When he went downstairs he summoned the major-domo into the library on the ground floor, where Cocky’s sporting literature still strewed1 the tables.
“Mason, her Grace leaves this house on the first of July,” he said to that functionary2.
“Very good, my lord,” said Mason, with impassable countenance3.
“You see, Mason,” continued Ronald, “the duchess is of course in a very altered position; if the duke had lived——”
“Quite so, my lord,” said Mason, who thought: “Bless us and save us! If he had, everything would have gone in the smelting-pot.”
“Her establishment will be much diminished; I am afraid she will be obliged to relinquish4 your services and those of others.”
“Oh, my lord,” said Mason with a respectful little gesture which implied that persons like himself were always in demand at all seasons, and that the loss would be her Grace’s, not his.
“Well, you will see that everything is packed up that belongs to the family, and you will see that the house is put in due order to be given up to its owners on the last day of the month; for your wages and those of the others you will go to the late duke’s lawyers.”
Mr. Mason’s face clouded haughtily5 at the word wages, but he was a good-hearted man—he did not openly resent.
“I beg pardon, my lord,” he said with hesitation6, “but does her Grace know she leaves the house?”
“Yes,” said Ronald. “That is, she knows she must leave it.”
“And do you think she will, my lord?”
“She must!”
Mason shook his head.
[300]“The duchess never does what is not agreeable to her, my lord.”
“She must leave it; and you must see that preparations are duly made, so that she cannot remain in it.”
Mr. Mason coughed slightly.
“My lord, I have heard that there are tenants7 in Ireland who will not go out till the thatch8 is set afire over their heads, and even then let themselves and their pigs be burnt rather than give up possession. I mean no disrespect, my lord, when I venture to say that my lady—I mean her Grace—is very much of that kind of temper, my lord.”
“I know she is,” said Hurstmanceaux. “That is why I speak to you on this matter. Go out of the house she must.”
“Of course I will do my best, my lord,” said Mason in a dubious9 tone; he knew if her Grace did not choose anything to be packed up nothing would be.
At that moment Cecile, the head maid, entered; she was a tall, supercilious10, conceited-looking Swiss woman of forty.
“If you please, my lord,” she said, looking impudently11 in Ronald’s face, “her Grace would be glad to know when you mean to go out of the house, as her Grace is waiting to come downstairs.”
Hurstmanceaux turned his back on her.
“You have received my orders, Mason. The landlord resumes possession here on the last day of the month.”
Then he went into the hall and out of the house door.
“Quel ours!” said Cecile, with her nose in the air. She liked gentlemen like the foreign diplomatist who had gone to see the Battersea birds.
Mr. Mason shook his head in a melancholy12 manner.
“I think we had better all of us leave,” he said gloomily. “The Miser’s got the purse-strings now and the duchess aren’t anywhere.”
“Moi, j’ resterai,” said the Swiss woman. “She does hit one with the hairbrush sometimes and pretty hard too, but she is first-rate fun, and always leaves her letters about, and never knows what she has or she hasn’t. Take my word for it, Mr. Mason, she will always live in clover.”
[301]“I dare say she will,” said the more virtuous13 Mason. “But it won’t be correct, now Cocky’s gone; and myself I shall give her the go-by.”
Their mistress meanwhile was walking up and down her morning-room, a prey14 to many torturing and conflicting thoughts. She knew that she had done an unwise and an ill-bred thing in sending that message by Cecile to her brother, but her rage had outstripped15 her prudence16. Ronald was the best friend she had, and she had proved it a thousand times; but an ungovernable hatred17 seethed18 within her against him. He and Harry19—she did not know which she hated the more, which of the two had insulted her the more infamously20. A woman may lose all title to respect, but that is no reason why she does not retain every pretension21 to it.
Nothing could ever have persuaded her that she had lost her right to have everyone hold her in the highest esteem22. Nevertheless, she had sense enough to be aware that she was in a very odious23 position, and that she might very easily be in one which would be absolute disgrace, one which would place her on the level with those poor simpletons whom she had always scorned so immeasurably, women who had lost their natural position and were nowhere at home, and could only get received at Florence tea-tables and Homburg picnics and Monaco supper parties. She had always thought that she would sooner die than be put in the basket with the pêches à quinze series. For she was intensely proud, and had made many a poor woman who had been compromised feel the weight of her disdain24 and the sting of her cruelty. She always intended to enjoy herself, to do exactly whatever she pleased, but she never intended to lose her right to present Boo ten years hence at the Drawing-room. People who did lose their place were idiots. So she had always thought, but at the present moment she was obliged to feel that she might very easily lose her place herself.
Beaumont had frightened her, but he had not frightened her so intensely as had her brother; and, as he had given her six months’ time, she had with her usual happy insouciance25 almost dismissed the peril26 from her mind. But she knew her brother’s character and she knew that he[302] would send the men from the bank at the time fixed27 as punctually as the clock would strike eleven. And then from the bank he would send the jewels to Hunt and Roskell, and that admirable imitation of the roc’s egg, which would deceive the unaided eye of anyone, would be detected in its falseness by their acids or their wheels or whatever the things were with which jewelers tested diamonds. And then he, despite his unsuspicious stupidity, would know, without any further proof, that she had pawned28 or sold the original.
“I am at home to no one,” she said to her footman, and continued to walk up and down the room in nervous agitation29.
She had several engagements, such engagements as her mourning allowed, but she ignored them all; she could not see anyone until she could find out some way of exit from this hideous30 labyrinth31 of trouble.
Suddenly it flashed upon her mind that, do what she would, she could not get the diamond in time for Monday morning. It was in Paris. If she went to Paris without the money she would be no nearer to it; and besides, her sudden departure would at once awaken32 the suspicions of Jack’s guardians33. She must not only find the large sum of money needed, but she must also find someone who would go to Paris and bring the stone back before Monday forenoon.
There were many men who were devoted34 to her, but as she ran over their names in her mind she could think of no one whose adoration35, whether expectant or retrospective, would be equal to such a strain on it as that; nor everyone to whom she could quite safely trust her secret.
There are very pretty theories and ideals about the honor of men of the world, but she knew such men down to the ground, as she would have phrased it, and she had few illusions about their honor. She knew that when they are in love with one woman they show up to that one all the others who have preceded her in their affections. Harry, indeed, she might have trusted; but she had broken with him, and even if she had not done so, he could no more have raised a seventh part of the money than he could have uprooted36 St. James’s Palace. He was[303] stone broke, as he said himself. Her little travelling timepiece, which stood on her writing-table, seemed to sway over the seconds and minutes with a fiendish rapidity. Half an hour had gone by since her brother had left her, and she was no nearer a solution to her torturing difficulties. Other women would have weakened and compromised themselves by running to some female confidant, but she had none; with her own sisters she was always on the terms of an armed neutrality and in female friends she had never seen any object or savor37. As soon as a woman was intimate with you she only tried to take your men away from you; she never gave any woman the opportunity to do so.
Another quarter of an hour passed by; she heard her horses stamping on the stones beneath the windows; she heard the children scamper38 down the staircase on their way to their afternoon walk in the park; she heard people drive up and drive away as they were met by the inexorable “Not at home” of the good-looking youth in powder and black shoulder-knots who opened the hall door.
How horrible! she thought, oh, how horrible! This might be the very last day on which anybody would call on her! For she knew well enough that the offence she had committed was one which, once made public, would close to her the only world for which she cared. “And yet I really meant no harm,” she thought. “I thought the thing was mine or would be. Why did that odious Poodle lend it me? So treacherous39! Why did he not explain to me that it was a ‘chattel40’? What is a chattel? Why did Beaumont advance the money upon it? He was much more to blame than I am, because of course he knew the law.”
In that she was perhaps not wrong, for though the world may blame only the borrower, the lender is not seldom the wickeder of the two.
Tired out with her ceaseless pacing to and fro over the carpet, her nerve gave way, and for almost the first time in her life she burst into tears, bitter, hysterical41, cruel tears, the tears which disfigure and age the woman who sheds them. The Blenheims, infinitely42 distressed43, jumped on her lap and endeavored to console her; rubbing their[304] little red and white heads against her cheeks. Their caresses45 touched her in her loneliness. “We hated Cocky, you and I,” she said to them; “but I wish to heaven he had never died.” With all her keen enjoyment46 of life she really understood in that hour of torture how it was that women driven at bay killed themselves to escape detection and condemnation47. She did not mean to kill herself because she was a woman of many resources and had her beautiful face and form, and loved life; but she felt that she would rather kill herself than meet Ronald’s eyes if he learned that the Indian diamond had been changed and pawned. And know it he must as soon as Hunt and Roskell’s assayer48 tested the stones. Beaumont had told her honestly that the imitation would deceive anyone, even a jeweler, unless it were tested; but that tested it would of course fly in pieces and confess itself a fraud.
She had only forty-three hours before the messenger from the bank would come. Whatever she did had to be done before the stones were consigned49 to him, for after they were out of her possession she would not be safe for a moment. At all costs she must get back the roc’s egg from Beaumont or be a ruined, disgraced, miserable50 woman. True, she felt sure that her brother and the Ormes would not expose her to the world. They would scrape the money together at all costs, and redeem51 the jewel, and observe secrecy52 on the whole abominable53 affair; but she would be in their power for ever; they would be able to punish her in any way they chose, and their punishment would certainly take the form of exiling her from everything which made life worth living.
The old churchman, Lord Augustus, was hardly more than a lay figure, but Alberic, she knew, looked on her with all the disdain and dislike of a refined and religious man, for one whom he condemned54 in all her ways and whom he considered had made his brother and his father dupes from the first day of her marriage. And Ronald would be but the more bitterly inflexible55 because he would consider that her near relationship to himself compelled him in honor to the uttermost severity in judgment56 and action; he would consider that he could not show to her the indulgence he might have shown to a stranger.
[305]Her fit of weeping exhausted57 itself by its own violence, and as she glanced at her face in the glass she was horrified58 to see her red and swollen59 eyelids60 and her complexion61 smudged and dulled like a pastel which some ignorant servant has dusted.
“Nothing on earth is worth the loss of one’s beauty,” she said to herself, and she went upstairs and, without summoning her maid, washed her face with rosewater and ran a comb through her hair; the Blenheims sitting on either side of her, critical of processes with which they were familiar.
As she sat before her toilet-table and its oval silver-framed swinging mirror, her eyes fell by chance on a glove box made of tortoise shell and gold, with two gold amorini playing with a fawn62 on its lid.
“Billy!” she said suddenly, half aloud.
William Massarene had given her the box when she had betted gloves with him at the previous year’s Goodwood races.
“Billy!” she said again under her breath.
Yes, there was Billy; the only person in the whole world who could do for her what she wanted without feeling it.
She would have to tell him, to make him understand the urgency of it, some portion of the truth; the blood rushed over her face with the repulsion of pride. Tell her necessities to the man she bullied63 and despised! She sat with her eyes fixed on the two gold cupids thinking how she could put the story so that she would not be lowered in his eyes. It was a difficult and embarrassing test of her ingenuity64, for not only had she to get the money out of him but she must get him to send or to go to Paris by that evening’s train. She had pillaged65 Massarene without shame or compunction. She had made him “bleed” without stint66. She had made him do a thousand follies67, costly68 to himself but useful to her, like the purchases of Blair Airon and Vale Royal. She had rooked him without mercy, considering that she did him an honor in noticing him at all. But, by some contradiction, or some instinct of pride or of decency69, she shrank at the idea of actually borrowing money from him—of actually being indebted to him for a great service.
[306]In all lesser70 transactions with him she had considered him her debtor71 for her patronage72; but to make him do this, to make him pay Beaumont and restore her the Indian stone, would be to become his debtor. There was no shirking the fact. Would she ever be able to bully73 and insult him afterwards? Yes, why not? He was a cad, a snob74, a horror; such men were only made to be trodden on and have their ears boxed.
She decided75 that it did not matter what a low-bred brute76 like him knew or thought, and that since Providence77 had given her a rich idiot into her hands it would be worse than folly78 not to use his resources. Anything, anything, was better than to let the imitation jewel go to Hunt and Roskell for inevitable79 detection. And there were now only forty-three hours in which to act.
He was in town she knew. He was in town because she was in town, and because the House was sitting. Where should she see him?
To send for him to her residence might cause some story to get about; to go to Harrenden House was still more compromising unless she began by a visit to his wife, which would be round about and cause delay; she knew he might very possibly be at the Commons—new members are always very assiduous in their attendance—and he was at that time serving on a Royal Commission on some agricultural difficulty. She had herself dressed, feeling that Cecile looked curiously80 at her, and telling the woman to take the dogs in Kensington Gardens, she went to her carriage which had been waiting two hours.
“To Palace Yard!” she said to her footman: the horses, irritated in temper and with their mouths and necks in pain from their long penance81 in their bearing-reins, flew thither82 with the speed of the wind.
She sent for Mr. Massarene, who was, the doorkeeper said, in the House. After a few moments he came out to her with the deferential83 haste of an enamored man, which sat ill on his broad squat84 figure and his iron-grey, elderly, respectable, tradesmanlike aspect.
“I want to speak to you a moment,” she said as he came and stood by the carriage. “Can you give me a cup of tea on the terrace?”
[307]“Certainly, certainly!” he stammered85, confused by a dual87 sentiment—the charm of her presence and the fear that it would look odd to be seen with her. “The committee I am on has just ended its sitting,” he added with the pride which he felt in his functions. “I shall be delighted if I can be of any use.”
“There is no one there now, is there?” she asked, sensible as he was that her appearance in such a public place would look very strange.
“They don’t matter,” she said, and went with him through the House to the terrace.
He gave her a seat and ordered tea. He was dazzled and intimidated89 as he always was by her presence, but he was conscious that her beguilements always ended in some advantage for herself, so that he was less flattered than he would otherwise have been by her sudden appeal to him.
It was a grey day, the river was in fog, but the air was windless and mild.
She threw back her veil and the pale light fell on the brightness of her hair, and the beauty of her face enhanced by the frame of crape. The traces of her weeping had passed away, leaving her face softer and whiter than usual with a tremor90 on the mouth like that of a little child who has been scolded.
William Massarene’s observant eyes read those signs. “She’s in some real sharp trouble this time, I reckon,” he said to himself.
He was a man who had never known pity, but he did feel sorry for her.
She made the mistake of judging him from the exterior91. Because he was afraid of her and of her friends, because he did not know how to bow, because he made ludicrous mistakes in language and manner, because he crumbled92 his bread on the dinner-cloth, and never used his finger-glass, she imagined him to be a fool.
She did not understand that if he let himself be robbed he did so with a purpose and not out of feebleness. She did not understand that, although he was hypnotized by[308] her because he was under the influence of a woman for the first time, there was always alive underneath93 his obedience94 the sharp, keen, brutal95 selfishness which had made him the great man he was.
“What is the trouble, my lady?” he said, leaning forward, his hands on his knees in his usual attitude. “Why, lord, you’re no more made for trouble than a white cockatoo’s for mud and rain.”
There was not a soul on the terrace; the attendant who had brought the tea-tray had retired96; there was the scream and roar of a steam-tug coming up the river in the fog, and a factory bell on the opposite shore was clanging loudly: she thought she should hear those two sounds in her ears as long as ever she should live.
She knew that there was no time to lose, that the moments were tearing along like sleuth-hounds, that she must tell him now or never, must get his help or be ruined.
She was of high physical courage; she had slid from the back of a rearing horse; she had never lost her nerve on a yacht-deck in a storm, when men were washed overboard like chickens; she had been perfectly97 cool and self-possessed one awful night on a Highland98 mountain when she and her whole party had lost their way for twelve hours of snow-drift and hurricane; but now, for the first time in her life, she was nerveless, and felt her tongue cleave99 to the roof of her mouth and her spirit fail her.
“Come, keep up your pecker,” said Mr. Massarene in what he meant to be a kindly100 encouragement. “Come, tell me what the matter is, my pretty one.”
She started like a doe past whose side a bullet whistles as the odious familiarity struck her ear—the familiarity which she did not dare to resent, the familiarity which told her how much the expression of her face must have confessed already. With dilated101 nostrils102, through which her breath came and went rapidly and in short pulsations, she plunged103 midmost into her story: the story as arranged and decorated and trimmed by her own intelligent skill, wherein she was plainly the victim of circumstance, of her own ignorance, of a tradesman’s deceitfulness, and of her relatives’ cruelty and harshness. The old duke, she averred105, had given her the jewels; but it seemed there[309] was nothing to show that he had done so, and her brother and brothers-in-law were so inconceivably base as to doubt her word for it, and to claim them for the heir as “real estate.” No woman, she thought, had ever been so brutally106 treated in the whole history of the world.
She spoke107 at first hesitatingly and with visible embarrassment108, but she grew more at her ease as she got her story well in hand, and she became eloquent109 in the description of her wrongs.
William Massarene followed her narrative110 attentively111 and without interruption, leaning a little forward with his hands on his knee and glancing round to see that no one was in sight to wonder at his flattering but compromising tête-à-tête. He was magnetized by her voice, dazzled by her eyes, but what she spoke of was a matter of business and he was beyond all else a man of business. Business was his own domain112. On that he was master; in that it was not in the power of anyone to cheat him. His sharp perception quickly understood her position, disentangled facts from fiction, and comprehended in what danger she was placed. He did not let her see that he knew she was glossing113 over and changing the circumstances; but he did know it, and stripped the false from the true in his own reflections as surely as he had shifted gold from quartz114 in his days in the gold-fields. He could have turned her narrative inside out and rent it to pieces in a second, but he forbore to do so, and appeared to accept her version of the matter as she presented it to him.
“But what made you take the jewels to this Beaumont?” he asked her as she paused.
“Was it before you knew me?”
“Just before.”
“And you asked nobody’s advice?”
“No.”
The ghost of a grim smile flitted over his face: certainly for consummate116 folly he thought these great folks beat anything in all creation.
“Oh, don’t laugh at one, Billy,” she said with genuine mortification117 and shame in her voice. “You don’t know what it is to want money as we do.”
[310]He looked at her indulgently.
“I dare say it’s hard on you. You have to keep up all that swagger on nothing. Well, as I understand the matter, you must have these diamonds before Monday forenoon, eh?”
“Yes,” she said shortly, with a catch in her breath; she felt by the change in his tone how far she had descended118 from her pedestal by her confession119. “Oh, the brute!” she thought passionately120; “how I should love to strangle him and fling him into the Thames pea-soup!”
“What is it you want me to do?” he asked, whilst he knew without asking; but he liked “to keep her nose to the grindstone”; he was but paying in fair coin the innumerable insults she had passed on him, the countless121 awkward and painful moments she had entailed122 on him.
She took up all her courage and trusted to the magic of her influence over him.
“I want you to go over to Paris and get them for me. I dare say you could get them for half price. Beaumont would be afraid of you.”
“What was the sum you had from him?”
“Three hundred thousand francs; but then there is the cast of the false stones to add to that and the interest.”
She spoke the truth in this, for she knew that it would be no use to do otherwise.
“And what did you sign for?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Beaumont has a very good reputation,” she added. “He never cheats. He was once a gentleman, they say.”
“And gentlefolks never cheat, do they, my lady!”
“Oh, Billy, don’t mock at me,” she cried with genuine distress44. “I am in horrible trouble. I have told you everything because you are my friend. Will you do this thing or won’t you?”
“How will you pay me if I do?”
“Pay you!”
[311]In her heart of hearts she knew that she had not the remotest intention of ever paying him.
“How will you pay me if I do?” he repeated. A look came into his eyes as they stared on her which might have warned her that he was not a man who would go for ever unpaid125. She was silent; she really did not know what to say. She knew that she hated him horribly. But she had no other chance.
He enjoyed her discomfiture126.
“You’ll pay me somehow, I reckon,” he said, after leaving her in torture for a few moments. “Well, I’ll do this thing for you. I’ll go to Paris to-night. Send me a line from you authorizing127 me to treat for you with this jeweler. I’ll get back to-morrow evening. You’ll be at your house by ten o’clock, and I’ll come there straight from Cannon128 Street. Mind you’re alone.”
The rough authority of the sentences chilled her to the bone; she realized that he was no more her timid obedient slave, but her master, and a master with a whip. Something in the expression of his face made her sick with fear. But there was no other means, no other saviour129; if she offended him, if she rejected the aid she had asked for, the false stones would go to Hunt and Roskell, and her brother and brothers-in-law would know everything.
“You’d better go now,” said William Massarene, reading in her mind as if it were a book. “This aren’t a place to talk secrets; and pull your veil down, for you look out of sorts, my dear!”
A shudder130 of rage passed through her as she heard his words. Oh, how she hated herself that she had been such an imbecile as to drift into a position in which this wretched cad could dare speak to her as he would speak to a mill-hand in Milwaukee.
Oh, heavens! How dreadful it was, she thought, to loathe131 and despise a man, and yet to be obliged to use him! It was all her brother’s fault, who had placed her in such an odious and agonizing132 position! It seemed as if the whole of humanity, dead and living, were in conspiracy133 against her!
“Look here, my dear,” said Mr. Massarene in a low tone, as they crossed the Speaker’s Court, “I’ll send you[312] round to your house in an hour a line or two that you’ll sign. Mere86 matter of form, but must be done, or I can’t treat with your jeweler. Sign it, put it in a sealed envelope, and send it back by the bearer. When I get it, I’ll take the club train at nine o’clock. To-morrow’s Sunday. There’s nothing odd in going out of town on Sunday.”
“Very well,” she said faintly; for it had never occurred to her mind that Billy would be business-like with herself. She was used to people who, whether they had little or much, never stooped to marchander. Nobody had ever asked her to sign anything before, except Beaumont.
“What do you want a signature for?” she said impatiently. “Can’t you forget you sold sausages?”
She was looking at a brougham entering the courtyard, and not at the face of William Massarene; had she seen it, careless as she was, she might have been alarmed.
He did not reply.
As he put her in her carriage, she said, with anxiety:
“You won’t tell anybody, will you?”
William Massarene smiled grimly.
“A man who sold sausages don’t come to be what I am by telling people what he does. Telling aren’t my habit, your Grace. Go straight home and wait for my messenger.”
She was not used to remembering that her servants existed, but she was for once nervously134 conscious that the footman holding open the carriage-door heard these words, and must wonder at them. Oh, what a path of thorns she had entered upon, all because Providence, or the Ormes, or Ronnie, or whatever it was, had made life so difficult for her!
She did go straight home, for she was conscious that she could not afford to miss Massarene’s messenger, who arrived punctually within the hour.
She glanced feverishly135 at what he had sent her; a few lines printed in typewriting, so that his own handwriting did not appear; it seemed to her inoffensive; it authorized136 him to pay Beaumont the money for her, and get back the Otterbourne jewels; it further stated that when he should have completed the transaction, she would be his debtor[313] for the sum of twelve thousand pounds sterling137. This last clause she did not like. It alarmed her. For an instant a flash of good sense came across her mind and suggested to her that it would be a thousand times better to send for Ronald, even for any of the Ormes, and confess her position to one of them, than to put herself in the power of this man whom she had cheated, fooled, derided138, ridiculed140, and ordered about under the whip of her contemptuous words. Her relatives would save her from all exposure, at whatever painful cost to themselves. But her vanity and her stubbornness rejected the whispers of common sense. She detested141 Alberic Orme, and her feeling toward her brother was now little less virulent142. “No!” she said to herself, “rather than confess myself and humiliate143 myself to either of them, I would die like Sarah Bernhardt in Ixeile!” But she forgot that there are worse things than death.
After hesitating for ten minutes, and looking down with disgust on this paper, which looked so vulgar with its big type-written words, she decided with a reckless plunge104 into the unknown to sign it, and scrawled144 at the bottom of the lines the name which she wrote so seldom, Clare Otterbourne. With similar haste she thrust it into an envelope, sealed and sent it down to Massarene’s messenger.
She cried bitterly when it was irrevocably gone from her, but she felt that she could do no less than she had done; everybody took such dreadful advantage of poor Cocky’s death!
“I shall treat the beast worse than ever,” she thought, as her sobs145 ceased gradually. “Poignez vilain il vous oindra.”
She had always beaten her vilain, and he had always submitted and cowed before her. She believed that he would do so as long as he lived.
For this satirical, intelligent, and fin-de-siècle creature, so quick to see and ridicule139 the follies and frailties146 of other creatures, did not in the very faintest degree understand the stuff of which William Massarene was made.
Meantime, he was travelling toward Dover in the club train with the type-written paper safe in his inner breast-pocket. This errand pleased him.
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strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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functionary
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| n.官员；公职人员 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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supercilious
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| adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲 | |
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impudently
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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13
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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14
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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15
outstripped
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| v.做得比…更好，（在赛跑等中）超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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17
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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18
seethed
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| （液体）沸腾( seethe的过去式和过去分词 )； 激动，大怒； 强压怒火； 生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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19
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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20
infamously
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| 不名誉地 | |
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21
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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22
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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23
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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24
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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25
insouciance
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| n.漠不关心 | |
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26
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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27
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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28
pawned
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| v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保 | |
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29
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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30
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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31
labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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32
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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33
guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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34
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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35
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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36
uprooted
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| v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
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37
savor
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| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
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38
scamper
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| v.奔跑，快跑 | |
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39
treacherous
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|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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40
chattel
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| n.动产；奴隶 | |
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41
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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42
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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43
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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44
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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45
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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46
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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47
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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48
assayer
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| n.试金者，分析专家 | |
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49
consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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50
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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51
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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52
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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53
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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54
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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55
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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56
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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57
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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58
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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59
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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60
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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61
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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62
fawn
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| n.未满周岁的小鹿；v.巴结，奉承 | |
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63
bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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65
pillaged
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| v.抢劫，掠夺( pillage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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67
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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68
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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69
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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70
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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71
debtor
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| n.借方，债务人 | |
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72
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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73
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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74
snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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75
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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76
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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77
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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78
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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79
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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80
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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81
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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82
thither
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|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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83
deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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84
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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85
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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86
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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87
dual
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| adj.双的；二重的，二元的 | |
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88
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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89
intimidated
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| v.恐吓；威胁adj.害怕的；受到威胁的 | |
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90
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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91
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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92
crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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93
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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94
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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95
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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96
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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97
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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98
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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99
cleave
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| v．(clave；cleaved)粘着，粘住；坚持；依恋 | |
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100
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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101
dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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102
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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103
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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104
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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105
averred
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| v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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106
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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107
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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108
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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109
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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110
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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111
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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112
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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113
glossing
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| v.注解( gloss的现在分词 )；掩饰（错误）；粉饰；把…搪塞过去 | |
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114
quartz
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| n.石英 | |
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115
sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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116
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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117
mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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118
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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119
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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120
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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121
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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122
entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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123
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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124
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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125
unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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126
discomfiture
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| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
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127
authorizing
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| 授权，批准，委托( authorize的现在分词 ) | |
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128
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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129
saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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130
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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131
loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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132
agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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133
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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134
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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135
feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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136
authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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137
sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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138
derided
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| v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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139
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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140
ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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141
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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142
virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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143
humiliate
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| v.使羞辱，使丢脸[同]disgrace | |
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144
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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145
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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146
frailties
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| n.脆弱( frailty的名词复数 )；虚弱；（性格或行为上的）弱点；缺点 | |
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