It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from Miss Nickall that, like a vague murmured message of vast events, drew the entire quartet away from the bright inebriated1 scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.
The single word “Rosamund” sufficed to break one mood and induce another in all bosoms2 save that of Audrey, who was in a state of permanent joyous3 exultation4 that she scarcely even attempted to control. The great militant5 had a surname, but it was rarely used save by police magistrates6. Her Christian7 name alone was more impressive than the myriad8 cognomens of queens and princesses. Miss Nickall ran away home at once. Miss Thompkins was left to deliver Miss Ingate and Audrey at Nick’s studio, which, being in the Rue9 Delambre, was not far away. And not the shedding of the kimono and the re-assumption of European attire10 could affect Audrey’s spirits. Had she been capable of regret in that hour, she would have regretted the abandonment of the ball, where the refined, spiritual, strange faces of the men, and the enigmatic quality of the women, and the exceeding novelty of the social code had begun to arouse in her sentiments of approval and admiration11. But she quitted the staggering frolic without a sigh; for she carried within her a frolic surpassing anything exterior12 or physical.
The immense flickering13 boulevard with its double roadway stretched away to the horizon on either hand, empty.
“What time is it?” asked Miss Ingate.
“Only a very little one,” cried Miss Ingate.
Audrey had never felt so abashed14 since an ex-parlourmaid at Flank Hall, who had left everything to join the Salvation15 Army, had asked her once in the streets of Colchester whether she had found salvation. She knew that she, if any one, ought to subscribe16 to the Suffragette union, and to subscribe largely. For she was a convinced suffragette by faith, because Miss Ingate was a convinced suffragette. If Miss Ingate had been a Mormon, Audrey also would have been a Mormon. And, although she hated to subscribe, she knew also that if Rosamund demanded from her any subscription17, however large—even a thousand pounds—she would not know how to refuse. She felt before Rosamund as hundreds of women, and not a few men, had felt.
“I may be leaving for Germany to-morrow,” Rosamund proceeded. “I may not see you again—at any rate for many weeks. May I write to London that you mean to support us?”
Audrey was giving herself up for lost, and not without reason. She foreshadowed a future of steely self-sacrifice, propaganda, hammers, riots, and prison; with no self-indulgence in it, no fine clothes, no art, and no young men save earnest young men. She saw herself in the iron clutch of her own conscience and sense of duty. And she was frightened. But at that moment Nick rushed into the room, and the spell was broken. Nick considered that she had the right to monopolise Rosamund, and she monopolised her.
Miss Ingate prudently18 gathered Audrey to her side, and was off with her. Nick ran to kiss them, and told them that Tommy was waiting for them in the other studio. They groped downstairs, guided by a wisp of light from Tommy’s studio.
“Why didn’t you come up?” asked Miss Ingate of Tommy in Tommy’s antechamber. “Have you and she quarrelled?”
“Oh no!” said Tommy. “But I’m afraid of her. She’d grab me if she had the least chance, and I don’t want to be grabbed.”
Tommy was arranging to escort them home, and had already got out on the landing, when Rosamund and Madame Piriac, followed by Nick holding a candle aloft, came down the stairs. A few words of explanation, a little innocent blundering on the part of Nick, a polite suggestion by Madame Piriac, and an imperious affirmative by Rosamund—and the two strangers to Paris found themselves in Madame Piriac’s waiting automobile20 on the way to their rooms!
In the darkness of the car the four women could not distinguish each other’s faces. But Rosamund’s voice was audible in a monologue21, and Miss Ingate trembled for Audrey and for the future.
“This is the most important political movement in the history of the world,” Rosamund was saying, not at all in a speechifying manner, but quite intimately and naturally. “Everybody admits that, and that’s what makes it so extraordinarily22 interesting, and that is why we have had such magnificent help from women in the very highest positions who wouldn’t dream of touching23 ordinary politics. It’s a marvellous thing to be in the movement, if we can only realise it. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Moncreiff?”
Audrey made no response. The other two sat silent. Miss Ingate thought:
The car curved and stopped.
“Here we are,” said Miss Ingate, delighted. “And thank you so much. I suppose all we have to do is just to push the bell and the door opens. Now Audrey, dear.”
Audrey did not stir.
“Mon Dieu!“ murmured Madame Piriac, “What has she, little one?”
“She is asleep.... It is very late. Four o’clock.”
Tommy looked at her wrist-watch.
“Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me!” cried Audrey.
“We might get a taxi in the Rue de Babylone,” Tommy suggested. “Or shall we walk?”
“We must walk,” cried Audrey.
She knew the name of the street. In the distance she could recognise the dying lights of the café-restaurant where they had eaten. She felt already like an inhabitant of the dreamed-of city. It was almost inconceivable to her that she had been within it for only a few hours, and that England lay less than a day behind her in the past, and Moze less than two days. And Aguilar the morose28, and the shuttered rooms of Flank Hall, shot for an instant into her mind and out again.
The other two women walked rather quickly, mesmerised possibly by the magic of the illustrious Christian name, and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish leaps by their side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive29 from a by-street, and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: “Pooh! I belong here. All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as at home as in Moze Street.”
And as they surged through the echoing solitude30 of the boulevard, and as they crossed the equally tremendous boulevard that cut through it east and west, Tommy told the story of Nick’s previous relations with Rosamund. Nick had met Rosamund once before through her English chum, Betty Burke, an art student who had ultimately sacrificed art to the welfare of her sex, but who with Mrs. Burke had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months. Tommy’s narrative31 was spotted32 with hardly perceptible sarcasms33 concerning art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke, and Nick; but she put no barb34 into Rosamund. And when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked what Rosamund amounted to in the esteem35 of Tommy, Tommy evaded36 the question. Miss Ingate remembered, however, what she had said in the café-restaurant.
Then they turned into the Rue Delambre, and Tommy halted them in the deep obscurity in front of another of those huge black doors which throughout Paris seemed to guard the secrets of individual life. An automobile was waiting close by. A little door in the huge one clicked and yielded, and they climbed over a step into black darkness.
“Thompkins!” called Miss Thompkins loudly to the black darkness, to reassure37 the drowsy38 concierge39 in his hidden den19, shutting the door with a bang behind them; and, groping for the hands of the others, she dragged them forward stumbling.
“I never have a match,” she said.
They blundered up tenebrous stairs.
“We’re just passing my door,” said Tommy. “Nick’s is higher up.”
Then a perpendicular40 slit41 of light showed itself—and a portal slightly open could be distinguished42.
“I shall quit here,” said Tommy. “You go right in.”
“You aren’t leaving us?” exclaimed Miss Ingate in alarm.
“I won’t go in,” Tommy persisted in a quiet satiric43 tone. “I’ll leave my door open below, and see you when you come down.”
She could be heard descending44.
“Why, I guess they’re here,” said a voice, Nick’s, within, and the door was pulled wide open.
“My legs are all of a tremble!” muttered Miss Ingate.
Nick’s studio seemed larger than reality because of its inadequate45 illumination. On a small paint-stained table in the centre was an oil-lamp beneath a round shade that had been decorated by some artist’s hand with a series of reclining women in many colours. This lamp made a moon in the midnight of the studio, but it was a moon almost without rays; the shade seemed to imprison46 the light, save that which escaped from its superior orifice. Against the table stood a tall thin woman in black. Her face was lit by the rays escaping upward; a pale, firm, bland47 face, with rather prominent cheeks, loose grey hair above, surmounted48 by a toque. The dress was dark, and the only noticeable feature of it was that the sleeves were finished in white linen49; from these the hands emerged calm and veined under the lampshade; in one of them a pair of gloves were clasped. On the table lay a thin mantle50.
At the back of the studio there sat another woman, so engloomed that no detail of her could be distinguished.
“As I was saying,” the tall upright woman resumed as soon as Miss Ingate and Audrey had been introduced. “Betty Burke is in prison. She got six weeks this morning. She may never come out again. Almost her last words from the dock were that you, Miss Nickall, should be asked to go to London to look after Mrs. Burke, and perhaps to take Betty’s place in other ways. She said that her mother preferred you to anybody else, and that she was sure you would come. Shall you?”
The accents were very clear, the face was delicately smiling, the little gestures had a quite tranquil51 quality. Rosamund did not seem to care whether Miss Nickall obeyed the summons or not. She did not seem to care about anything whatever except her own manner of existing. She was the centre of Paris, and Paris was naught52 but a circumference53 for her. All phenomena54 beyond the individuality of the woman were reduced to the irrelevant55 and the negligible. It would have been absurd to mention to her costume balls. The frost of her indifference56 would have wilted57 them into nothingness.
“Yes, of course, I shall go,” Nick answered.
“When?” was the implacable question.
“Oh! By the first train,” said Nick eagerly. As she approached the lamp, the gleam of the devotee could be seen in her gaze. In one moment she had sacrificed Paris and art and Tommy and herself, and had risen to the sacred ardour of a vocation58. Rosamund was well accustomed to watching the process, and she gave not the least sign of satisfaction or approval.
“I ought to tell you,” she went on, “that I came over from London suddenly by the afternoon service in order to escape arrest. I am now a political refugee. Things have come to this pass. You will do well to leave by the first train. That is why I decided59 to call here before going to bed.”
“Where’s Tommy?” asked Nick, appealing wildly to Miss Ingate and Audrey. Upon being answered she said, still more wildly: “I must see her. Can you—No, I’ll run down myself.” In the doorway60 she turned round: “Mrs. Moncreiff, would you and Miss Ingate like to have my studio while I’m away? I should just love you to. There’s a very nice bed over there behind the screen, and a fair sort of couch over here. Do say you will! Do!”
“Oh! We will!” Miss Ingate replied at once, reassuringly61, as though in haste to grant the supreme62 request of some condemned63 victim. And indeed Miss Nickall appeared ready to burst into tears if she should be thwarted64.
As soon as Nick had gone, Miss Ingate’s smiling face, nervous, intimidated65, audacious, sardonic66, and good humoured, moved out of the gloom nearer to Rosamund.
“You knew I played the barrel organ all down Regent Street?” she ventured, blushing.
“Ah!” murmured Rosamund, unmoved. “It was you who played the barrel-organ? So it was.”
“Yes,” said Miss Ingate. “But I’m like you. I don’t care passionately67 for prison. Eh! Eh! I’m not so vehy, vehy fond of it. I don’t know Miss Burke, but what a pity she has got six weeks, isn’t it? Still, I was vehy much struck by what someone said to me to-day—that you’d be vehy sorry if women did get the vote. I think I should be sorry, too—you know what I mean.”
“Perfectly,” ejaculated Rosamund, with a pleasant smile.
“I hope I’m not skidding,” said Miss Ingate still more timidly, but also with a sardonic giggle69, looking round into the gloom. “I do skid68 sometimes, you know, and we’ve just come away from a——”
She could not finish.
“And Mrs. Moncreiff, if I’ve got the name right, is she with us, too?” asked Rosamund, miraculously71 urbane72. And added: “I hear she has wealth and is the mistress of it.”
Audrey jumped up, smiling, and lifting her veil. She could not help smiling. The studio, the lamp, Rosamund with her miraculous70 self-complacency, Nick with her soft, mad eyes and wistful voice, the blundering ruthless Miss Ingate, all seemed intensely absurd to her. Everything seemed absurd except dancing and revelry and coloured lights and strange disguises and sensuous73 contacts. She had the most careless contempt, stiffened74 by a slight loathing75, for political movements and every melancholy76 effort to reform the world. The world did not need reforming and did not want to be reformed.
“Perhaps you don’t know my story,” Audrey began, not realising how she would continue. “I am a widow. I made an unhappy marriage. My husband on the day after our wedding-day began to eat peas with his knife. In a week I was forced to leave him. And a fortnight later I heard that he was dead of blood-poisoning. He had cut his mouth.”
And she thought:
But Rosamund remarked gravely:
“It is a common story.”
Suddenly there was a movement in the obscure corner where sat the unnamed and unintroduced lady. This lady rose and came towards the table. She was very elegant in dress and manner, and she looked maturely young.
“Madame Piriac,” announced Rosamund.
Audrey recoiled78.... Gazing hard at the face, she saw in it a vague but undeniable resemblance to certain admired photographs which had arrived at Moze from France.
“Pardon me!” said Madame Piriac in English with a strong French accent. “I shall like very much to hear the details of this story of petits pois.” The tone of Madame Piriac’s question was unexceptionable; it took account of Audrey’s mourning attire, and of her youthfulness; but Audrey could formulate79 no answer to it. Instead of speaking she gave a touch to her veil, and it dropped before her piquant80, troubled, inscrutable face like a screen.
Miss Ingate said with noticeable calm, but also with the air of a conspirator81 who sees danger to a most secret machination:
“I’m afraid Mrs. Moncreiff won’t care to go into details.”
It was neatly82 done. Madame Piriac brought the episode to a close with a sympathetic smile and an apposite gesture. And Audrey, safe behind her veil, glanced gratefully and admiringly at Miss Ingate, who, taken quite unawares, had been so surprisingly able thus to get her out of a scrape. She felt very young and callow among these three women, and the mere83 presence of Madame Piriac, of whom years ago she had created for herself a wondrous84 image, put her into a considerable flutter. On the whole she was ready to believe that the actual Madame Piriac was quite equal to the image of her founded on photographs and letters. She set her teeth, and decided that Madame Piriac should not learn her identity—yet! There was little risk of her discovering it for herself, for no photograph of Audrey had gone to Paris for a dozen years, and Miss Ingate’s loyalty85 was absolute.
As Audrey sat down again, the illustrious Rosamund took a chair near her, and it could not be doubted that the woman had the mien86 and the carriage of a leader.
“You are very rich, are you not?” asked Rosamund, in a tone at once deferential87 and intimate, and she smiled very attractively in the gloom. Impossible not to reckon with that smile, as startling as it was seductive!
Evidently Nick had been communicative.
“I suppose I am,” murmured Audrey, like a child, and feeling like a child. Yet at the same time she was asking herself with fierce curiosity: “What has Madame Piriac got to do with this woman?”
“I hear you have eight or ten thousand a year and can do what you like with it. And you cannot be more than twenty-three.... What a responsibility it must be for you! You are a friend of Miss Ingate’s and therefore on our side. Indeed, if a woman such as you were not on our side, I wonder whom we could count on. Miss Ingate is, of course, a subscriber to the union—”
点击收听单词发音
1 inebriated | |
adj.酒醉的 | |
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2 bosoms | |
胸部( bosom的名词复数 ); 胸怀; 女衣胸部(或胸襟); 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
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3 joyous | |
adj.充满快乐的;令人高兴的 | |
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4 exultation | |
n.狂喜,得意 | |
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5 militant | |
adj.激进的,好斗的;n.激进分子,斗士 | |
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6 magistrates | |
地方法官,治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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7 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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8 myriad | |
adj.无数的;n.无数,极大数量 | |
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9 rue | |
n.懊悔,芸香,后悔;v.后悔,悲伤,懊悔 | |
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10 attire | |
v.穿衣,装扮[同]array;n.衣着;盛装 | |
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11 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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12 exterior | |
adj.外部的,外在的;表面的 | |
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13 flickering | |
adj.闪烁的,摇曳的,一闪一闪的 | |
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14 abashed | |
adj.窘迫的,尴尬的v.使羞愧,使局促,使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15 salvation | |
n.(尤指基督)救世,超度,拯救,解困 | |
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16 subscribe | |
vi.(to)订阅,订购;同意;vt.捐助,赞助 | |
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17 subscription | |
n.预订,预订费,亲笔签名,调配法,下标(处方) | |
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18 prudently | |
adv. 谨慎地,慎重地 | |
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19 den | |
n.兽穴;秘密地方;安静的小房间,私室 | |
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20 automobile | |
n.汽车,机动车 | |
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21 monologue | |
n.长篇大论,(戏剧等中的)独白 | |
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22 extraordinarily | |
adv.格外地;极端地 | |
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23 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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24 mumble | |
n./v.喃喃而语,咕哝 | |
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25 curtly | |
adv.简短地 | |
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26 lapse | |
n.过失,流逝,失效,抛弃信仰,间隔;vi.堕落,停止,失效,流逝;vt.使失效 | |
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27 slumber | |
n.睡眠,沉睡状态 | |
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28 morose | |
adj.脾气坏的,不高兴的 | |
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29 inquisitive | |
adj.求知欲强的,好奇的,好寻根究底的 | |
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30 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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31 narrative | |
n.叙述,故事;adj.叙事的,故事体的 | |
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32 spotted | |
adj.有斑点的,斑纹的,弄污了的 | |
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33 sarcasms | |
n.讥讽,讽刺,挖苦( sarcasm的名词复数 ) | |
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34 barb | |
n.(鱼钩等的)倒钩,倒刺 | |
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35 esteem | |
n.尊敬,尊重;vt.尊重,敬重;把…看作 | |
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36 evaded | |
逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 ); 避开; 回避; 想不出 | |
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37 reassure | |
v.使放心,使消除疑虑 | |
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38 drowsy | |
adj.昏昏欲睡的,令人发困的 | |
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39 concierge | |
n.管理员;门房 | |
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40 perpendicular | |
adj.垂直的,直立的;n.垂直线,垂直的位置 | |
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41 slit | |
n.狭长的切口;裂缝;vt.切开,撕裂 | |
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42 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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43 satiric | |
adj.讽刺的,挖苦的 | |
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44 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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45 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
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46 imprison | |
vt.监禁,关押,限制,束缚 | |
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47 bland | |
adj.淡而无味的,温和的,无刺激性的 | |
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48 surmounted | |
战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
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49 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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50 mantle | |
n.斗篷,覆罩之物,罩子;v.罩住,覆盖,脸红 | |
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51 tranquil | |
adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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52 naught | |
n.无,零 [=nought] | |
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53 circumference | |
n.圆周,周长,圆周线 | |
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54 phenomena | |
n.现象 | |
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55 irrelevant | |
adj.不恰当的,无关系的,不相干的 | |
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56 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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57 wilted | |
(使)凋谢,枯萎( wilt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58 vocation | |
n.职业,行业 | |
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59 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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60 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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61 reassuringly | |
ad.安心,可靠 | |
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62 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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63 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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64 thwarted | |
阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 ); 使受挫折; 挫败; 横过 | |
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65 intimidated | |
v.恐吓;威胁adj.害怕的;受到威胁的 | |
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66 sardonic | |
adj.嘲笑的,冷笑的,讥讽的 | |
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67 passionately | |
ad.热烈地,激烈地 | |
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68 skid | |
v.打滑 n.滑向一侧;滑道 ,滑轨 | |
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69 giggle | |
n.痴笑,咯咯地笑;v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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70 miraculous | |
adj.像奇迹一样的,不可思议的 | |
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71 miraculously | |
ad.奇迹般地 | |
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72 urbane | |
adj.温文尔雅的,懂礼的 | |
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73 sensuous | |
adj.激发美感的;感官的,感觉上的 | |
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74 stiffened | |
加强的 | |
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75 loathing | |
n.厌恶,憎恨v.憎恨,厌恶( loathe的现在分词);极不喜欢 | |
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76 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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77 collapsed | |
adj.倒塌的 | |
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78 recoiled | |
v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 );退缩;报应;返回 | |
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79 formulate | |
v.用公式表示;规划;设计;系统地阐述 | |
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80 piquant | |
adj.辛辣的,开胃的,令人兴奋的 | |
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81 conspirator | |
n.阴谋者,谋叛者 | |
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82 neatly | |
adv.整洁地,干净地,灵巧地,熟练地 | |
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83 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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84 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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85 loyalty | |
n.忠诚,忠心 | |
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86 mien | |
n.风采;态度 | |
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87 deferential | |
adj. 敬意的,恭敬的 | |
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