Lord Mark had been brought to her before dinner—not by Mrs. Lowder, but by the handsome girl, that lady's niece, who was now at the other end and on the same side as Susie; he had taken her in, and she meant presently to ask him about Miss Croy, the handsome girl, actually offered to her sight—though now in a splendid way—but for the second time. The first time had been the occasion—only three days before—of her calling at their hotel with her aunt and then making, for our other two heroines, a great impression of beauty and eminence9. This impression had remained so with Milly that, at present, and although her attention was aware at the same time of everything else, her eyes were mainly engaged with Kate Croy when not engaged with Susie. That wonderful creature's eyes moreover readily met them—she ranked now as a wonderful creature; and it seemed a part of the swift prosperity of the American visitors that, so little in the original reckoning, she should yet appear conscious, charmingly, frankly10 conscious, of possibilities of friendship for them. Milly had easily and, as a guest, gracefully11 generalised: English girls had a special, strong beauty, and it particularly showed in evening dress—above all when, as was strikingly the case with this one, the dress itself was what it should be. That observation she had all ready for Lord Mark when they should, after a little, get round to it. She seemed even now to see that there might be a good deal they would get round to; the indication being that, taken up once for all with her other neighbour, their hostess would leave them much to themselves. Mrs. Lowder's other neighbour was the Bishop13 of Murrum—a real bishop, such as Milly had never seen, with a complicated costume, a voice like an old-fashioned wind instrument, and a face all the portrait of a prelate; while the gentleman on our young lady's left, a gentleman thick-necked, large and literal, who looked straight before him and as if he were not to be diverted by vain words from that pursuit, clearly counted as an offset14 to the possession of Lord Mark. As Milly made out these things—with a shade of exhilaration at the way she already fell in—she saw how she was justified15 of her plea for people and her love of life. It wasn't then, as the prospect16 seemed to show, so difficult to get into the current, or to stand, at any rate, on the bank. It was easy to get near—if they were near; and yet the elements were different enough from any of her old elements, and positively17 rich and strange.
She asked herself if her right-hand neighbour would understand what she meant by such a description of them, should she throw it off; but another of the things to which, precisely18, her sense was awakened19 was that no, decidedly, he wouldn't. It was nevertheless by this time open to her that his line would be to be clever; and indeed, evidently, no little of the interest was going to be in the fresh reference and fresh effect both of people's cleverness and of their simplicity20. She thrilled, she consciously flushed, and turned pale with the certitude—it had never been so present—that she should find herself completely involved: the very air of the place, the pitch of the occasion, had for her so positive a taste and so deep an undertone. The smallest things, the faces, the hands, the jewels of the women, the sound of words, especially of names, across the table, the shape of the forks, the arrangement of the flowers, the attitude of the servants, the walls of the room, were all touches in a picture and denotements in a play; and they marked for her, moreover, her alertness of vision. She had never, she might well believe, been in such a state of vibration21; her sensibility was almost too sharp for her comfort: there were, for example, more indications than she could reduce to order in the manner of the friendly niece, who struck her as distinguished22 and interesting, as in fact surprisingly genial23. This young woman's type had, visibly, other possibilities; yet here, of its own free movement, it had already sketched24 a relation. Were they, Miss Croy and she, to take up the tale where their two elders had left it off so many years before?—were they to find they liked each other and to try for themselves if a scheme of constancy on more modern lines could be worked? She had doubted, as they came to England, of Maud Manningham, had believed her a broken reed and a vague resource, had seen their dependence25 on her as a state of mind that would have been shamefully26 silly—so far as it was dependence—had they wished to do any thing so inane27 as "get into society." To have made their pilgrimage all for the sake of such society as Mrs. Lowder might have in reserve for them—that didn't bear thinking of at all, and she herself had quite chosen her course for curiosity about other matters. She would have described this curiosity as a desire to see the places she had read about, and that description of her motive28 she was prepared to give her neighbour—even though, as a consequence of it, he should find how little she had read. It was almost at present as if her poor prevision had been rebuked29 by the majesty—she could scarcely call it less—of the event, or at all events by the commanding character of the two figures—she could scarcely call that less either—mainly presented. Mrs. Lowder and her niece, however dissimilar, had at least in common that each was a great reality. That was true, primarily, of the aunt—so true that Milly wondered how her own companion had arrived, in other days, at so odd an alliance; yet she none the less felt Mrs. Lowder as a person of whom the mind might in two or three days roughly make the circuit. She would sit there massive, at least, while one attempted it; whereas Miss Croy, the handsome girl, would indulge in incalculable movements that might interfere30 with one's tour. She was real, none the less, and everything and everybody were real; and it served them right, no doubt, the pair of them, for having rushed into their adventure.
Lord Mark's intelligence meanwhile, however, had met her own quite sufficiently31 to enable him to tell her how little he could clear up her situation. He explained, for that matter—or at least he hinted—that there was no such thing, to-day in London, as saying where any one was. Every one was everywhere—nobody was anywhere. He should be put to it—yes, frankly—to give a name of any sort or kind to their hostess's "set." Was it a set at all, or wasn't it, and were there not really no such things as sets, in the place, any more?—was there any thing but the senseless shifting tumble, like that of some great greasy32 sea in mid-Channel, of an overwhelming melted mixture? He threw out the question, which seemed large; Milly felt that at the end of five minutes he had thrown out a great many, though he followed none more than a step or two; perhaps he would prove suggestive, but he helped her as yet to no discriminations: he spoke33 as if he had given them up from too much knowledge. He was thus at the opposite extreme from herself, but, as a consequence of it, also wandering and lost; and he was furthermore, for all his temporary incoherence, to which she guessed there would be some key, as great a reality as either Mrs. Lowder or Kate. The only light in which he placed the former of these ladies was that of an extraordinary woman—a most extraordinary woman, and "the more extraordinary the more one knows her," while of the latter he said nothing, for the moment, but that she was tremendously, yes, quite tremendously, good-looking. It was some time, she thought, before his talk showed his cleverness, and yet each minute she believed in it more, quite apart from what her hostess had told her on first naming him. Perhaps he was one of the cases she had heard of at home—those characteristic cases of people in England who concealed34 their play of mind so much more than they showed it. Even Mr. Densher a little did that. And what made Lord Mark, at any rate, so real either, when this was a thing he so definitely insisted on? His type some how, as by a life, a need, an intention of its own, insisted for him; but that was all. It was difficult to guess his age—whether he were a young man who looked old or an old man who looked young; it seemed to prove nothing, as against other things, that he was bald and, as might have been said, slightly stale, or, more delicately perhaps, dry: there was such a fine little fidget of preoccupied35 life in him, and his eyes, at moments—though it was an appearance they could suddenly lose—were as candid36 and clear as those of a pleasant boy. Very neat, very light, and so fair that there was little other indication of his moustache than his constantly feeling it—which was again boyish—he would have affected37 her as the most intellectual person present if he had not affected her as the most frivolous38. The latter quality was rather in his look than in anything else, though he constantly wore his double eyeglass, which was, much more, Bostonian and thoughtful.
The idea of his frivolity39 had, no doubt, to do with his personal designation, which represented—as yet, for our young woman, a little confusedly—a connection with an historic patriciate, a class that, in turn, also confusedly, represented an affinity40 with a social element that she had never heard otherwise described than as "fashion." The supreme41 social element in New York had never known itself but as reduced to that category, and though Milly was aware that, as applied42 to a territorial43 and political aristocracy, the label was probably too simple, she had for the time none other at hand. She presently, it is true, enriched her idea with the perception that her interlocutor was indifferent; yet this, indifferent as aristocracies notoriously were, saw her but little further, inasmuch as she felt that, in the first place, he would much rather get on with her than not, and in the second was only thinking of too many matters of his own. If he kept her in view on the one hand and kept so much else on the other—the way he crumbed44 up his bread was a proof—why did he hover45 before her as a potentially insolent46 noble? She couldn't have answered the question, and it was precisely one of those that swarmed47. They were complicated, she might fairly have said, by his visibly knowing, having known from afar off, that she was a stranger and an American, and by his none the less making no more of it than if she and her like were the chief of his diet. He took her, kindly48 enough, but imperturbably49, irreclaimably, for granted, and it wouldn't in the least help that she herself knew him, as quickly, for having been in her country and threshed it out. There would be nothing for her to explain or attenuate50 or brag51 about; she could neither escape nor prevail by her strangeness; he would have, for that matter, on such a subject, more to tell her than to learn from her. She might learn from him why she was so different from the handsome girl—which she didn't know, being merely able to feel it; or at any rate might learn from him why the handsome girl was so different from her.
On these lines, however, they would move later; the lines immediately laid down were, in spite of his vagueness for his own convenience, definite enough. She was already, he observed to her, thinking what she should say on her other side—which was what Americans were always doing. She needn't in conscience say anything at all; but Americans never knew that, nor ever, poor creatures, yes (she had interposed the "poor creatures!") what not to do. The burdens they took on—the things, positively, they made an affair of! This easy and, after all, friendly jibe53 at her race was really for her, on her new friend's part, the note of personal recognition so far as she required it; and she gave him a prompt and conscious example of morbid54 anxiety by insisting that her desire to be, herself, "lovely" all round was justly founded on the lovely way Mrs. Lowder had met her. He was directly interested in that, and it was not till afterwards that she fully12 knew how much more information about their friend he had taken than given. Here again, for instance, was a pertinent55 note for her: she had, on the spot, with her first plunge56 into the obscure depths of a society constituted from far back, encountered the interesting phenomenon of complicated, of possibly sinister57 motive. However, Maud Manningham (her name, even in her presence, somehow still fed the fancy) had, all the same, been lovely, and one was going to meet her now quite as far on as one had one's self been met. She had been with them at their hotel—they were a pair—before even they had supposed she could have got their letter. Of course indeed they had written in advance, but they had followed that up very fast. She had thus engaged them to dine but two days later, and on the morrow again, without waiting for a return visit, waiting for anything, she had called with her niece. It was as if she really cared for them, and it was magnificent fidelity58—fidelity to Mrs. Stringham, her own companion and Mrs. Lowder's former schoolmate, the lady with the charming face and the rather high dress down there at the end.
Lord Mark took in through his nippers these balanced attributes of Susie. "But isn't Mrs. Stringham's fidelity then equally magnificent?"
"Well, it's a beautiful sentiment; but it isn't as if she had anything to give."
"Hasn't she got you?" Lord Mark presently asked.
"Me—to give Mrs. Lowder?" Milly had clearly not yet seen herself in the light of such an offering. "Oh, I'm rather a poor present; and I don't feel as if, even at that, I've as yet quite been given."
"You've been shown, and if our friend has jumped at you it comes to the same thing." He made his jokes, Lord Mark, without amusement for himself; yet it wasn't that he was grim. "To be seen you must recognise, is, for you, to be jumped at; and, if it's a question of being shown, here you are again. Only it has now been taken out of your friend's hands; it's Mrs. Lowder, already, who's getting the benefit. Look round the table and you'll make out, I think, that you're being, from top to bottom, jumped at."
"Well, then," said Milly, "I seem also to feel that I like it better than being made fun of."
It was one of the things she afterwards saw—Milly was for ever seeing things afterwards—that her companion had here had some way of his own, quite unlike any one's else, of assuring her of his consideration. She wondered how he had done it, for he had neither apologised nor protested. She said to herself, at any rate, that he had led her on; and what was most odd was the question by which he had done so. "Does she know much about you?"
"No, she just likes us."
Even for this his travelled lordship, seasoned and saturated59, had no laugh. "I mean you particularly. Has that lady with the charming face, which is charming, told her?"
Milly hesitated. "Told her what?"
"Everything."
This, with the way he dropped it, again considerably60 moved her—made her feel for a moment that, as a matter of course, she was a subject for disclosures. But she quickly found her answer. "Oh, as for that, you must ask her."
"Your clever companion?"
"Mrs. Lowder."
He replied to this that their hostess was a person with whom there were certain liberties one never took, but that he was none the less fairly upheld, inasmuch as she was for the most part kind to him and as, should he be very good for a while, she would probably herself tell him. "And I shall have, at any rate, in the meantime, the interest of seeing what she does with you. That will teach me more or less, you see, how much she knows."
Milly followed this—it was lucid61; but it suggested something apart. "How much does she know about you?"
"Nothing," said Lord Mark serenely62. "But that doesn't matter—for what she does with me." And then, as to anticipate Milly's question about the nature of such doing: "This, for instance—turning me straight on for you."
The girl thought. "And you mean she wouldn't if she did know——?"
He met it as if it were really a point. "No. I believe, to do her justice, she still would. So you can be easy."
Milly had the next instant, then, acted on the permission. "Because you're even at the worst the best thing she has?"
With this he was at last amused. "I was till you came. You're the best now."
It was strange his words should have given her the sense of his knowing, but it was positive that they did so, and to the extent of making her believe them, though still with wonder. That, really, from this first of their meetings, was what was most to abide63 with her: she accepted almost helplessly, she surrendered to the inevitability64 of being the sort of thing, as he might have said, that he at least thoroughly65 believed he had, in going about, seen here enough of for all practical purposes. Her submission66 was naturally, moreover, not to be impaired67 by her learning later on that he had paid at short intervals69, though at a time apparently70 just previous to her own emergence71 from the obscurity of extreme youth, three separate visits to New York, where his nameable friends and his contrasted contacts had been numerous. His impression, his recollection of the whole mixed quantity, was still visibly rich. It had helped him to place her, and she was more and more sharply conscious of having—as with the door sharply slammed upon her and the guard's hand raised in signal to the train—been popped into the compartment72 in which she was to travel for him. It was a use of her that many a girl would have been doubtless quick to resent; and the kind of mind that thus, in our young lady, made all for mere52 seeing and taking is precisely one of the charms of our subject. Milly had practically just learned from him, had made out, as it were, from her rumbling73 compartment, that he gave her the highest place among their friend's actual properties. She was a success, that was what it came to, he presently assured her, and that was what it was to be a success: it always happened before one could know it. One's ignorance was in fact often the greatest part of it. "You haven't had time yet," he said; "this is nothing. But you'll see. You'll see everything. You can, you know—everything you dream of."
He made her more and more wonder; she almost felt as if he were showing her visions while he spoke; and strangely enough, though it was visions that had drawn74 her on, she hadn't seen them in connection—that is in such preliminary and necessary connection—with such a face as Lord Mark's, such eyes and such a voice, such a tone and such a manner. He had for an instant the effect of making her ask herself if she were after all going to be afraid; so distinct was it for fifty seconds that a fear passed over her. There they were again—yes, certainly: Susie's overture75 to Mrs. Lowder had been their joke, but they had pressed in that gaiety an electric bell that continued to sound. Positively, while she sat there, she had the loud rattle76 in her ears, and she wondered, during these moments, why the others didn't hear it. They didn't stare, they didn't smile, and the fear in her that I speak of was but her own desire to stop it. That dropped, however, as if the alarm itself had ceased; she seemed to have seen in a quick, though tempered glare that there were two courses for her, one to leave London again the first thing in the morning, the other to do nothing at all. Well, she would do nothing at all; she was already doing it; more than that, she had already done it, and her chance was gone. She gave herself up—she had the strangest sense, on the spot, of so deciding; for she had turned a corner before she went on again with Lord Mark. Inexpressive, but intensely significant, he met as no one else could have done the very question she had suddenly put to Mrs. Stringham on the Brünig. Should she have it, whatever she did have, that question had been, for long? "Ah, so possibly not," her neighbour appeared to reply; "therefore, don't you see? I'm the way." It was vivid that he might be, in spite of his absence of flourish; the way being doubtless just in that absence. The handsome girl, whom she didn't lose sight of and who, she felt, kept her also in view—Mrs. Lowder's striking niece would, perhaps, be the way as well, for in her too was the absence of flourish, though she had little else, so far as one could tell, in common with Lord Mark. Yet how indeed could one tell, what did one understand, and of what was one, for that matter, provisionally conscious but of their being somehow together in what they represented? Kate Croy, fine but friendly, looked over at her as really with a guess at Lord Mark's effect on her. If she could guess this effect what then did she know about it and in what degree had she felt it herself? Did that represent, as between them, anything particular, and should she have to count with them as duplicating, as intensifying77 by a mutual78 intelligence, the relation into which she was sinking? Nothing was so odd as that she should have to recognise so quickly in each of these glimpses of an instant the various signs of a relation; and this anomaly itself, had she had more time to give to it, might well, might almost terribly have suggested to her that her doom79 was to live fast. It was queerly a question of the short run and the consciousness proportionately crowded.
These were immense excursions for the spirit of a young person at Mrs. Lowder's mere dinner-party; but what was so significant and so admonitory as the fact of their being possible? What could they have been but just a part, already, of the crowded consciousness? And it was just a part, likewise, that while plates were changed and dishes presented and periods in the banquet marked; while appearances insisted and phenomena80 multiplied and words reached her from here and there like plashes of a slow, thick tide; while Mrs. Lowder grew somehow more stout81 and more instituted and Susie, at her distance and in comparison, more thinly improvised82 and more different—different, that is, from every one and everything: it was just a part that while this process went forward our young lady alighted, came back, taking up her destiny again as if she had been able by a wave or two of her wings to place herself briefly83 in sight of an alternative to it. Whatever it was it had showed in this brief interval68 as better than the alternative; and it now presented itself altogether in the image and in the place in which she had left it. The image was that of her being, as Lord Mark had declared, a success. This depended more or less of course on his idea of the thing—into which at present, however, she wouldn't go. But, renewing soon, she had asked him what he meant then that Mrs. Lowder would do with her, and he had replied that this might safely be left. "She'll get back," he pleasantly said, "her money." He could say it too—which was singular—without affecting her either as vulgar or as "nasty "; and he had soon explained himself by adding: "Nobody here, you know, does anything for nothing."
"Ah, if you mean that we shall reward her as hard as ever we can, nothing is more certain. But she's an idealist," Milly continued, "and idealists, in the long run, I think, don't feel that they lose."
Lord Mark seemed, within the limits of his enthusiasm, to find this charming. "Ah, she strikes you as an idealist?"
"She idealises us, my friend and me, absolutely. She sees us in a light," said Milly. "That's all I've got to hold on by. So don't deprive me of it."
"I wouldn't for the world. But do you think," he continued as if it were suddenly important for him—"do you think she sees me in a light?"
She neglected his question for a little, partly because her attention attached itself more and more to the handsome girl, partly because, placed so near their hostess, she wished not to show as discussing her too freely. Mrs. Lowder, it was true, steering84 in the other quarter a course in which she called at subjects as if they were islets in an archipelago, continued to allow them their ease, and Kate Croy, at the same time, steadily85 revealed herself as interesting. Milly in fact found, of a sudden, her ease—found it all—as she bethought herself that what Mrs. Lowder was really arranging for was a report on her quality and, as perhaps might be said, her value from Lord Mark. She wished him, the wonderful lady, to have no pretext86 for not knowing what he thought of Miss Theale. Why his judgment87 so mattered remained to be seen; but it was this divination88, in any case, that now determined89 Milly's rejoinder. "No. She knows you. She has probably reason to. And you all, here, know each other—I see that—so far as you know anything. You know what you're used to, and it's your being used to it—that, and that only—that makes you. But there are things you don't know."
He took it in as if it might fairly, to do him justice, be a point. "Things that I don't—with all the pains I take and the way I've run about the world to leave nothing unlearned?"
Milly thought, and it was perhaps the very truth of his claim—its not being negligible—that sharpened her impatience90 and thereby91 her wit. "You're blasé, but you're not enlightened. You're familiar with everything, but conscious, really of nothing. What I mean is that you've no imagination."
Lord Mark, at this, threw back his head, ranging with his eyes the opposite side of the room and showing himself at last so much more completely as diverted that it fairly attracted their hostess's notice. Mrs. Lowder, however, only smiled on Milly for a sign that something racy was what she had expected, and resumed, with a splash of her screw, her cruise among the islands. "Oh, I've heard that," the young man replied, "before!"
"There it is then. You've heard everything before. You've heard me of course before, in my country, often enough."
"Oh, never too often," he protested; "I'm sure I hope I shall still hear you again and again."
"But what good then has it done you?" the girl went on as if now frankly to amuse him.
"Oh, you'll see when you know me."
"But, most assuredly, I shall never know you."
"Then that will be exactly," he laughed, "the good!"
If it established thus that they couldn't, or Wouldn't, mix, why, none the less, did Milly feel, through it, a perverse92 quickening of the relation to which she had been, in spite of herself, appointed?
What queerer consequence of their not mixing than their talking—for it was what they had arrived at—almost intimately? She wished to get away from him, or indeed, much rather, away from herself so far as she was present to him. She saw already—wonderful creature, after all, herself too—that there would be a good deal more of him to come for her, and that the special sign of their intercourse93 would be to keep herself out of the question. Everything else might come in—only never that; and with such an arrangement they might even go far. This in fact might quite have begun, on the spot, with her returning again to the topic of the handsome girl. If she was to keep herself out she could naturally best do so by putting in somebody else. She accordingly put in Kate Croy, being ready to that extent—as she was not at all afraid for her—to sacrifice her if necessary. Lord Mark himself, for that matter, had made it easy by saying a little while before that no one among them did anything for nothing. "What then"—she was aware of being abrupt—"does Miss Croy, if she's so interested, do it for? What has she to gain by her lovely welcome? Look at her now!" Milly broke out with characteristic freedom of praise, though pulling herself up also with a compunctious "Oh!" as the direction thus given to their eyes happened to coincide with a turn of Kate's face to them. All she had meant to do was to insist that this face was fine; but what she had in fact done was to renew again her effect of showing herself to its possessor as conjoined with Lord Mark for some interested view of it. He had, however, promptly94 met her question.
"To gain? Why, your acquaintance."
"Well, what's my acquaintance to her? She can care for me—she must feel that—only by being sorry for me; and that's why she's lovely: to be already willing to take the trouble to be. It's the height of the disinterested95."
There were more things in this than one that Lord Mark might have taken up; but in a minute he had made his choice. "Ah then, I'm nowhere, for I'm afraid I'm not sorry for you in the least. What do you make then," he asked, "of your success?"
"Why, just the great reason of all. It's just because our friend there sees it that she pities me. She understands," Milly said; "she's better than any of you. She's beautiful."
He appeared struck with this at last—with the point the girl made of it; to which she came back even after a diversion created by a dish presented between them. "Beautiful in character, I see. Is she so? You must tell me about her."
Milly wondered. "But haven't you known her longer than I? Haven't you seen her for yourself?"
"No—I've failed with her. It's no use. I don't make her out. And I assure you I really should like to." His assurance had in fact for his companion a positive suggestion of sincerity96; he affected her as now saying something that he felt; and she was the more struck with it as she was still conscious of the failure even of curiosity he had just shown in respect to herself. She had meant something—though indeed for herself almost only—in speaking of their friend's natural pity; it had been a note, doubtless, of questionable97 taste, but it had quavered out in spite of her; and he had not so much as cared to inquire "Why 'natural'?" Not that it wasn't really much better for her that he shouldn't: explanations would in truth have taken her much too far. Only she now perceived that, in comparison, her word about this other person really "drew" him; and there were things in that, probably, many things, as to which she would learn more and which glimmered98 there already as part and parcel of that larger "real" with which, in her new situation, she was to be beguiled99. It was in fact at the very moment, this element, not absent from what Lord Mark was further saying. "So you're wrong, you see, as to our knowing all about each other. There are cases where we break down. I at any rate give her up—up, that is, to you. You must do her for me—tell me, I mean, when you know more. You'll notice," he pleasantly wound up, "that I've confidence in you."
"Why shouldn't you have?" Milly asked, observing in this, as she thought, a fine, though, for such a man, a surprisingly artless, fatuity100. It was as if there might have been a question of her falsifying for the sake of her own show—that is of her honesty not being proof against her desire to keep well with him herself. She didn't, none the less, otherwise protest against his remark; there was something else she was occupied in seeing. It was the handsome girl alone, one of his own species and his own society, who had made him feel uncertain; of his certainties about a mere little American, a cheap exotic, imported almost wholesale101, and whose habitat, with its conditions of climate, growth, and cultivation102, its immense profusion103, but its few varieties and thin development, he was perfectly104 satisfied. The marvel105 was, too, that Milly understood his satisfaction—feeling that she expressed the truth in presently saying: "Of course; I make out that she must be difficult; just as I see that I myself must be easy." And that was what, for all the rest of this occasion, remained with her—as the most interesting thing that could remain. She was more and more content herself to be easy; she would have been resigned, even had it been brought straighter home to her, to passing for a cheap exotic. Provisionally, at any rate, that protected her wish to keep herself, with Lord Mark, in abeyance106. They had all affected her as inevitably107 knowing each other, and if the handsome girl's place among them was something even their initiation108 couldn't deal with—why, then, she would indeed be a quantity.
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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dressing
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brandishing
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| v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀 | |
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crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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contentedly
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unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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loomed
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| 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 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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11
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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12
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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13
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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14
offset
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| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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15
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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16
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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17
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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18
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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19
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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20
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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21
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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22
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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23
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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24
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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25
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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26
shamefully
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| 可耻地； 丢脸地； 不体面地； 羞耻地 | |
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27
inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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28
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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29
rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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31
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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32
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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33
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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34
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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35
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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36
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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37
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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38
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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39
frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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40
affinity
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| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
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41
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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42
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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43
territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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44
crumbed
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| 捏碎，弄碎（crumb的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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45
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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46
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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47
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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48
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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49
imperturbably
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| adv.泰然地，镇静地，平静地 | |
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50
attenuate
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| v.使变小，使减弱 | |
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51
brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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52
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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53
jibe
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| v.嘲笑，与...一致，使转向；n.嘲笑，嘲弄 | |
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54
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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pertinent
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| adj.恰当的；贴切的；中肯的；有关的；相干的 | |
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56
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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57
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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58
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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59
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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60
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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61
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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62
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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63
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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64
inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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65
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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66
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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67
impaired
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| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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69
intervals
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| 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 | |
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70
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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71
emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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72
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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73
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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74
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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75
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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76
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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77
intensifying
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的现在分词 )；增辉 | |
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78
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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79
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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80
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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82
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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83
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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84
steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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85
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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86
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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87
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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88
divination
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| n.占卜，预测 | |
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89
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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90
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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91
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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92
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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93
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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94
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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95
disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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96
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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97
questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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98
glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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99
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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100
fatuity
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| n.愚蠢，愚昧 | |
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101
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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102
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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103
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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104
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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105
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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106
abeyance
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| n.搁置，缓办，中止，产权未定 | |
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107
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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108
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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