“They’re not good days, you know,” he had said to Fanny Assingham after declaring himself grateful for finding her, and then, with his cup of tea, putting her in possession of the latest news — the documents signed an hour ago, de part et d’autre, and the telegram from his backers, who had reached Paris the morning before, and who, pausing there a little, poor dears, seemed to think the whole thing a tremendous lark1. “We’re very simple folk, mere2 country cousins compared with you,” he had also observed, “and Paris, for my sister and her husband, is the end of the world. London therefore will be more or less another planet. It has always been, as with so many of us, quite their Mecca, but this is their first real caravan3; they’ve mainly known ‘old England’ as a shop for articles in india-rubber and leather, in which they’ve dressed themselves as much as possible. Which all means, however, that you’ll see them, all of them, wreathed in smiles. We must be very easy with them. Maggie’s too wonderful — her preparations are on a scale! She insists on taking in the sposi and my uncle. The, others will come to me. I’ve been engaging their rooms at the hotel, and, with all those solemn signatures of an hour ago, that brings the case home to me.”
“Do you mean you’re afraid?” his hostess had amusedly asked.
“Terribly afraid. I’ve now but to wait to see the monster come. They’re not good days; they’re neither one thing nor the other. I’ve really got nothing, yet I’ve everything to lose. One doesn’t know what still may happen.”
The way she laughed at him was for an instant almost irritating; it came out, for his fancy, from behind the white curtain. It was a sign, that is, of her deep serenity4, which worried instead of soothing5 him. And to be soothed7, after all, to be tided over, in his mystic impatience8, to be told what he could understand and believe — that was what he had come for. “Marriage then,” said Mrs. Assingham, “is what you call the monster? I admit it’s a fearful thing at the best; but, for heaven’s sake, if that’s what you’re thinking of, don’t run away from it.”
“Ah, to run away from it would be to run away from you,” the Prince replied; “and I’ve already told you often enough how I depend on you to see me through.” He so liked the way she took this, from the corner of her sofa, that he gave his sincerity9 — for it WAS sincerity — fuller expression. “I’m starting on the great voyage — across the unknown sea; my ship’s all rigged and appointed, the cargo’s stowed away and the company complete. But what seems the matter with me is that I can’t sail alone; my ship must be one of a pair, must have, in the waste of waters, a — what do you call it?— a consort10. I don’t ask you to stay on board with me, but I must keep your sail in sight for orientation11. I don’t in the least myself know, I assure you, the points of the compass. But with a lead I can perfectly12 follow. You MUST be my lead.”
“How can you be sure,” she asked, “where I should take you?”
“Why, from your having brought me safely thus far. I should never have got here without you. You’ve provided the ship itself, and, if you’ve not quite seen me aboard, you’ve attended me, ever so kindly13, to the dock. Your own vessel14 is, all conveniently, in the next berth15, and you can’t desert me now.”
She showed him again her amusement, which struck him even as excessive, as if, to his surprise, he made her also a little nervous; she treated him in fine as if he were not uttering truths, but making pretty figures for her diversion. “My vessel, dear Prince?” she smiled. “What vessel, in the world, have I? This little house is all our ship, Bob’s and mine — and thankful we are, now, to have it. We’ve wandered far, living, as you may say, from hand to mouth, without rest for the soles of our feet. But the time has come for us at last to draw in.”
He made at this, the young man, an indignant protest. “You talk about rest — it’s too selfish!— when you’re just launching me on adventures?”
She shook her head with her kind lucidity16. “Not adventures — heaven forbid! You’ve had yours — as I’ve had mine; and my idea has been, all along, that we should neither of us begin again. My own last, precisely17, has been doing for you all you so prettily18 mention. But it consists simply in having conducted you to rest. You talk about ships, but they’re not the comparison. Your tossings are over — you’re practically IN port. The port,” she concluded, “of the Golden Isles19.”
He looked about, to put himself more in relation with the place; then, after an hesitation20, seemed to speak certain words instead of certain others. “Oh, I know where I AM—! I do decline to be left, but what I came for, of course, was to thank you. If today has seemed, for the first time, the end of preliminaries, I feel how little there would have been any at all without you. The first were wholly yours.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Assingham, “they were remarkably21 easy. I’ve seen them, I’ve HAD them,” she smiled, “more difficult. Everything, you must feel, went of itself. So, you must feel, everything still goes.”
The Prince quickly agreed. “Oh, beautifully! But you had the conception.”
“Ah, Prince, so had you!”
He looked at her harder a moment. “You had it first. You had it most.”
She returned his look as if it had made her wonder. “I LIKED it, if that’s what you mean. But you liked it surely yourself. I protest, that I had easy work with you. I had only at last — when I thought it was time — to speak for you.”
“All that is quite true. But you’re leaving me, all the same, you’re leaving me — you’re washing your hands of me,” he went on. “However, that won’t be easy; I won’t BE left.” And he had turned his eyes about again, taking in the pretty room that she had just described as her final refuge, the place of peace for a world-worn couple, to which she had lately retired22 with “Bob.” “I shall keep this spot in sight. Say what you will, I shall need you. I’m not, you know,” he declared, “going to give you up for anybody.”
“If you’re afraid — which of course you’re not — are you trying to make me the same?” she asked after a moment.
He waited a minute too, then answered her with a question. “You say you ‘liked’ it, your undertaking23 to make my engagement possible. It remains24 beautiful for me that you did; it’s charming and unforgettable. But, still more, it’s mysterious and wonderful. WHY, you dear delightful25 woman, did you like it?”
“I scarce know what to make,” she said, “of such an inquiry26. If you haven’t by this time found out yourself, what meaning can anything I say have for you? Don’t you really after all feel,” she added while nothing came from him —“aren’t you conscious every minute, of the perfection of the creature of whom I’ve put you into possession?”
“Every minute — gratefully conscious. But that’s exactly the ground of my question. It wasn’t only a matter of your handing me over — it was a matter of your handing her. It was a matter of HER fate still more than of mine. You thought all the good of her that one woman can think of another, and yet, by your account, you enjoyed assisting at her risk.”
She had kept her eyes on him while he spoke27, and this was what, visibly, determined28 a repetition for her. “Are you trying to frighten me?”
“Ah, that’s a foolish view — I should be too vulgar. You apparently29 can’t understand either my good faith or my humility30. I’m awfully31 humble,” the young man insisted; “that’s the way I’ve been feeling today, with everything so finished and ready. And you won’t take me for serious.”
She continued to face him as if he really troubled her a little. “Oh, you deep old Italians!”
“There you are,” he returned —“it’s what I wanted you to come to. That’s the responsible note.”
“Yes,” she went on —“if you’re ‘humble’ you MUST be dangerous.”
She had a pause while he only smiled; then she said: “I don’t in the least want to lose sight of you. But even if I did I shouldn’t think it right.”
“Thank you for that — it’s what I needed of you. I’m sure, after all, that the more you’re with me the more I shall understand. It’s the only thing in the world I want. I’m excellent, I really think, all round — except that I’m stupid. I can do pretty well anything I SEE. But I’ve got to see it first.” And he pursued his demonstration32. “I don’t in the least mind its having to be shown me — in fact I like that better. Therefore it is that I want, that I shall always want, your eyes. Through THEM I wish to look — even at any risk of their showing me what I mayn’t like. For then,” he wound up, “I shall know. And of that I shall never be afraid.”
She might quite have been waiting to see what he would come to, but she spoke with a certain impatience. “What on earth are you talking about?”
But he could perfectly say: “Of my real, honest fear of being ‘off’ some day, of being wrong, WITHOUT knowing it. That’s what I shall always trust you for — to tell me when I am. No — with you people it’s a sense. We haven’t got it — not as you have. Therefore —!” But he had said enough. “Ecco!” he simply smiled.
It was not to be concealed33 that he worked upon her, but of course she had always liked him. “I should be interested,” she presently remarked, “to see some sense you don’t possess.”
Well, he produced one on the spot. “The moral, dear Mrs. Assingham. I mean, always, as you others consider it. I’ve of course something that in our poor dear backward old Rome sufficiently34 passes for it. But it’s no more like yours than the tortuous35 stone staircase — half-ruined into the bargain!— in some castle of our quattrocento is like the ‘lightning elevator’ in one of Mr. Verver’s fifteen-storey buildings. Your moral sense works by steam — it sends you up like a rocket. Ours is slow and steep and unlighted, with so many of the steps missing that — well, that it’s as short, in almost any case, to turn round and come down again.”
“Trusting,” Mrs. Assingham smiled, “to get up some other way?”
“Yes — or not to have to get up at all. However,” he added, “I told you that at the beginning.”
“Machiavelli!” she simply exclaimed.
“You do me too much honour. I wish indeed I had his genius. However, if you really believe I have his perversity36 you wouldn’t say it. But it’s all right,” he gaily37 enough concluded; “I shall always have you to come to.”
On this, for a little, they sat face to face; after which, without comment, she asked him if he would have more tea. All she would give him, he promptly38 signified; and he developed, making her laugh, his idea that the tea of the English race was somehow their morality, “made,” with boiling water, in a little pot, so that the more of it one drank the more moral one would become. His drollery39 served as a transition, and she put to him several questions about his sister and the others, questions as to what Bob, in particular, Colonel Assingham, her husband, could do for the arriving gentlemen, whom, by the Prince’s leave, he would immediately go to see. He was funny, while they talked, about his own people too, whom he described, with anecdotes41 of their habits, imitations of their manners and prophecies of their conduct, as more rococo42 than anything Cadogan Place would ever have known. This, Mrs. Assingham professed43, was exactly what would endear them to her, and that, in turn, drew from her visitor a fresh declaration of all the comfort of his being able so to depend on her. He had been with her, at this point, some twenty minutes; but he had paid her much longer visits, and he stayed now as if to make his attitude prove his appreciation44. He stayed moreover — THAT was really the sign of the hour — in spite of the nervous unrest that had brought him and that had in truth much rather fed on the scepticism by which she had apparently meant to soothe6 it. She had not soothed him, and there arrived, remarkably, a moment when the cause of her failure gleamed out. He had not frightened her, as she called it — he felt that; yet she was herself not at ease. She had been nervous, though trying to disguise it; the sight of him, following on the announcement of his name, had shown her as disconcerted. This conviction, for the young man, deepened and sharpened; yet with the effect, too, of making him glad in spite of it. It was as if, in calling, he had done even better than he intended. For it was somehow IMPORTANT— that was what it was — that there should be at this hour something the matter with Mrs. Assingham, with whom, in all their acquaintance, so considerable now, there had never been the least little thing the matter. To wait thus and watch for it was to know, of a truth, that there was something the matter with HIM; since strangely, with so little to go upon — his heart had positively45 begun to beat to the tune46 of suspense47. It fairly befell at last, for a climax48, that they almost ceased to pretend — to pretend, that is, to cheat each other with forms. The unspoken had come up, and there was a crisis — neither could have said how long it lasted — during which they were reduced, for all interchange, to looking at each other on quite an inordinate49 scale. They might at this moment, in their positively portentous50 stillness, have been keeping it up for a wager51, sitting for their photograph or even enacting52 a tableau-vivant.
The spectator of whom they would thus well have been worthy53 might have read meanings of his own into the intensity54 of their communion — or indeed, even without meanings, have found his account, aesthetically55, in some gratified play of our modern sense of type, so scantly56 to be distinguished57 from our modern sense of beauty. Type was there, at the worst, in Mrs. Assingham’s dark, neat head, on which the crisp black hair made waves so fine and so numerous that she looked even more in the fashion of the hour than she desired. Full of discriminations against the obvious, she had yet to accept a flagrant appearance and to make the best of misleading signs. Her richness of hue58, her generous nose, her eyebrows59 marked like those of an actress — these things, with an added amplitude60 of person on which middle age had set its seal, seemed to present her insistently61 as a daughter of the south, or still more of the east, a creature formed by hammocks and divans62, fed upon sherbets and waited upon by slaves. She looked as if her most active effort might be to take up, as she lay back, her mandolin, or to share a sugared fruit with a pet gazelle. She was in fact, however, neither a pampered63 Jewess nor a lazy Creole; New York had been, recordedly, her birthplace and “Europe” punctually her discipline. She wore yellow and purple because she thought it better, as she said, while one was about it, to look like the Queen of Sheba than like a revendeuse; she put pearls in her hair and crimson64 and gold in her tea-gown for the same reason: it was her theory that nature itself had overdressed her and that her only course was to drown, as it was hopeless to try to chasten, the overdressing. So she was covered and surrounded with “things,” which were frankly65 toys and shams66, a part of the amusement with which she rejoiced to supply her friends. These friends were in the game that of playing with the disparity between her aspect and her character. Her character was attested67 by the second movement of her face, which convinced the beholder68 that her vision of the humours of the world was not supine, not passive. She enjoyed, she needed the warm air of friendship, but the eyes of the American city looked out, somehow, for the opportunity of it, from under the lids of Jerusalem. With her false indolence, in short, her false leisure, her false pearls and palms and courts and fountains, she was a person for whom life was multitudinous detail, detail that left her, as it at any moment found her, unappalled and unwearied.
“Sophisticated as I may appear”— it was her frequent phrase — she had found sympathy her best resource. It gave her plenty to do; it made her, as she also said, sit up. She had in her life two great holes to fill, and she described herself as dropping social scraps69 into them as she had known old ladies, in her early American time, drop morsels70 of silk into the baskets in which they collected the material for some eventual71 patchwork72 quilt.
One of these gaps in Mrs. Assingham’s completeness was her want of children; the other was her want of wealth. It was wonderful how little either, in the fulness of time, came to show; sympathy and curiosity could render their objects practically filial, just as an English husband who in his military years had “run” everything in his regiment73 could make economy blossom like the rose. Colonel Bob had, a few years after his marriage, left the army, which had clearly, by that time, done its laudable all for the enrichment of his personal experience, and he could thus give his whole time to the gardening in question. There reigned74 among the younger friends of this couple a legend, almost too venerable for historical criticism, that the marriage itself, the happiest of its class, dated from the far twilight75 of the age, a primitive76 period when such things — such things as American girls accepted as “good enough”— had not begun to be;— so that the pleasant pair had been, as to the risk taken on either side, bold and original, honourably77 marked, for the evening of life, as discoverers of a kind of hymeneal Northwest Passage. Mrs. Assingham knew better, knew there had been no historic hour, from that of Pocahontas down, when some young Englishman hadn’t precipitately78 believed and some American girl hadn’t, with a few more gradations, availed herself to the full of her incapacity to doubt; but she accepted resignedly the laurel of the founder79, since she was in fact pretty well the doyenne, above ground, of her transplanted tribe, and since, above all, she HAD invented combinations, though she had not invented Bob’s own. It was he who had done that, absolutely puzzled it out, by himself, from his first odd glimmer-resting upon it moreover, through the years to come, as proof enough, in him, by itself, of the higher cleverness. If she kept her own cleverness up it was largely that he should have full credit. There were moments in truth when she privately80 felt how little — striking out as he had done — he could have afforded that she should show the common limits. But Mrs. Assingham’s cleverness was in truth tested when her present visitor at last said to her: “I don’t think, you know, that you’re treating me quite right. You’ve something on your mind that you don’t tell me.”
It was positive too that her smile, in reply, was a trifle dim. “Am I obliged to tell you everything I have on my mind?”
“It isn’t a question of everything, but it’s a question of anything that may particularly concern me. Then you shouldn’t keep it back. You know with what care I desire to proceed, taking everything into account and making no mistake that may possibly injure HER.”
Mrs. Assingham, at this, had after an instant an odd interrogation. “‘Her’?”
“Her and him. Both our friends. Either Maggie or her father.”
“I have something on my mind,” Mrs. Assingham presently returned; “something has happened for which I hadn’t been prepared. But it isn’t anything that properly concerns you.”
The Prince, with immediate40 gaiety, threw back his head. “What do you mean by ‘properly’? I somehow see volumes in it. It’s the way people put a thing when they put it — well, wrong. I put things right. What is it that has happened for me?”
His hostess, the next moment, had drawn81 spirit from his tone.
“Oh, I shall be delighted if you’ll take your share of it. Charlotte Stant is in London. She has just been here.”
“Miss Stant? Oh really?” The Prince expressed clear surprise — a transparency through which his eyes met his friend’s with a certain hardness of concussion82. “She has arrived from America?” he then quickly asked.
“She appears to have arrived this noon — coming up from Southampton; at an hotel. She dropped upon me after luncheon83 and was here for more than an hour.”
The young man heard with interest, though not with an interest too great for his gaiety. “You think then I’ve a share in it? What IS my share?”
“Why, any you like — the one you seemed just now eager to take. It was you yourself who insisted.”
He looked at her on this with conscious inconsistency, and she could now see that he had changed colour. But he was always easy.
“I didn’t know then what the matter was.”
“You didn’t think it could be so bad?”
“Do you call it very bad?” the young man asked. “Only,” she smiled, “because that’s the way it seems to affect YOU.”
He hesitated, still with the trace of his quickened colour, still looking at her, still adjusting his manner. “But you allowed you were upset.”
“To the extent — yes — of not having in the least looked for her. Any more,” said Mrs. Assingham, “than I judge Maggie to have done.”
The Prince thought; then as if glad to be able to say something very natural and true: “No — quite right. Maggie hasn’t looked for her. But I’m sure,” he added, “she’ll be delighted to see her.”
“That, certainly”— and his hostess spoke with a different shade of gravity.
“She’ll be quite overjoyed,” the Prince went on. “Has Miss Stant now gone to her?”
“She has gone back to her hotel, to bring her things here. I can’t have her,” said Mrs. Assingham, “alone at an hotel.”
“No; I see.”
“If she’s here at all she must stay with me.” He quite took it in. “So she’s coming now?”
“I expect her at any moment. If you wait you’ll see her.”
“Oh,” he promptly declared —“charming!” But this word came out as if, a little, in sudden substitution for some other. It sounded accidental, whereas he wished to be firm. That accordingly was what he next showed himself. “If it wasn’t for what’s going on these next days Maggie would certainly want to have her. In fact,” he lucidly84 continued, “isn’t what’s happening just a reason to MAKE her want to?” Mrs. Assingham, for answer, only looked at him, and this, the next instant, had apparently had more effect than if she had spoken. For he asked a question that seemed incongruous. “What has she come for!”
It made his companion laugh. “Why, for just what you say. For your marriage.”
“Mine?”— he wondered.
“Maggie’s — it’s the same thing. It’s ‘for’ your great event. And then,” said Mrs. Assingham, “she’s so lonely.”
“Has she given you that as a reason?”
“I scarcely remember — she gave me so many. She abounds85, poor dear, in reasons. But there’s one that, whatever she does, I always remember for myself.”
“And which is that?” He looked as if he ought to guess but couldn’t.
“Why, the fact that she has no home — absolutely none whatever. She’s extraordinarily86 alone.”
Again he took it in. “And also has no great means.”
“Very small ones. Which is not, however, with the expense of railways and hotels, a reason for her running to and fro.”
“On the contrary. But she doesn’t like her country.”
“Hers, my dear man?— it’s little enough ‘hers.’” The attribution, for the moment, amused his hostess. “She has rebounded87 now — but she has had little enough else to do with it.”
“Oh, I say hers,” the Prince pleasantly explained, “very much as, at this time of day, I might say mine. I quite feel, I assure you, as if the great place already more or less belonged to ME.”
“That’s your good fortune and your point of view. You own — or you soon practically WILL own — so much of it. Charlotte owns almost nothing in the world, she tells me, but two colossal88 trunks-only one of which I have given her leave to introduce into this house. She’ll depreciate89 to you,” Mrs. Assingham added, “your property.”
He thought of these things, he thought of every thing; but he had always his resource at hand of turning all to the easy. “Has she come with designs upon me?” And then in a moment, as if even this were almost too grave, he sounded the note that had least to do with himself. “Est-elle toujours aussi belle90?” That was the furthest point, somehow, to which Charlotte Stant could be relegated91.
Mrs. Assingham treated it freely. “Just the same. The person in the world, to my sense, whose looks are most subject to appreciation. It’s all in the way she affects you. One admires her if one doesn’t happen not to. So, as well, one criticises her.”
“Ah, that’s not fair!” said the Prince.
“To criticise92 her? Then there you are! You’re answered.”
“I’m answered.” He took it, humorously, as his lesson — sank his previous self-consciousness, with excellent effect, in grateful docility93. “I only meant that there are perhaps better things to be done with Miss Stant than to criticise her. When once you begin THAT, with anyone —!” He was vague and kind.
“I quite agree that it’s better to keep out of it as long as one can. But when one MUST do it —”
“Yes?” he asked as she paused. “Then know what you mean.”
“I see. Perhaps,” he smiled, “I don’t know what I mean.”
“Well, it’s what, just now, in all ways, you particularly should know.” Mrs. Assingham, however, made no more of this, having, before anything else, apparently, a scruple94 about the tone she had just used. “I quite understand, of course, that, given her great friendship with Maggie, she should have wanted to be present. She has acted impulsively95 — but she has acted generously.”
“She has acted beautifully,” said the Prince.
“I say ‘generously’ because I mean she hasn’t, in any way, counted the cost. She’ll have it to count, in a manner, now,” his hostess continued. “But that doesn’t matter.”
He could see how little. “You’ll look after her.”
“I’ll look after her.”
“So it’s all right.”
“It’s all right,” said Mrs. Assingham. “Then why are you troubled?”
It pulled her up — but only for a minute. “I’m not — any more than you.”
The Prince’s dark blue eyes were of the finest, and, on occasion, precisely, resembled nothing so much as the high windows of a Roman palace, of an historic front by one of the great old designers, thrown open on a feast-day to the golden air. His look itself, at such times, suggested an image — that of some very noble personage who, expected, acclaimed96 by the crowd in the street and with old precious stuffs falling over the sill for his support, had gaily and gallantly97 come to show himself: always moreover less in his own interest than in that of spectators and subjects whose need to admire, even to gape98, was periodically to be considered. The young man’s expression became, after this fashion, something vivid and concrete — a beautiful personal presence, that of a prince in very truth, a ruler, warrior99, patron, lighting100 up brave architecture and diffusing101 the sense of a function. It had been happily said of his face that the figure thus appearing in the great frame was the ghost of some proudest ancestor. Whoever the ancestor now, at all events, the Prince was, for Mrs. Assingham’s benefit, in view of the people. He seemed, leaning on crimson damask, to take in the bright day. He looked younger than his years; he was beautiful, innocent, vague.
“Oh, well, I’M not!” he rang out clear.
“I should like to SEE you, sir!” she said. “For you wouldn’t have a shadow of excuse.” He showed how he agreed that he would have been at a loss for one, and the fact of their serenity was thus made as important as if some danger of its opposite had directly menaced them. The only thing was that if the evidence of their cheer was so established Mrs. Assingham had a little to explain her original manner, and she came to this before they dropped the question. “My first impulse is always to behave, about everything, as if I feared complications. But I don’t fear them — I really like them. They’re quite my element.”
He deferred102, for her, to this account of herself. “But still,” he said, “if we’re not in the presence of a complication.”
She hesitated. “A handsome, clever, odd girl staying with one is always a complication.”
The young man weighed it almost as if the question were new to him. “And will she stay very long?”
His friend gave a laugh. “How in the world can I know? I’ve scarcely asked her.”
“Ah yes. You can’t.”
But something in the tone of it amused her afresh. “Do you think you could?”
“I?” he wondered.
“Do you think you could get it out of her for me — the probable length of her stay?”
He rose bravely enough to the occasion and the challenge. “I daresay, if you were to give me the chance.”
“Here it is then for you,” she answered; for she had heard, within the minute, the stop of a cab at her door. “She’s back.”
收听单词发音 |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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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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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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consort
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orientation
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| n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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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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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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16
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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19
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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21
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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22
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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23
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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24
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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25
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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26
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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27
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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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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29
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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30
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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31
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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33
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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34
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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35
tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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36
perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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39
drollery
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| n.开玩笑，说笑话；滑稽可笑的图画（或故事、小戏等） | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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41
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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42
rococo
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| n.洛可可；adj.过分修饰的 | |
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43
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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44
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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47
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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48
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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49
inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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50
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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51
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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52
enacting
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的现在分词 ) | |
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53
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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54
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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aesthetically
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| adv.美地，艺术地 | |
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scantly
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| 缺乏地，仅仅 | |
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57
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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59
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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amplitude
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| n.广大；充足；振幅 | |
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insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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62
divans
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| n.（可作床用的）矮沙发( divan的名词复数 )；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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66
shams
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| 假象( sham的名词复数 )； 假货； 虚假的行为（或感情、言语等）； 假装…的人 | |
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attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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68
beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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69
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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70
morsels
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| n.一口( morsel的名词复数 )；（尤指食物）小块，碎屑 | |
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71
eventual
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| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
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72
patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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73
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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75
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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76
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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77
honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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78
precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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79
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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80
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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81
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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82
concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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83
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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84
lucidly
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| adv.清透地，透明地 | |
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85
abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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86
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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87
rebounded
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| 弹回( rebound的过去式和过去分词 )； 反弹； 产生反作用； 未能奏效 | |
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88
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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89
depreciate
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| v.降价，贬值，折旧 | |
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90
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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91
relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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92
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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93
docility
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| n.容易教，易驾驶，驯服 | |
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94
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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96
acclaimed
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| adj.受人欢迎的 | |
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97
gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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98
gape
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| v.张口，打呵欠，目瞪口呆地凝视 | |
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99
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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100
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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101
diffusing
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| （使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的现在分词 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播 | |
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102
deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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