Life at the Lawn went by very smoothly1 for Mr. Sheldon’s family. Georgy was very happy in the society of a companion who seemed really to have a natural taste for the manufacture of pretty little head-dresses from the merest fragments of material in the way of lace and ribbon. Diana had all that versatile2 cleverness and capacity for expedients3 which is likely to be acquired in a wandering and troubled life. She had learned more in her three years of discomfort5 with her father than in all the undeviating course of the Hyde–Lodge6 studies; she had improved her French at one table d’h?te, her German at another; she had caught some new trick of style in every concert-room, some fresh combination of costume on every racecourse; and, being really grateful for Charlotte’s disinterested7 affection, she brought all her accomplishments9 to bear to please her friend and her friend’s household.
In this she succeeded admirably. Mrs. Sheldon found her daughter’s society much more delightful10 now that the whole pressure of Charlotte’s intellect and vitality11 no longer fell entirely12 upon herself. She liked to sit lazily in her arm-chair while the two girls chattered13 at their work, and she could venture an occasional remark, and fancy that she had a full share in the conversation. When the summer weather rendered walking a martyrdom and driving an affliction, she could recline on her favourite sofa reading a novel, soothed15 by the feeble twittering of her birds; while Charlotte and Diana went out together, protected by the smart boy in buttons, who was not altogether without human failings, and was apt to linger behind his fair charges, reading the boards before the doors of newsvendors’ shops, or looking at the cartoons in Punch exhibited in the stationers’ windows.
Mr. Sheldon made a point of pleasing his stepdaughter whenever it was possible for him to do so without palpable inconvenience to himself; and as she was to be gratified by so small a pecuniary16 sacrifice as the trifling17 increase of tradesmen’s bills caused by Miss Paget’s residence in the gothic villa18, he was the last man in the world to refuse her that indulgence. His own pursuits were of so absorbing a nature as to leave little leisure for concern about other people’s business. He asked no questions about his stepdaughter’s companion; but he was not the less surprised to see this beautiful high-bred woman content to sit at his board as an unsalaried dependent.
“Your friend Miss Paget looks like a countess,” he said one day to Charlotte. “I thought girls generally pitched upon some plain homely19 young woman for their pet companion, but you seem to have chosen the handsomest girl in the school.”
“Yes, she is very handsome, is she not? I wish some of your rich City men would marry her, papa.”
Miss Halliday consented to call her mother’s husband “papa,” though the caressing20 name seemed in a manner to stick in her throat. She had loved that blustrous good-tempered Tom Halliday so very dearly, and it was only to please poor Georgy that she brought herself to address any other man by the name that had been his.
“My City men have something better to do than to marry a young woman without a sixpence,” answered Mr. Sheldon. “Why don’t you try to catch one of them for yourself?”
“I don’t like City men,” said Charlotte quickly; and then she blushed, and added apologetically, “at least not the generality of City men, papa.”
Diana had waited until her destiny was settled before answering Valentine Hawkehurst’s letter; but she wrote to him directly she was established at the Lawn, and told him the change in her plans.
“I think papa had better let me come to see him at his lodgings,” she said, “wherever they may be; for I should scarcely care about Mr. Sheldon seeing him. No one here knows anything definite about my history; and as it is just possible Mr. Sheldon may have encountered my father somehow or other, it would be as well for him to keep clear of this house. I could not venture to say this to papa myself, but perhaps you could suggest it without offending him. You see I have grown very worldly-wise, and am learning to protect my own interests in the spirit which you have so instilled22 into me. I don’t know whether that sort of spirit is likely to secure one’s happiness, but I have no doubt it is the wisest and best for this world.”
Miss Paget could not refrain from an occasional sneer23 when she wrote to her old companion. He never returned her sneers24, or noticed them. His letters were always frank, friendly, and brotherly in tone.
“Neither my good opinion nor my bad opinion is of any consequence to him,” Diana thought bitterly. It was late in August when Captain Paget and his protégé came to town. Valentine suggested the wisdom of leaving Diana in her new home uncompromised by any past associations. But this was a suggestion which Horatio Paget could not accept. His brightest successes in the way of scheming had been matured out of chance acquaintanceships with eligible25 men. A man who could afford such a luxury as a companion for his daughter must needs be eligible, and the Captain was not inclined to sacrifice his acquaintance from any extreme delicacy26.
“My daughter seems to have made new friends for herself, and I should like to see what kind of people they are,” he said conclusively27. “We’ll look them up this evening, Val.”
Mr. George Sheldon dined at the Lawn on the day on which Horatio Paget determined28 on “looking up” his daughter’s new friends, and he and the two girls were strolling in the garden when the Captain and Mr. Hawkehurst were announced. They had been told that Miss Paget was in the garden.
“Be good enough to take me straight to her,” said the Captain to the boy in buttons; “I am her father.”
Horatio Paget was too old a tactician29 not to know that by an unceremonious plunge30 into the family circle he was more likely to secure an easy footing in the household than by any direct approach of the master. He had seen the little group in the garden, and had mistaken George for the head of the house.
Diana turned from pale to red, and from red to pale again, as she recognised the two men. There had been no announcement of their coming. She did not even know that they were in England.
“Papa!” she cried, and then held out her hand and greeted him; coldly enough, as it seemed to Charlotte, who fancied that any kind of real father must be very dear.
But Captain Paget was not to be satisfied by that cold greeting. It suited his purpose to be especially paternal31 on this occasion. He drew his daughter to his breast, and embraced her affectionately, very much to that young lady’s surprise.
Then, having abandoned himself entirely for the moment to this tender impulse of paternity, he suddenly put his daughter aside, as if he had all at once remembered his duty to society, drew himself up stiffly, and saluted32 Miss Halliday and George Sheldon with uncovered head.
“Mr. Sheldon, I believe?” he murmured.
“George Sheldon,” answered that gentleman; “my brother Philip is in the drawing-room yonder, looking at us.”
Philip Sheldon came out into the garden as George said this, It was one of those sultry evenings on which the most delightful of gothic villas33 is apt to be too stifling34 for endurance; and in most of the prim35 suburban36 gardens there were people lounging listlessly among the flower-beds. Mr. Sheldon came to look at this patrician37 stranger who had just embraced his daughter’s companion; whereupon Captain Paget introduced himself and his friend Mr. Hawkehurst. After the introduction Mr. Sheldon and the Captain fell into an easy conversation, while the two girls walked slowly along the gravel38 pathway with Valentine by their side, and while George loitered drearily39 along, chewing the stalk of a geranium, and pondering the obscure reminiscences of the last oldest inhabitant whose shadowy memories he had evoked40 in his search after new links in the chain of the Haygarths.
The two girls walked in the familiar schoolgirl fashion of Hyde Lodge, Charlotte’s arm encircling the waist of her friend. They were both dressed in white muslin, and looked very shadowy and sylph-like in the summer dusk. Mr. Hawkehurst found himself in a new atmosphere in this suburban garden, with these two white-robed damsels by his side; for it seemed to him that Diana with Charlotte’s arm round her waist, and a certain shy gentleness of manner which was new to him, was quite a different person from that Miss Paget whose wan4 face had looked at him so anxiously in the saloons of the Belgian Kursaal.
At first there was considerable restraint in the tone of the conversation, and some little of that unnecessary discussion as to whether this evening was warmer than the preceding evening, or whether it was not, indeed, the warmest evening of all that summer. And then, when the ice was broken, Mr. Hawkehurst began to talk at his ease about Paris, which city Miss Halliday had never seen; about the last book, the last play, the last folly41, the last fashionable bonnet42; for it was one of the special attributes of this young Robert Macaire to be able to talk about anything, and to adapt himself to any society. Charlotte opened her eyes to their widest extent as she listened to this animated43 stranger. She had been so wearied by the dry as dust arguments of City men who had discussed the schemes of great contractors44, “which will never be carried out, sir, while money is at its present rate, mark my words,”— or the chances of a company “which is eaten up by debenture-bonds and preference-shares, sir, and will never pay its original proprietors45 one sixpence of interest on their capital,” with a great deal more of the same character; and it was quite new to her to hear about novels, theatres, and bonnets46 from masculine lips, and to find that there were men living who could interest themselves in such frivolities. Charlotte was delighted with Diana’s friend. It was she who encouraged Valentine every now and then by some exclamation47 of surprise or expression of interest, while Miss Paget herself was thoughtful and silent.
It was not thus that she had hoped to meet Valentine Hawkehurst. She stole a look at him now and then as he walked by her side. Yes, it was the old face — the face which would have been so handsome if there had been warmth and life in it, instead of that cold listlessness which repelled48 all sympathy, and seemed to constitute a kind of mask behind which the real man hid himself.
Diana looked at him, and remembered her parting from him in the chill gray morning on the platform at Forêtdechêne. He had let her go out alone into the dreary49 world to encounter what fate she might, without any more appearance of anxiety than he might have exhibited had she been starting for a summer-day’s holiday; and now, after a year of separation, he met her with the same air of unconcern, and could discourse50 conventional small talk to another woman while she walked by his side.
While Mr. Hawkehurst was talking to Mr. Sheldon’s stepdaughter, Captain Paget had contrived51 to make himself very agreeable to that gentleman himself. Lord Lytton has said that “there is something strange and almost mesmerical in the rapport52 between two evil natures. Bring two honest men together, and it is ten to one if they recognise each other as honest; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may make each misjudge the other. But bring together two men unprincipled and perverted53 — men who, if born in a cellar, would have been food for the hulks or gallows54 — and they understand each other by instant sympathy.” However this might be with these two men, they had speedily become upon very easy terms with each other. Mr. Sheldon’s plans for the making of money were very complicated in their nature, and he had frequent need of clever instruments to assist in the carrying out of his arrangements. Horatio Paget was the exact type of man most likely to be useful to such a speculator as Philip Sheldon. He was the very ideal of the “Promoter,” the well-dressed, well-mannered gentleman, beneath whose magic wand new companies arise as if by magic; the man who, without a sixpence in his own pocket, can set a small Pactolus flowing from the pockets of other people; the man who, content himself to live in a humble55 second floor at Chelsea, can point to gigantic hotels which are as the palaces of a new Brobdignag, and say, “Lo, these arose at my bidding!” Mr. Sheldon was always on the alert to discover anything or anybody likely to serve his own interest, either in the present or the future; and he came to the conclusion that Miss Paget’s father was a person upon whom an occasional dinner might not be altogether thrown away.
“Take a chop with us to-morrow at six,” he said, on parting from the Captain, “and then you can hear the two girls play and sing. They play remarkably56 well, I believe, from what other people tell me; but I am not a musical man myself.”
Horatio Paget accepted the invitation as cordially as it was given. It is astonishing how genial57 and friendly these men of the world can be at the slightest imaginable notice. One can fancy the striped tigers of Bengal shaking paws in the jungle, the vultures hob-nobbing in a mountain cleft58 over the torn carcass of a stag, the kites putting their beaks59 together after dining on a nest of innocent doves.
“Then we shall expect to see you at sharp six,” said Mr. Sheldon, “and your friend Mr. Hawkehurst with you, of course.”
After this the two gentlemen departed. Valentine shook hands with Diana, and took a more ceremonious leave of Charlotte. George Sheldon threw away his chewed geranium-stalk in order to bid good evening to the visitors; and the little party walked to the garden-gate together.
“That Sheldon seems a very clever fellow,” said Captain Paget, as he and Valentine walked towards the Park, which they had to cross on their way to Chelsea, where the Captain had secured a convenient lodging21. “I wonder whether he is any relation to the Sheldon who is in with a low set of money-lenders?”
“What, the Sheldon of Gray’s Inn?” exclaimed Mr. Hawkehurst. “We can easily find that out.”
Horatio Paget and Valentine Hawkehurst were frequent visitors at the Lawn after that first evening. Mr. Sheldon found the Captain useful to him in the carrying out of certain business arrangements on more than one occasion, and the relations between the respectable stockbroker60 and the disreputable adventurer assumed a very friendly character. Diana wondered to see so spotless a citizen as Philip Sheldon hand-and-glove with her father. Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte were delighted with the Captain and his protégé; these two penniless Bohemians were so much more agreeable to the feminine mind than the City men who were wont61 to sit in the dining-room slowly imbibing62 Mr. Sheldon’s old port in the long summer evenings, while their wives endured the abomination of desolation with Georgy and Charlotte in the drawing-room. Captain Paget paid Mrs. Sheldon flowery compliments, and told her delightful stories of the aristocracy and all that shining West-end world with which he had once been familiar. Poor simple Georgy regarded him with that reverential awe63 which a middle-class country-bred woman is prone64 to feel for a man who bears upon him that ineffaceable stamp of high birth and good breeding, not to be destroyed by half a century of degradation65. Nor could Charlotte withhold66 her admiration67 from the man whose tone was so infinitely68 superior to that of all the other men she had encountered. In his darkest hour Captain Paget had found his best friends, or his easiest dupes, among women. It had gone hard with him when his dear friend had withheld69 the temporary accommodation of a five-pound note; but it had been much harder when his friend’s wife had refused the loan of “a little silver.”
Valentine Hawkehurst came very often to the Lawn, sometimes with his friend and patron, sometimes alone. He brought the young ladies small offerings in the way of a popular French novel adapted for feminine perusal70, or an occasional box for some theatre which had fallen upon evil days, and was liberal in the circulation of “paper.” He met the two girls sometimes in their morning walks in Kensington-gardens, and walked with them in the leafy avenues, and only left them at the gate by which they departed. So much of his life was a listless waiting for the arising of new chances, that he had ample time to waste in feminine society, and he seemed very well inclined to loiter away the leisure hours of existence in the companionship of Diana and her friend.
And was Miss Paget glad of his coming, and pleased to be in his company? Alas71, no! The time had been, and only within a few months, when she had sickened for the sight of his familiar face, and fancied that the most exquisite72 happiness life could afford her would be to see him once more, anywhere, under any circumstances. She saw him now almost daily, and she was miserable73. She saw him; but another woman had come between her and the man she loved: and now, if his voice took a softer tone, or if his eyes assumed a tender earnestness of expression, it might be Charlotte’s influence which wrought74 the transformation75. Who could say that it was not on Charlotte’s account he came so often, and lingered so long? Diana looked at him sometimes with haggard angry eyes, which saw that it was Miss Halliday who absorbed his attention. It was Charlotte — Charlotte, who was so bright and happy a creature that the coldest heart must needs have been moved and melted by her fascination76. What was the cold patrician beauty of Miss Paget’s face when compared with the changeful charm of this radiant girl, with the flashing gray eyes and piquant77 features, and all those artless caprices of manner which made her arch loveliness irresistible78? Diana’s heart grew sick and cold as she watched these two day by day, and saw the innocent school-girl’s ascendancy79 over the adventurer. The attributes which made Charlotte charming were just those very attributes which Valentine Hawkehurst had been least accustomed to discover in the womankind he had hitherto encountered. He had seen beautiful women, elegant and fascinating women, without number; but this frank girlish nature, this happy childlike disposition80, was entirely new to him. How should he have met bright childlike creatures in the pathways which he had trodden? For the first time in his life a fresh young heart revealed its treasures of purity and tenderness before his world-weary eyes, and his own heart was melted by the new influence. He had admired Diana; he had been touched by her girlish fancy for him, and had loved her as well as he had believed himself capable of loving any woman. But when Prudence81 and Honour counselled him to stifle82 and crush his growing affection for the beautiful companion of his wanderings, the struggle had involved no agony of regret or despair. He had told himself that no good could ever come of his love for Captain Paget’s daughter, and he had put aside that love before it had taken any vital root in his heart. He had been very strong and resolute83 in this matter — resisting looks of sad surprise which would have melted a softer nature. And he had been proud of his own firmness. “Better for her, and better for me,” he had said to himself: “let her outlive her foolish schoolgirl fancies, and wait patiently till her beauty wins her a rich husband. As for me, I must marry some prosperous tradesman’s widow, if I ever marry at all.”
The influence of the world in which his life had been spent had degraded Valentine Hawkehurst, and had done much to harden him; and yet he was not altogether hard. He discovered his own weakness very soon after the beginning of his acquaintance with Mr. Sheldon’s stepdaughter. He knew very well that if he had been no fitting lover for Diana Paget, he was still less a fitting lover for Charlotte Halliday. He knew that although it might suit Mr. Sheldon’s purpose to make use of the Captain and himself as handy instruments for the accomplishment8 of somewhat dirty work, he would be the very last man to accept one of those useful instruments as a husband for his stepdaughter. He knew all this; and knew that, apart from all worldly considerations, there was an impassable gulf84 between himself and Charlotte. What could there be in common between the unprincipled companion of Horatio Paget and this innocent girl, whose darkest sin had been a neglected lesson or an ill-written exercise? If he could have given her a home and a position, an untarnished name and respectable associations, he would even yet have been unworthy of her affection, unable to assure her happiness.
“I am a scoundrel and an adventurer,” he said to himself, in his most contemptuous spirit. “If some benevolent85 fairy were to give me the brightest home that was ever created for man, and Charlotte for my wife, I daresay I should grow tired of my happiness in a week or two, and go out some night to look for a place where I could play billiards86 and drink beer. Is there any woman upon this earth who could render my existence supportable without billiards and beer?”
Knowing himself much better than the Grecian philosopher seemed to think it possible for human nature to know itself, Mr. Hawkehurst decided87 that it was his bounden duty, both for his own sake and that of the young lady in question, to keep clear of the house in which Miss Halliday lived, and the avenue in which she was wont to walk. He told himself this a dozen times a day, and yet he made his appearance at the Lawn whenever he had the poorest shadow of an excuse for going there; and it seemed as if the whole business of his life lay at the two ends of Charlotte’s favourite avenue, so often did he find himself called upon to perambulate that especial thoroughfare. He knew that he was weak and foolish and dishonourable; he knew that he was sowing the dragon’s teeth from which were to spring up armed demons88 that would rend14 and tear him. But Charlotte’s eyes were unspeakably bright and bewitching, and Charlotte’s voice was very sweet and tender. A thrilling consciousness that he was not altogether an indifferent person in Charlotte’s consideration had possessed89 him of late when he found himself in that young lady’s society, and a happiness which had hitherto been strange to him gave a new zest90 to his purposeless life.
He still affected91 the old indifference92 of manner, the idle listless tone of a being who has finished with all the joys and sorrows, affections and aspirations93, of the world in which he lives. But the pretence94 had of late become a very shallow one. In Charlotte’s presence he was eager and interested in spite of himself — childishly eager about the veriest trifles which interested her. Love had taken up the glass of Time; and the days and hours were reckoned by a new standard; everything in the world had suffered some wondrous95 change, which Valentine Hawkehurst tried in vain to understand. The very earth upon which he walked had undergone some mystic process of transformation; the very streets of London were new to him. He had known Kensington-gardens from his boyhood; but not those enchanted96 avenues of beech97 and elm in which he walked with Charlotte. In the plainest and most commonplace phraseology, Mr. Hawkehurst had fallen in love. This penniless adventurer, who at eight-and-twenty years of age was steeped to the lips in the worst experiences of a very indifferent world, found himself all at once hanging upon the words and living upon the looks of an ignorant schoolgirl.
The discovery that he was capable of this tender weakness had an almost overwhelming effect upon Mr. Hawkehurst. He was ashamed of this touch of humanity, this foolish affection which had awakened98 all that was purest and best in a nature that had been so long abandoned to degrading influences. For some time he fought resolutely99 against that which he considered his folly; but the training which had made him the master of many a perplexing position had not given him the mastery over his own inclinations100; and when he found that Charlotte’s society had become the grand necessity of his life, he abandoned himself to his fate without further resistance. He let himself drift with the tide that was so much stronger than himself; and if there were breakers ahead, or fatal rocks lurking101 invisible beneath the blue waters, he must take his chance. His frail102 bark must go to pieces when her time came. In the meanwhile it was so delicious to float upon the summer sea, that a man could afford to forget future possibilities in the way of rocks and quicksands.
Miss Paget had known very few pleasures in the course of her uncared-for youth; but she hitherto had experienced no such anguish103 as that which she had now to endure in her daily intercourse104 with Valentine and Charlotte. She underwent her martyrdom bravely, and no prying105 eye discovered the sufferings which her proud nature supported in silence. “Who takes any heed106 of my feelings, or cares whether I am glad or sorry?” she thought; “he does not.”
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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versatile
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| adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的 | |
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expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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lodge
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disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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accomplishments
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delightful
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vitality
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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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chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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pecuniary
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trifling
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villa
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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lodging
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instilled
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sneer
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sneers
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eligible
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delicacy
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conclusively
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determined
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tactician
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| n. 战术家, 策士 | |
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plunge
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paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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saluted
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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stifling
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prim
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suburban
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patrician
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| adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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39
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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40
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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41
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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42
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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rapport
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| n.和睦，意见一致 | |
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53
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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54
gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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55
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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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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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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stockbroker
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| n.股票（或证券），经纪人（或机构） | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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imbibing
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| v.吸收( imbibe的现在分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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withhold
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| v.拒绝，不给；使停止，阻挡 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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76
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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piquant
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| adj.辛辣的，开胃的，令人兴奋的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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82
stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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84
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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87
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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88
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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93
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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95
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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96
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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97
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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98
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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99
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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100
inclinations
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| 倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡 | |
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101
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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102
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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103
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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104
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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105
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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106
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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