Three days later Mr. Prohack came home late with his daughter in the substituted car. He had accompanied Sissie to Putney for the final disposition1 of the affairs of the dance-studio, and had witnessed her blighting2 politeness to Eliza Brating and Eliza Brating's blighting politeness to her. The last kiss between these two young women would have desolated3 the heart of any man whose faith in human nature was less strong than Mr. Prohack's. "I trust that the excellent Eliza is not disfigured for life," he had observed calmly in the automobile4. "What are you talking about, father?" Sissie had exclaimed, suspicious. "I was afraid her lips might be scorched5. You feel no pain yourself, my child, I hope?" He made the sound of a kiss. After this there was no more conversation in the car during the journey. Arrived home, Sissie said nonchalantly that she was going to bed.
"Father!" said she, having kissed him. "You are simply terrible."
"I am a child," he replied. "And you are my grandmother."
"You wait till I give you your next dancing-lesson," Sissie retorted, turning and threatening him from the stairs. "It won't be as mild as this afternoon's."
He smiled, giving an imitation of the sphinx. He was happy enough as mortals go. His wife was perhaps a little better. And he was gradually launching himself into an industrious7 career of idleness. Also, he had broken the ice,—the ice, that is to say, of tuition in dancing. Not a word had been spoken abroad in the house about the first dancing-lesson. He had had it while Mrs. Prohack was, in theory at least, paying calls; at any rate she had set forth8 in the car. Mr. Prohack and Sissie had rolled up the drawing-room carpet and moved the furniture themselves. Mr. Prohack had unpacked9 the gramophone in person. They had locked the drawing-room door. At the end of the lesson they had relaid the carpet and replaced the furniture and enclosed the gramophone and unlocked the door, and Mr. Prohack had issued from the drawing-room like a criminal. The thought in his mind had been that he was no end of a dog and of a brave dog at that. Then he sneered10 at himself for thinking such a foolish thought. After all, what was there in learning to dance? But the sneer11 was misplaced. His original notion that he had done something courageous12 and wonderful was just a notion.
The lesson had favoured the new nascent13 intimacy14 with his daughter. Evidently she was a born teacher as well as a born dancer. He perceived in two minutes how marvellous her feet were. She guided him with pressures light as a feather. She allowed herself to be guided with an intuitive responsiveness that had to be felt to be believed. Her exhortations15 were delicious, her reprimands exquisite16, her patience was infinite. Further, she said that he had what she called "natural rhythm," and would learn easily and satisfactorily. Best of all, he had been immediately aware of the physical benefit of the exercise. The household was supposed to know naught17 of the affair, but the kitchen knew a good deal about it somehow; the kitchen was pleasantly and rather condescendingly excited, and a little censorious, for the reason that nobody in the kitchen had ever before lived in a house the master of which being a parent of adult children took surreptitious lessons in dancing; the thing was unprecedented18, and therefore of course intrinsically reprehensible19. Mr. Prohack guessed the attitude of the kitchen, and had met Machin's respectful glance with a self-conscious eye.
He now bolted the front-door and went upstairs extinguishing the lights after him. Eve had told her husband and child that she should go to bed early. He meant to have a frolicsome20, teasing chat with her, for the doctor had laid it down that light conversation would assist the cure of traumatic neurasthenia. She would not be asleep, and even if she were asleep she would be glad to awaken22, because she admired his style of gossip when both of them were in the vein23 for it. He would describe for her the evening at the studio humorously, in such a fashion as to confirm her in her righteous belief that the misguided Sissie had seen the maternal24 wisdom and quitted dance-studios for ever.
The lamps were out in the bedroom. She slept. He switched on a light, but her bed was empty; it had not been occupied!
"Marian!" he called in a low voice, thinking that she might be in the boudoir.
And if she was in the boudoir she must be reclining in the dark there. He ascertained25 that she was not in the boudoir. Then he visited both the drawing-room and the dining-room. No Marian anywhere! He stood a moment in the hall and was in a mind to ring for Machin—he could see from a vague illumination at the entrance to the basement steps that the kitchen was still inhabited—but just then all the servants came upwards26 on the way to the attics27, and at the strange spectacle of their dancing master in the hall they all grew constrained28 and either coughed or hurried as though they ought not to be caught in the act of retiring to bed.
Mr. Prohack, as it were, threw a lasso over Machin, who was the last of the procession.
"Where is your mistress, Machin?" He tried to be matter-of-fact, but something unusual in his tone apparently29 started her.
"She's gone to bed, sir. She told me to put her hot-water bag in the bed early."
"Oh! Thanks! Good-night."
"Good-night, sir."
He could not persuade himself to call an alarm. He could not even inform Machin that she was mistaken, for to do so would have been equivalent to calling an alarm. Hesitating and inactive he allowed the black-and-white damsels and the blue cook to disappear. Nor would he disturb Sissie—yet. He had first to get used to the singular idea that his wife had vanished from home. Could this vanishing be one of the effects of traumatic neurasthenia? He hurried about and searched all the rooms again, looking with absurd carefulness, as if his wife were an insignificant30 object that might have dropped unperceived under a chair or behind a couch.
Then he telephoned to her sister, enquiring31 in a voice of studied casualness. Eve was not at her sister's. He had known all the while that she would not be at her sister's. Being unable to recall the number, he had had to consult the telephone book. His instinct now was to fetch Sissie, whose commonsense32 had of late impressed him more and more; but he repressed the instinct, holding that he ought to be able to manage the affair alone. He could scarcely say to his daughter: "Your mother has vanished. What am I to do?" Moreover, feeling himself to be the guardian33 of Marian's reputation for perfect sanity34, he desired not to divulge35 her disappearance36, unless obliged to do so. She might return at any moment. She must return very soon. It was inconceivable that anything should have "happened" in the Prohack family....
Almost against his will he looked up "Police Stations" in the telephone-book. There were scores of police stations. The nearest seemed to be that of Mayfair. He demanded the number. To demand the number of the police station was like jumping into bottomless cold water. In a detestable dream he gave his name and address and asked if the police had any news of a street accident. Yes, several. He described his wife. He said, reflecting wildly, that she was not very tall and rather plump; dark hair. Dress? Dark blue. Hat and mantle37? He could not say. Age? A queer impulse here. He knew that she hated the mention of her real age, and so he said thirty-nine. No! The police had no news of such a person. But the polite firm voice on the wire said that it would telephone to other stations and would let Mr. Prohack hear immediately if there was anything to communicate. Wonderful organisation38, the London police force!
As he hung up the receiver he realised what had occurred and what he had done. Marian had mysteriously disappeared and he had informed the police,—he, Arthur Prohack, C.B. What an awful event!
His mind ran on the consequences of traumatic neurasthenia. He put on his hat and overcoat and unbolted the front-door as silently as he could—for he still did not want anybody in the house to know the secret—and went out into the street. What to do? A ridiculous move! Did he expect to find her lying in the gutter39? He walked to the end of the dark street and peered into the cross-street, and returned. He had left the front-door open. As he re-entered the house he descried40 in a corner of the hall, a screwed-up telegraph-envelope. Why had he not noticed it before? He snatched at it. It was addressed to "Mrs. Prohack."
Mr. Prohack's soul was instantaneously bathed in heavenly solace41. Traumatic neurasthenia had nothing to do with Eve's disappearance! His bliss42 was intensified43 by the fact that he had said not a word to the servants and had not called Sissie. And it was somewhat impaired44 by the other fact that he had been ass21 enough to tell the police. He was just puzzling his head to think what misfortune could have called his wife away—not that the prospect45 of any misfortune much troubled him now that Eve's vanishing was explained—when through the doorway46 he saw a taxi drive up. Eve emerged from the taxi.
II
He might have gone out and paid the fare for her, but he stayed where he was, in the doorway, thinking with beatific47 relief that after all nothing had "happened" in the family.
"Ah!" he said, in the most ordinary, complacent48, quite undisturbed tone, "I was just beginning to wonder where you'd got to. We've been back about five minutes, Sissie and I, and Sissie's gone to bed. I really don't believe she knows you were out."
Mrs. Prohack came urgently towards him, pushing the door to behind her with a careless loud bang. The bang might waken the entire household, but Mrs. Prohack did not care. Mrs. Prohack kissed him without a word. He possessed49 in his heart a barometric50 scale of her kisses, and this was a set-fair kiss, a kiss with a somewhat violent beginning and a reluctant close. Then she held her cheek for him to kiss. Both cheek and lips were freshly cold from the night air. Mr. Prohack was aware of an immense, romantic felicity. And he immediately became flippant, not aloud, but secretly, to hide himself from himself.
He thought:
"It's a positive fact that I've been kissing this girl of a woman for a quarter of a century, and she's fat."
But beneath his flippancy51 and beneath his felicity there was a lancinating qualm, which, if he had expressed it he would have expressed thus:
"If anything did happen to her, it would be the absolute ruin of me."
The truth was that his felicity frightened him. Never before had he been seriously concerned for her well-being52. The reaction from grave alarm lighted up the interior of his mysterious soul with a revealing flash of unique intensity53.
"What are all these lights burning for?" she murmured. Lights were indeed burning everywhere. He had been in a mood to turn on but not to turn off.
"Oh!" he said, "I was just wandering about."
"I'll go straight upstairs," she said, trying to be as matter-of-fact as her Arthur appeared to be.
When he had leisurely54 set the whole of the ground-floor to rights, he followed her. She was waiting for him in the boudoir. She had removed her hat and mantle, and lighted one of the new radiators55, and was sitting on the sofa.
"There came a telegram from Charlie," she began. "I was crossing the hall just as the boy reached the door. So I opened the door myself. It was from Charlie to say that he would be at the Grand Babylon Hotel to-night."
"Charlie! The Grand Babylon!... Not Buckingham Palace." Eve ignored his crude jocularity.
"It seems I ought to have received it early in the afternoon. I was so puzzled I didn't know what to do—I just put my things on and went off to the hotel at once. It wasn't till after I was in the taxi that I remembered I ought to have told the servants where I was going. That's why I hurried back. I wanted to get back before you did. Charlie suggested telephoning from the hotel, but I wouldn't let him on any account."
"Why not?"
"Well, I thought you might be upset and wonder what on earth was going on."
"What was going on?" Mr. Prohack repeated, gazing at her childlike maternal serious face, whose wistfulness affected56 him in an extraordinary way. "What on earth are you insinuating57?"
No! It was inconceivable that this pulsating58 girl perched on the sofa should be the mother of the mature and independent Charles.
"Charlie's staying at the Grand Babylon Hotel," said Eve, as though she were saying that Charlie had forged a cheque or blown up the Cenotaph.
"More fool him!" observed Mr. Prohack.
"Yes, and he's got a bedroom and a private sitting-room61 and a bathroom, and a room for a secretary—"
"Hence a secretary," Mr. Prohack put in.
"Yes, and a secretary. And he dictates62 things to the secretary all the time, and the telephone's always going,—yes, even at this time of night. He must be spending enormous sums. So of course I hurried back to tell you."
"You did quite right, my pet," said Mr. Prohack. "A good wife should share these tit-bits with her husband at the earliest possible moment."
He was really very like what in his more conventional moments he would have said a woman was like. If Eve had taken the affair lightly he would without doubt have remonstrated63, explaining that such an affair ought by no means to be taken lightly. But seeing that she took it very seriously, his instinct was to laugh at it, though in fact he was himself extremely perturbed64 by this piece of news, which confirmed, a hundredfold and in the most startling manner, certain sinister65 impressions of his own concerning Charlie's deeds in Glasgow. And he assumed the gay attitude, not from a desire to reassure66 his wife, but from mere67 contrariness. Positively68 the strangest husband that ever lived, and entirely69 different from normal husbands!
Then he saw tears hanging in Eve's eyes,—tears not of resentment70 against his lack of sympathy, tears of bewilderment and perplexity. She simply did not understand his attitude. And he sat down close by her on the sofa and solaced71 her with three kisses. She was singularly attractive in her alternations of sagacity and helplessness.
"But it's awful," she whimpered. "The boy must be throwing money away at the rate of twenty or twenty-five pounds a day."
"Very probably," Mr. Prohack agreed.
"Where's he getting it from?" she demanded. "He must be getting it from somewhere."
"I expect he's made it. He's rather clever, you know."
"But he can't have made money like that."
"People do, sometimes."
"Not honestly,—you know what I mean, Arthur!" This was an earthquaking phrase to come from a mother's lips.
"And yet," said Mr. Prohack, "everything Charlie did used to be right for you."
"But he's carrying on just like an adventurer! I've read in reports of trials about people carrying on just like that. A fortnight ago he hadn't got fifty pounds cash in the world, and now he's living like a millionaire at the Grand Babylon Hotel! Arthur, what are you going to do about it? Couldn't you go and see him to-night?"
"Now listen to me," Mr. Prohack began in a new tone, taking her hands. "Supposing I did go and see him to-night, what could I say to him?"
"Well, you're his father."
"And you're his mother. What did you say to him?"
"Oh! I didn't say anything. I only said I should have been very glad if he could have arranged to sleep at home as usual, and he said he was sorry he couldn't because he was so busy."
"You didn't tell him he was carrying on like an adventurer?"
"Arthur! How could I?"
"But you'd like me to tell him something of the sort. All that I can say, you could say—and that is, enquire72 in a friendly way what he has done, is doing, and hopes to do."
"But—"
"Yes, my innocent creature. You may well pause." He caressed73 her, and she tried to continue in unhappiness, but could not. "You pause because there is nothing to say."
"You're his father at any rate," she burst out triumphantly74.
"That's not his fault. You ought to have thought of all this over twenty years ago, before Charlie was born, before we were married, before you met me. To become a parent is to accept terrible risks. I'm Charlie's father. What then? Am I to give him orders as to what he must do and what he mustn't? This isn't China and it isn't the eighteenth century. He owes nothing whatever to me, or to you. If we were starving and he had plenty, he would probably consider it his duty to look after us; but that's the limit of what he owes us. Whereas nothing can put an end to our responsibility towards him. You see, we brought him here. We thought it would be so nice to have children, and so Charlie arrived. He didn't choose his time, and he didn't choose his character, nor his education, nor his chance. If he had his choice you may depend he'd have chosen differently. Do you want me, on the top of all that, to tell him that he must obediently accept something else from us—our code of conduct? It would be mere cheek, and with all my shortcomings I'm incapable75 of impudence76, especially to the young. He was our slave for nearly twenty years. We did what we liked with him; and if Charlie fails now it simply means that we've failed. Besides, how can you be sure that he's carrying on like an adventurer? He may be carrying on like a financial genius. Perhaps we have brought a giant to earth. We can't believe it of course, because we haven't got enough faith in ourselves, but later on we may be compelled to believe it. Naturally if Charlie crashes after a showy flight, then he won't be a financial genius,—he'll only be an adventurer, and there may he some slight trouble in the law courts,—there usually is. That is where we shall have to come forward and pay for the nice feeling of having children. And, remember, we shan't be in a position to upbraid77 Charlie. He could silence us with one question, to which we could find no answer: 'Why did you get married, you two?' However, my pet, let us hope for the best. It's not yet a crime to live at great price at the Grand Babylon Hotel. Quite possibly your son has not yet committed any crime, whatever. If he succeeds in making a huge fortune and in keeping it, he will not commit any crime. Rich men never do. They can't. They never even commit murder. There is no reason why they should. Whatever they do, it is no worse than an idiosyncrasy. Now tell me what our son talked about."
"Well, he didn't talk much. He—he wasn't expecting me."
"Did he ask after me?"
"I told him about you. He asked about the car."
"He didn't ask after me, but he asked after the car. Nothing very original there, is there? Any son would behave like that. He must do better than that if he doesn't mean to end as an adventurer. I must go and see him, and offer him, very respectfully, some advice."
"Arthur, I insist that he shall come here. It is not proper that you should go running after him."
"Pooh, my dear! I'm rich enough myself to run after him without being accused of snobbishness78 or lion-hunting or anything of that kind."
"Oh! Arthur!" sobbed80 Eve. "Don't you think you're been funny quite long enough?" She then openly wept.
The singular Mr. Prohack was apparently not in the least moved by his wife's tears. He and she alone in the house were out of bed; there was no chance of their being disturbed. He did not worry about his adventurous81 son. He did not worry about the possibility of Oswald Morfey having a design to convert his daughter into Mrs. Oswald Morfey. He did not worry about the fate of the speculation82 in which he had joined Sir Paul Spinner. Nor did he worry about the malady83 called traumatic neurasthenia. As for himself he fancied that he had not for years felt better than he felt at that moment. He was aware of the most delicious sensation of sharing a perfect nocturnal solitude84 with his wife. He drew her towards him until her acquiescent85 head lay against his waistcoat. He held her body in his arms, and came deliberately86 to the conclusion that to be alive was excellent.
Eve's body was as yielding as that of a young girl. To Mr. Prohack, who of course was the dupe of an illusion, it had an absolutely enchanting87 girlishness. She sobbed and she sobbed, and Mr. Prohack let her sob79. He loosed the grip of his arms a little, so that her face, free of his waistcoat, was turned upwards in the direction of the ceiling; and then he very caressingly88 wiped her eyes with his own handkerchief. He gave an elaborate care to the wiping of her eyes. For some minutes it was a Sisyphean labour, for what he did she immediately undid89; but after a time the sobs90 grew less frequent, and at length they ceased; only her lips trembled at intervals91.
Mr. Prohack said ingratiatingly:
"And whose fault is it if I'm funny? Answer, you witch."
"I don't know," Eve murmured tremblingly and not quite articulately.
"It's your fault. Do you know that you gave me the fright of my life to-night, going out without saying where you were going to? Do you know that you put me into such a state that I've been telephoning to police-stations to find out whether there'd been any street accidents happening to a woman of your description? I was so upset that I daren't even go upstairs and call Sissie."
"You said you'd only been back five minutes when I came," Eve observed in a somewhat firmer voice.
"I did," said Mr. Prohack. "But that was neither more nor less than a downright lie. You see I was in such a state that I had to pretend, to both you and myself, that things aren't what they are.... And then, without the slightest warning, you suddenly arrive without a scratch on you. You aren't hurt. You aren't even dead. It's a scandalous shame that a woman should be able, by merely arriving in a taxi, to put a sensible man into such a paroxysm of satisfaction as you put me into a while ago. It's not right. It's not fair. Then you try to depress me with bluggy stories of your son's horrible opulence92, and when you discover you can't depress me you burst into tears and accuse me of being funny. What did you expect me to be? Did you expect me to groan93 because you aren't lying dead in a mortuary? If I'm funny, you are at liberty to attribute it to hysteria, the hysteria of joy. But I wish you to understand that these extreme revulsions of feeling which you impose on me are very dangerous for a plain man who is undergoing a rest-cure."
Eve raised her arms about Mr. Prohack's neck, lifted herself up by them, and silently kissed him. Then she sank back to her former position.
"I've been a great trial to you lately, haven't I?" she breathed.
"Not more so than usual," he answered. "You know you always abuse your power."
"But I have been queer?"
"Well," judicially94, "perhaps you have. Perhaps five per cent or so above your average of queerness."
"Didn't the doctor say what I'd got was traumatic neurasthenia?"
"That or something equally absurd."
"Well, I haven't got it any more. I'm cured. You'll see."
Just then the dining-room clock entered upon its lengthy95 business of chiming the hour of midnight. And as it faintly chimed Mr. Prohack, supporting his wife, had a surpassing conviction of the beauty of existence and in particular of his own good fortune—though the matter of his inheritance never once entered his mind. He gazed down at Eve's ingenuous96 features, and saw in them the fastidious fineness which had caused her to recoil97 so sensitively from her son's display at the Grand Babylon. Yes, women had a spiritual beauty to which men could not pretend.
"Arthur," said she, "I never told you that you'd forgotten to wind up that clock on Sunday night. It stopped this evening while you were out, and I had to wind it and I only guessed what the time was."
点击收听单词发音
1 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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2 blighting | |
使凋萎( blight的现在分词 ); 使颓丧; 损害; 妨害 | |
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3 desolated | |
adj.荒凉的,荒废的 | |
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4 automobile | |
n.汽车,机动车 | |
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5 scorched | |
烧焦,烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 ); 使(植物)枯萎,把…晒枯; 高速行驶; 枯焦 | |
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6 implored | |
恳求或乞求(某人)( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7 industrious | |
adj.勤劳的,刻苦的,奋发的 | |
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8 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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9 unpacked | |
v.从(包裹等)中取出(所装的东西),打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 );拆包;解除…的负担;吐露(心事等) | |
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10 sneered | |
讥笑,冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11 sneer | |
v.轻蔑;嘲笑;n.嘲笑,讥讽的言语 | |
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12 courageous | |
adj.勇敢的,有胆量的 | |
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13 nascent | |
adj.初生的,发生中的 | |
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14 intimacy | |
n.熟悉,亲密,密切关系,亲昵的言行 | |
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15 exhortations | |
n.敦促( exhortation的名词复数 );极力推荐;(正式的)演讲;(宗教仪式中的)劝诫 | |
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16 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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17 naught | |
n.无,零 [=nought] | |
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18 unprecedented | |
adj.无前例的,新奇的 | |
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19 reprehensible | |
adj.该受责备的 | |
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20 frolicsome | |
adj.嬉戏的,闹着玩的 | |
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21 ass | |
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人 | |
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22 awaken | |
vi.醒,觉醒;vt.唤醒,使觉醒,唤起,激起 | |
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23 vein | |
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络 | |
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24 maternal | |
adj.母亲的,母亲般的,母系的,母方的 | |
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25 ascertained | |
v.弄清,确定,查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26 upwards | |
adv.向上,在更高处...以上 | |
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27 attics | |
n. 阁楼 | |
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28 constrained | |
adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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29 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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30 insignificant | |
adj.无关紧要的,可忽略的,无意义的 | |
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31 enquiring | |
a.爱打听的,显得好奇的 | |
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32 commonsense | |
adj.有常识的;明白事理的;注重实际的 | |
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33 guardian | |
n.监护人;守卫者,保护者 | |
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34 sanity | |
n.心智健全,神智正常,判断正确 | |
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35 divulge | |
v.泄漏(秘密等);宣布,公布 | |
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36 disappearance | |
n.消失,消散,失踪 | |
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37 mantle | |
n.斗篷,覆罩之物,罩子;v.罩住,覆盖,脸红 | |
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38 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
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39 gutter | |
n.沟,街沟,水槽,檐槽,贫民窟 | |
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40 descried | |
adj.被注意到的,被发现的,被看到的 | |
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41 solace | |
n.安慰;v.使快乐;vt.安慰(物),缓和 | |
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42 bliss | |
n.狂喜,福佑,天赐的福 | |
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43 intensified | |
v.(使)增强, (使)加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44 impaired | |
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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45 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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46 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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47 beatific | |
adj.快乐的,有福的 | |
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48 complacent | |
adj.自满的;自鸣得意的 | |
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49 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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50 barometric | |
大气压力 | |
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51 flippancy | |
n.轻率;浮躁;无礼的行动 | |
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52 well-being | |
n.安康,安乐,幸福 | |
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53 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
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54 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
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55 radiators | |
n.(暖气设备的)散热器( radiator的名词复数 );汽车引擎的冷却器,散热器 | |
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56 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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57 insinuating | |
adj.曲意巴结的,暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 );巧妙或迂回地潜入;(使)缓慢进入;慢慢伸入 | |
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58 pulsating | |
adj.搏动的,脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 );跳动;脉动;受(激情)震动 | |
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59 imperturbable | |
adj.镇静的 | |
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60 blenched | |
v.(因惊吓而)退缩,惊悸( blench的过去式和过去分词 );(使)变白,(使)变苍白 | |
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61 sitting-room | |
n.(BrE)客厅,起居室 | |
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62 dictates | |
n.命令,规定,要求( dictate的名词复数 )v.大声讲或读( dictate的第三人称单数 );口授;支配;摆布 | |
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63 remonstrated | |
v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 );告诫 | |
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64 perturbed | |
adj.烦燥不安的v.使(某人)烦恼,不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65 sinister | |
adj.不吉利的,凶恶的,左边的 | |
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66 reassure | |
v.使放心,使消除疑虑 | |
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67 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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68 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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69 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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70 resentment | |
n.怨愤,忿恨 | |
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71 solaced | |
v.安慰,慰藉( solace的过去分词 ) | |
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72 enquire | |
v.打听,询问;调查,查问 | |
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73 caressed | |
爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74 triumphantly | |
ad.得意洋洋地;得胜地;成功地 | |
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75 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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76 impudence | |
n.厚颜无耻;冒失;无礼 | |
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77 upbraid | |
v.斥责,责骂,责备 | |
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78 snobbishness | |
势利; 势利眼 | |
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79 sob | |
n.空间轨道的轰炸机;呜咽,哭泣 | |
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80 sobbed | |
哭泣,啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 ); 哭诉,呜咽地说 | |
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81 adventurous | |
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
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82 speculation | |
n.思索,沉思;猜测;投机 | |
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83 malady | |
n.病,疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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84 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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85 acquiescent | |
adj.默许的,默认的 | |
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86 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
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87 enchanting | |
a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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88 caressingly | |
爱抚地,亲切地 | |
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89 Undid | |
v. 解开, 复原 | |
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90 sobs | |
啜泣(声),呜咽(声)( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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91 intervals | |
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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92 opulence | |
n.财富,富裕 | |
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93 groan | |
vi./n.呻吟,抱怨;(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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94 judicially | |
依法判决地,公平地 | |
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95 lengthy | |
adj.漫长的,冗长的 | |
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96 ingenuous | |
adj.纯朴的,单纯的;天真的;坦率的 | |
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97 recoil | |
vi.退却,退缩,畏缩 | |
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