For a girl who has been a belle5, it is harder to live through these bad times than it is for one who has never known anything better. Like a figure of painted and brightly varnished6 wood, Ella Dowling sat against the wall through dance after dance with glassy imperturbability7; it was easier to be wooden, Alice thought, if you had your mother with you, as Ella had. You were left with at least the shred8 of a pretense9 that you came to sit with your mother as a spectator, and not to offer yourself to be danced with by men who looked you over and rejected you—not for the first time. “Not for the first time”: there lay a sting! Why had you thought this time might be different from the other times? Why had you broken your back picking those hundreds of violets?
Hating the fatuous10 young men in the doorways more bitterly for every instant that she had to maintain her tableau11, the smiling Alice knew fierce impulses to spring to her feet and shout at them, “You IDIOTS!” Hands in pockets, they lounged against the pilasters, or faced one another, laughing vaguely12, each one of them seeming to Alice no more than so much mean beef in clothes. She wanted to tell them they were no better than that; and it seemed a cruel thing of heaven to let them go on believing themselves young lords. They were doing nothing, killing13 time. Wasn't she at her lowest value at least a means of killing time? Evidently the mean beeves thought not. And when one of them finally lounged across the corridor and spoke14 to her, he was the very one to whom she preferred her loneliness.
“Waiting for somebody, Lady Alicia?” he asked, negligently15; and his easy burlesque16 of her name was like the familiarity of the rest of him. He was one of those full-bodied, grossly handsome men who are powerful and active, but never submit themselves to the rigour of becoming athletes, though they shoot and fish from expensive camps. Gloss17 is the most shining outward mark of the type. Nowadays these men no longer use brilliantine on their moustaches, but they have gloss bought from manicure-girls, from masseurs, and from automobile-makers; and their eyes, usually large, are glossy18. None of this is allowed to interfere19 with business; these are “good business men,” and often make large fortunes. They are men of imagination about two things—women and money, and, combining their imaginings about both, usually make a wise first marriage. Later, however, they are apt to imagine too much about some little woman without whom life seems duller than need be. They run away, leaving the first wife well enough dowered. They are never intentionally20 unkind to women, and in the end they usually make the mistake of thinking they have had their money's worth of life. Here was Mr. Harvey Malone, a young specimen21 in an earlier stage of development, trying to marry Henrietta Lamb, and now sauntering over to speak to Alice, as a time-killer before his next dance with Henrietta.
Alice made no response to his question, and he dropped lazily into the vacant chair, from which she sharply withdrew her hand. “I might as well use his chair till he comes, don't you think? You don't MIND, do you, old girl?”
“Oh, no,” Alice said. “It doesn't matter one way or the other. Please don't call me that.”
“So that's how you feel?” Mr. Malone laughed indulgently, without much interest. “I've been meaning to come to see you for a long time honestly I have—because I wanted to have a good talk with you about old times. I know you think it was funny, after the way I used to come to your house two or three times a week, and sometimes oftener—well, I don't blame you for being hurt, the way I stopped without explaining or anything. The truth is there wasn't any reason: I just happened to have a lot of important things to do and couldn't find the time. But I AM going to call on you some evening—honestly I am. I don't wonder you think——”
“You're mistaken,” Alice said. “I've never thought anything about it at all.”
“Well, well!” he said, and looked at her languidly. “What's the use of being cross with this old man? He always means well.” And, extending his arm, he would have given her a friendly pat upon the shoulder but she evaded22 it. “Well, well!” he said. “Seems to me you're getting awful tetchy! Don't you like your old friends any more?”
“Not all of them.”
“Who's the new one?” he asked, teasingly. “Come on and tell us, Alice. Who is it you were holding this chair for?”
“Never mind.”
“Well, all I've got to do is to sit here till he comes back; then I'll see who it is.”
“He may not come back before you have to go.”
“Guess you got me THAT time,” Malone admitted, laughing as he rose. “They're tuning23 up, and I've got this dance. I AM coming around to see you some evening.” He moved away, calling back over his shoulder, “Honestly, I am!”
Alice did not look at him.
She had held her tableau as long as she could; it was time for her to abandon the box-trees; and she stepped forth24 frowning, as if a little annoyed with the absentee for being such a time upon her errand; whereupon the two chairs were instantly seized by a coquetting pair who intended to “sit out” the dance. She walked quickly down the broad corridor, turned into the broader hall, and hurriedly entered the dressing-room where she had left her wraps.
She stayed here as long as she could, pretending to arrange her hair at a mirror, then fidgeting with one of her slipper-buckles; but the intelligent elderly woman in charge of the room made an indefinite sojourn26 impracticable. “Perhaps I could help you with that buckle25, Miss,” she suggested, approaching. “Has it come loose?” Alice wrenched27 desperately28; then it was loose. The competent woman, producing needle and thread, deftly29 made the buckle fast; and there was nothing for Alice to do but to express her gratitude30 and go.
She went to the door of the cloak-room opposite, where a coloured man stood watchfully31 in the doorway3. “I wonder if you know which of the gentlemen is my brother, Mr. Walter Adams,” she said.
“Yes'm; I know him.”
“Could you tell me where he is?”
“No'm; I couldn't say.”
“Well, if you see him, would you please tell him that his sister, Miss Adams, is looking for him and very anxious to speak to him?”
“Yes'm. Sho'ly, sho'ly!”
As she went away he stared after her and seemed to swell32 with some bursting emotion. In fact, it was too much for him, and he suddenly retired33 within the room, releasing strangulated laughter.
Walter remonstrated34. Behind an excellent screen of coats and hats, in a remote part of the room, he was kneeling on the floor, engaged in a game of chance with a second coloured attendant; and the laughter became so vehement35 that it not only interfered36 with the pastime in hand, but threatened to attract frozen-face attention.
“I cain' he'p it, man,” the laughter explained. “I cain' he'p it! You sut'n'y the beatin'es' white boy 'n 'is city!”
The dancers were swinging into an “encore” as Alice halted for an irresolute37 moment in a doorway. Across the room, a cluster of matrons sat chatting absently, their eyes on their dancing daughters; and Alice, finding a refugee's courage, dodged38 through the scurrying39 couples, seated herself in a chair on the outskirts40 of this colony of elders, and began to talk eagerly to the matron nearest her. The matron seemed unaccustomed to so much vivacity41, and responded but dryly, whereupon Alice was more vivacious42 than ever; for she meant now to present the picture of a jolly girl too much interested in these wise older women to bother about every foolish young man who asked her for a dance.
Her matron was constrained43 to go so far as to supply a tolerant nod, now and then, in complement44 to the girl's animation45, and Alice was grateful for the nods. In this fashion she supplemented the exhausted46 resources of the dressing-room and the box-tree nook; and lived through two more dances, when again Mr. Frank Dowling presented himself as a partner.
She needed no pretense to seek the dressing-room for repairs after that number; this time they were necessary and genuine. Dowling waited for her, and when she came out he explained for the fourth or fifth time how the accident had happened. “It was entirely47 those other people's fault,” he said. “They got me in a kind of a corner, because neither of those fellows knows the least thing about guiding; they just jam ahead and expect everybody to get out of their way. It was Charlotte Thom's diamond crescent pin that got caught on your dress in the back and made such a——”
“Never mind,” Alice said in a tired voice. “The maid fixed48 it so that she says it isn't very noticeable.”
“Well, it isn't,” he returned. “You could hardly tell there'd been anything the matter. Where do you want to go? Mother's been interfering49 in my affairs some more and I've got the next taken.”
“I was sitting with Mrs. George Dresser. You might take me back there.”
He left her with the matron, and Alice returned to her picture-making, so that once more, while two numbers passed, whoever cared to look was offered the sketch50 of a jolly, clever girl preoccupied51 with her elders. Then she found her friend Mildred standing52 before her, presenting Mr. Arthur Russell, who asked her to dance with him.
Alice looked uncertain, as though not sure what her engagements were; but her perplexity cleared; she nodded, and swung rhythmically53 away with the tall applicant54. She was not grateful to her hostess for this alms. What a young hostess does with a fiance, Alice thought, is to make him dance with the unpopular girls. She supposed that Mr. Arthur Russell had already danced with Ella Dowling.
The loan of a lover, under these circumstances, may be painful to the lessee55, and Alice, smiling never more brightly, found nothing to say to Mr. Russell, though she thought he might have found something to say to her. “I wonder what Mildred told him,” she thought. “Probably she said, 'Dearest, there's one more girl you've got to help me out with. You wouldn't like her much, but she dances well enough and she's having a rotten time. Nobody ever goes near her any more.'”
When the music stopped, Russell added his applause to the hand-clapping that encouraged the uproarious instruments to continue, and as they renewed the tumult56, he said heartily57, “That's splendid!”
Alice gave him a glance, necessarily at short range, and found his eyes kindly58 and pleased. Here was a friendly soul, it appeared, who probably “liked everybody.” No doubt he had applauded for an “encore” when he danced with Ella Dowling, gave Ella the same genial59 look, and said, “That's splendid!”
When the “encore” was over, Alice spoke to him for the first time.
“Mildred will be looking for you,” she said. “I think you'd better take me back to where you found me.”
He looked surprised. “Oh, if you——”
“I'm sure Mildred will be needing you,” Alice said, and as she took his arm and they walked toward Mrs. Dresser, she thought it might be just possible to make a further use of the loan. “Oh, I wonder if you——” she began.
“Yes?” he said, quickly.
“You don't know my brother, Walter Adams,” she said. “But he's somewhere I think possibly he's in a smoking-room or some place where girls aren't expected, and if you wouldn't think it too much trouble to inquire——”
“I'll find him,” Russell said, promptly60. “Thank you so much for that dance. I'll bring your brother in a moment.”
It was to be a long moment, Alice decided61, presently. Mrs. Dresser had grown restive62; and her nods and vague responses to her young dependent's gaieties were as meager63 as they could well be. Evidently the matron had no intention of appearing to her world in the light of a chaperone for Alice Adams; and she finally made this clear. With a word or two of excuse, breaking into something Alice was saying, she rose and went to sit next to Mildred's mother, who had become the nucleus64 of the cluster. So Alice was left very much against the wall, with short stretches of vacant chairs on each side of her. She had come to the end of her picture-making, and could only pretend that there was something amusing the matter with the arm of her chair.
She supposed that Mildred's Mr. Russell had forgotten Walter by this time. “I'm not even an intimate enough friend of Mildred's for him to have thought he ought to bother to tell me he couldn't find him,” she thought. And then she saw Russell coming across the room toward her, with Walter beside him. She jumped up gaily65.
“Oh, thank you!” she cried. “I know this naughty boy must have been terribly hard to find. Mildred'll NEVER forgive me! I've put you to so much——”
“Walter, let's dance just once more,” Alice said, touching67 his arm placatively. “I thought—well, perhaps we might go home then.”
But Walter's expression was that of a person upon whom an outrage68 has just been perpetrated. “No,” he said. “We've stayed THIS long, I'm goin' to wait and see what they got to eat. And you look here!” He turned upon her angrily. “Don't you ever do that again!”
“Do what?”
“Send somebody after me that pokes69 his nose into every corner of the house till he finds me! 'Are you Mr. Walter Adams?' he says. I guess he must asked everybody in the place if they were Mr. Walter Adams! Well, I'll bet a few iron men you wouldn't send anybody to hunt for me again if you knew where he found me!”
“Where was it?”
Walter decided that her fit punishment was to know. “I was shootin' dice70 with those coons in the cloak-room.”
“And he saw you?”
“Unless he was blind!” said Walter. “Come on, I'll dance this one more dance with you. Supper comes after that, and THEN we'll go home.”
Mrs. Adams heard Alice's key turning in the front door and hurried down the stairs to meet her.
“Did you get wet coming in, darling?” she asked. “Did you have a good time?”
“Just lovely!” Alice said, cheerily, and after she had arranged the latch71 for Walter, who had gone to return the little car, she followed her mother upstairs and hummed a dance-tune on the way.
“Oh, I'm so glad you had a nice time,” Mrs. Adams said, as they reached the door of her daughter's room together. “You DESERVED to, and it's lovely to think——”
But at this, without warning, Alice threw herself into her mother's arms, sobbing72 so loudly that in his room, close by, her father, half drowsing through the night, started to full wakefulness.
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1
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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varnished
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| 浸渍过的，涂漆的 | |
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imperturbability
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| n.冷静；沉着 | |
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shred
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| v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少 | |
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pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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negligently
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burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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17
gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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19
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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23
tuning
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| n.调谐，调整，调音v.调音( tune的现在分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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24
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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26
sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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27
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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watchfully
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| 警惕地，留心地 | |
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32
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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33
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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40
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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41
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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45
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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46
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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48
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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49
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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50
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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51
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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52
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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53
rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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54
applicant
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| n.申请人，求职者，请求者 | |
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55
lessee
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| n.（房地产的）租户 | |
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56
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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57
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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58
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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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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60
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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61
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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62
restive
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| adj.不安宁的，不安静的 | |
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63
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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64
nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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66
amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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67
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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68
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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69
pokes
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| v.伸出( poke的第三人称单数 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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70
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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71
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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72
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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