again into the black pit of depression. Insomnia32 stood by his pillow and made the nights longer and more dreadful than the longest, gloomiest day.
Mary met him in the High Street one day, and was really shocked at his looks. She reproached herself for neglecting him, smiled upon him sweetly, and said:
“Oh, David, do come and see us. Edward will be so pleased. He got a parcel of butterflies from Java last week, and he would so much like you to see them. He was saying so only this morning.”
David made a suitable response. His anger was gone. Mary was Mary. If she were unkind, she was still Mary. If she were trivial, foolish, cruel, what did it matter? Her voice made his blood leap, her eyes were like wine, her hand played on his pulses, and he asked nothing more than to feel that soft touch, and answer to it, with every high-strung nerve. He despised her a little, and himself a good deal, and when a man’s passion for a woman is mingled33 with contempt, it goes but ill with his soul.
That evening saw him again in his old place. He came and went as of old, and, as of old, his fever burned, and burning, fretted34 away both health and self-respect. He slept less and less, and if sleep came at all, it was so thin, so haunted by ill dreams, that waking was a positive relief. At least when he waked he was still sane35, but in those dreams there lurked36 an impending37 horror that might at any moment burst the gloom, and stare him mad. It was madness that he feared in the days which linked that endless procession of long, unendurable nights. It was about this time that he began to be haunted by a strange vision, which, like the impending terror, lay just beyond the bounds of consciousness. As on the one side madness lurked, so on the other there were hints, stray gleams, as it were, from some place of peace. And the strange thing about it was, that at these moments a conviction would seize him that this place was his by right. His the deep waters of comfort, and his the wide, unbroken fields of peace, his—but lost.
Yet during all this time David went about his work, and if his patients thought him looking ill, they had no reason to complain either of inefficiency38 or neglect. His work was in itself a stimulant to him, a stimulant which braced39 his nerves and cleared his brain during the time that he was under its influence, and then resulted, like all stimulants40, in a reaction of fatigue41 and nervous strain.
In the first days of March, Elizabeth Chantrey had a visit from old Dr. Bull. He sat and had tea with her in her little brown room, and talked about the mild spring weather and the show of buds upon the apple tree in his small square of garden. He also told her that Mrs. Codrington had three broods of chickens out, a fact of which Elizabeth had already been informed by Mrs. Codrington herself. When Dr. Bull had finished dealing42 with the early chickens, he asked for another cup of tea, took a good pull at it, wiped his square beard with a very brilliant pocket-handkerchief in which the prevailing43 colours were sky-blue and orange, and remarked abruptly44:
“Why don’t you get David Blake to go away, hey?—hey?”
Elizabeth frowned a little. This was getting to close quarters.
“I?” she said, with a note of gentle surprise in her voice.
Dr. Bull was quite ready for her. “You is the second person plural—or used to be when I went to school. You, and Mary, and Edward, you’re his friends, aren’t you?—and two of you are women, so he’ll have to be polite, hey? Can’t bite your heads off the way he bit off mine, when I suggested that a holiday ’ud do him good. And he wants a holiday, hey?”
Elizabeth nodded.
129
“He ought to go away,” she said.
“He’ll break down if he doesn’t,” said Dr. Bull. He finished his cup of tea, and held it out. “Yes, another, please. You make him go, and he’ll come back a new man. What’s the good of being a woman if you can’t manage a man for his good?”
“He won’t go,” said Edward, with a good deal of irritation46. “I asked him some little time ago whether he wasn’t going to take a holiday. Now what is there in that to put any one’s back up? And yet, I do assure you, he looked at me as if I had insulted him. Really, Elizabeth, I can’t make out what has happened to David. He never used to be like this. And he comes here too often, a great deal too often. I shall have to tell him so, and then there’ll be a row, and I simply hate rows. But really, a man in his state, always under one’s feet—it gets on one’s nerves.”
“Edward is getting dreadfully put out,” said Mary the same evening. She had come down to Elizabeth’s room to borrow a book, and lingered for a moment or two, standing47 by the fire and holding one foot to the blaze. It was a night of sudden frost after the mild spring day.
“How cold it has turned,” said Mary. “Yes, I really don’t know what to do. If Edward goes on being tiresome48 and jealous”—she bridled49 a little as she spoke—“if he goes on—well, David will just have to stay away, and I’m afraid he will feel it. I am afraid it may be bad for him. You know I have always hoped that I was being of some use to David—I have always wanted to have an influence—a good influence does make such a difference, doesn’t it? I’ve never flirted50 with David—I really haven’t—you know that, Liz?”
“No,” said Elizabeth slowly. “You haven’t flirted with him, Molly, my dear, but I think you are in rather a difficult position for being a good influence. You see, David is in love with you, and I think it would be better for him if he didn’t see you quite so often.”
Mary’s colour rose.
“I can’t help his being—fond of me,” she said, with a slight air of offended virtue. “I am sure I don’t know what you mean by my not being good for him. If it weren’t for me he might be drinking himself to death at this very moment. You know how he was going on, and I am sure you can’t have forgotten how dreadful he was that night he came here. I let him see how shocked I was. I know you were angry with me, and I thought it very unreasonable51 of you, because I did it on purpose, and it stopped him. You may say what you like, Liz, but it stopped him. Mrs. Havergill told Markham—yes, I know you don’t think I ought to talk to Markham about David, but she began about it herself, and she is really interested, and thought I would like to know—well, she says David has never touched a drop since. Mrs. Havergill told her so. So you see, Liz, I haven’t always been as bad for David as you seem to think. I don’t know if you want him to go and marry Katie Ellerton, just out of pique52. She’s running after him worse than ever—I really do wonder she isn’t ashamed, and if David’s friends cast him off, well, she’ll just snap him up, and then I should think you’d be sorry.”
Elizabeth leaned her chin in her hand, and was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Molly, dear, why should we try and prevent David from going to see Katie Ellerton? He is in love with you, and it is very bad for him. If he saw less of you for a time it would give him a chance of getting over it. David is very unhappy just now. No one can fail to see that. He wants what you can’t give him—rest, companionship, a home. If Katie cares for him, and can give him these things, let her give them. We have no business to stand in the way. Don’t you see that?”
Elizabeth spoke sweetly and persuasively53. She kept her eyes on her sister’s face, and saw there, first, offence, and then interest—the birth of a new idea.
“Oh, well—if you don’t mind,” said Mary. “You are nearly as tiresome as Edward and Edward has been most dreadfully tiresome. I told him so. I said, ‘Edward, I really never knew you could be so tiresome,’ and it seemed to make him worse. I think, you know, that he is afraid that people will talk if David goes on coming here. Of course, that’s absurd, I told him it was absurd. I said, ‘Why, how on earth is any one to know that it isn’t Elizabeth he comes to see?’ And then, Edward became really violent. I didn’t know he could be, but he was. He simply plunged54 up and down the room, and said: ‘If he wants to see Elizabeth, then in Heaven’s name let him see Elizabeth. Let him marry Elizabeth.’ Oh, you mustn’t mind, Liz,” as Elizabeth’s head went up, “it was only because he was so cross, and you and David are such old friends. There’s nothing for you to mind.”
She paused, stole a quick glance at Elizabeth, then looked away, and said in a tentative voice, “Liz, why don’t you marry David?”
“Because he doesn’t want me to, Molly,” said Elizabeth. Her voice was very proud, and her head very high.
Mary half put out her hand, and drew it back again. She knew this mood of Elizabeth’s, and it was one that silenced even her ready tongue. She was the little sister again for a moment, and Elizabeth the mother, sister, and ideal—all in one.
When she had gone, Elizabeth sat on by the fire. She did not move for a long time. When she did move, it was to put up a hand to her face, which was wet with many hot, slow tears. Pride dies hard, and hurts to the very last.
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1
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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2
shamefully
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| 可耻地； 丢脸地； 不体面地； 羞耻地 | |
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3
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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4
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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5
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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6
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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7
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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8
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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9
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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10
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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11
ignominious
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| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
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12
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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13
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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14
meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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15
buxom
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| adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的 | |
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16
comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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17
unimpeachable
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| adj.无可指责的；adv.无可怀疑地 | |
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18
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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19
inveigled
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| v.诱骗，引诱( inveigle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
apprenticeship
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| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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22
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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23
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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24
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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25
antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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26
condiment
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| n.调味品 | |
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27
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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28
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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29
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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30
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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31
stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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32
insomnia
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| n.失眠，失眠症 | |
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33
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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34
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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inefficiency
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| n.无效率，无能；无效率事例 | |
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39
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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40
stimulants
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| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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41
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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45
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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46
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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47
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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48
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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49
bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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50
flirted
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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52
pique
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| v.伤害…的自尊心，使生气 n.不满，生气 | |
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53
persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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54
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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55
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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