They had been alone that evening — alone as a party of six, and four of them, after dinner, under suggestion not to be resisted, sat down to “bridge” in the smoking-room. They had passed together to that apartment, on rising from table, Charlotte and Mrs. Assingham alike indulgent, always, to tobacco, and in fact practising an emulation1 which, as Fanny said, would, for herself, had the Colonel not issued an interdict2 based on the fear of her stealing his cigars, have stopped only at the short pipe. Here cards had with inevitable3 promptness asserted their rule, the game forming itself, as had often happened before, of Mr. Verver with Mrs. Assingham for partner and of the Prince with Mrs. Verver. The Colonel, who had then asked of Maggie license4 to relieve his mind of a couple of letters for the earliest post out on the morrow, was addressing himself to this task at the other end of the room, and the Princess herself had welcomed the comparatively hushed hour — for the bridge-players were serious and silent — much in the mood of a tired actress who has the good fortune to be “off,” while her mates are on, almost long enough for a nap on the property sofa in the wing. Maggie’s nap, had she been able to snatch forty winks6, would have been of the spirit rather than of the sense; yet as she subsided7, near a lamp, with the last salmon-coloured French periodical, she was to fail, for refreshment8, even of that sip9 of independence.
There was no question for her, as she found, of closing her eyes and getting away; they strayed back to life, in the stillness, over the top of her Review; she could lend herself to none of those refinements10 of the higher criticism with which its pages bristled11; she was there, where her companions were, there again and more than ever there; it was as if, of a sudden, they had been made, in their personal intensity12 and their rare complexity13 of relation, freshly importunate14 to her. It was the first evening there had been no one else. Mrs. Rance and the Lutches were due the next day; but meanwhile the facts of the situation were upright for her round the green cloth and the silver flambeaux; the fact of her father’s wife’s lover facing his mistress; the fact of her father sitting, all unsounded and unblinking, between them; the fact of Charlotte keeping it up, keeping up everything, across the table, with her husband beside her; the fact of Fanny Assingham, wonderful creature, placed opposite to the three and knowing more about each, probably, when one came to think, than either of them knew of either. Erect15 above all for her was the sharp-edged fact of the relation of the whole group, individually and collectively, to herself — herself so speciously16 eliminated for the hour, but presumably more present to the attention of each than the next card to be played.
Yes, under that imputation17, to her sense, they sat — the imputation of wondering, beneath and behind all their apparently18 straight play, if she weren’t really watching them from her corner and consciously, as might be said, holding them in her hand. She was asking herself at last how they could bear it — for, though cards were as nought19 to her and she could follow no move, so that she was always, on such occasions, out of the party, they struck her as conforming alike, in the matter of gravity and propriety20, to the stiff standard of the house. Her father, she knew, was a high adept21, one of the greatest — she had been ever, in her stupidity, his small, his sole despair; Amerigo excelled easily, as he understood and practised every art that could beguile22 large leisure; Mrs. Assingham and Charlotte, moreover, were accounted as “good” as members of a sex incapable23 of the nobler consistency24 could be. Therefore, evidently, they were not, all so up to their usual form, merely passing it off, whether for her or for themselves; and the amount of enjoyed, or at least achieved, security represented by so complete a conquest of appearances was what acted on her nerves, precisely25, with a kind of provocative26 force. She found herself, for five minutes, thrilling with the idea of the prodigious27 effect that, just as she sat there near them, she had at her command; with the sense that if she were but different — oh, ever so different!— all this high decorum would hang by a hair. There reigned28 for her, absolutely, during these vertiginous29 moments, that fascination30 of the monstrous31, that temptation of the horribly possible, which we so often trace by its breaking out suddenly, lest it should go further, in unexplained retreats and reactions.
After it had been thus vividly32 before her for a little that, springing up under her wrong and making them all start, stare and turn pale, she might sound out their doom33 in a single sentence, a sentence easy to choose among several of the lurid34 — after she had faced that blinding light and felt it turn to blackness, she rose from her place, laying aside her magazine, and moved slowly round the room, passing near the card-players and pausing an instant behind the chairs in turn. Silent and discreet35, she bent36 a vague mild face upon them, as if to signify that, little as she followed their doings, she wished them well; and she took from each, across the table, in the common solemnity, an upward recognition which she was to carry away with her on her moving out to the terrace, a few minutes later. Her father and her husband, Mrs. Assingham and Charlotte, had done nothing but meet her eyes; yet the difference in these demonstrations37 made each a separate passage — which was all the more wonderful since, with the secret behind every face, they had alike tried to look at her THROUGH it and in denial of it.
It all left her, as she wandered off, with the strangest of impressions — the sense, forced upon her as never yet, of an appeal, a positive confidence, from the four pairs of eyes, that was deeper than any negation39, and that seemed to speak, on the part of each, of some relation to be contrived40 by her, a relation with herself, which would spare the individual the danger, the actual present strain, of the relation with the others. They thus tacitly put it upon her to be disposed of, the whole complexity of their peril41, and she promptly42 saw why because she was there, and there just as she was, to lift it off them and take it; to charge herself with it as the scapegoat43 of old, of whom she had once seen a terrible picture, had been charged with the sins of the people and had gone forth44 into the desert to sink under his burden and die. That indeed wasn’t THEIR design and their interest, that she should sink under hers; it wouldn’t be their feeling that she should do anything but live, live on somehow for their benefit, and even as much as possible in their company, to keep proving to them that they had truly escaped and that she was still there to simplify. This idea of her simplifying, and of their combined struggle, dim as yet but steadily45 growing, toward the perception of her adopting it from them, clung to her while she hovered46 on the terrace, where the summer night was so soft that she scarce needed the light shawl she had picked up. Several of the long windows of the occupied rooms stood open to it, and the light came out in vague shafts47 and fell upon the old smooth stones. The hour was moonless and starless and the air heavy and still — which was why, in her evening dress, she need fear no chill and could get away, in the outer darkness, from that provocation48 of opportunity which had assaulted her, within, on her sofa, as a beast might have leaped at her throat.
Nothing in fact was stranger than the way in which, when she had remained there a little, her companions, watched by her through one of the windows, actually struck her as almost consciously and gratefully safer. They might have been — really charming as they showed in the beautiful room, and Charlotte certainly, as always, magnificently handsome and supremely51 distinguished52 — they might have been figures rehearsing some play of which she herself was the author; they might even, for the happy appearance they continued to present, have been such figures as would, by the strong note of character in each, fill any author with the certitude of success, especially of their own histrionic. They might in short have represented any mystery they would; the point being predominantly that the key to the mystery, the key that could wind and unwind it without a snap of the spring, was there in her pocket — or rather, no doubt, clasped at this crisis in her hand and pressed, as she walked back and forth, to her breast. She walked to the end and far out of the light; she returned and saw the others still where she had left them; she passed round the house and looked into the drawing-room, lighted also, but empty now, and seeming to speak the more, in its own voice, of all the possibilities she controlled. Spacious53 and splendid, like a stage again awaiting a drama, it was a scene she might people, by the press of her spring, either with serenities and dignities and decencies, or with terrors and shames and ruins, things as ugly as those formless fragments of her golden bowl she was trying so hard to pick up.
She continued to walk and continued to pause; she stopped afresh for the look into the smoking-room, and by this time — it was as if the recognition had of itself arrested her — she saw as in a picture, with the temptation she had fled from quite extinct, why it was she had been able to give herself so little, from the first, to the vulgar heat of her wrong. She might fairly, as she watched them, have missed it as a lost thing; have yearned54 for it, for the straight vindictive55 view, the rights of resentment56, the rages of jealousy57, the protests of passion, as for something she had been cheated of not least: a range of feelings which for many women would have meant so much, but which for HER husband’s wife, for HER father’s daughter, figured nothing nearer to experience than a wild eastern caravan58, looming59 into view with crude colours in the sun, fierce pipes in the air, high spears against the sky, all a thrill, a natural joy to mingle60 with, but turning off short before it reached her and plunging61 into other defiles62. She saw at all events why horror itself had almost failed her; the horror that, foreshadowed in advance, would, by her thought, have made everything that was unaccustomed in her cry out with pain; the horror of finding evil seated, all at its ease, where she had only dreamed of good; the horror of the thing HIDEOUSLY63 behind, behind so much trusted, so much pretended, nobleness, cleverness, tenderness. It was the first sharp falsity she had known in her life, to touch at all, or be touched by; it had met her like some bad-faced stranger surprised in one of the thick-carpeted corridors of a house of quiet on a Sunday afternoon; and yet, yes, amazingly, she had been able to look at terror and disgust only to know that she must put away from her the bitter-sweet of their freshness. The sight, from the window, of the group so constituted, TOLD her why, told her how, named to her, as with hard lips, named straight AT her, so that she must take it full in the face, that other possible relation to the whole fact which alone would bear upon her irresistibly64. It was extraordinary: they positively65 brought home to her that to feel about them in any of the immediate66, inevitable, assuaging67 ways, the ways usually open to innocence68 outraged69 and generosity70 betrayed, would have been to give them up, and that giving them up was, marvellously, not to be thought of. She had never, from the first hour of her state of acquired conviction, given them up so little as now; though she was, no doubt, as the consequence of a step taken a few minutes later, to invoke71 the conception of doing that, if might be, even less. She had resumed her walk — stopping here and there, while she rested on the cool smooth stone balustrade, to draw it out; in the course of which, after a little, she passed again the lights of the empty drawing-room and paused again for what she saw and felt there.
It was not at once, however, that this became quite concrete; that was the effect of her presently making out that Charlotte was in the room, launched and erect there, in the middle, and looking about her; that she had evidently just come round to it, from her card-table, by one of the passages — with the expectation, to all appearance, of joining her stepdaughter. She had pulled up at seeing the great room empty — Maggie not having passed out, on leaving the group, in a manner to be observed. So definite a quest of her, with the bridge-party interrupted or altered for it, was an impression that fairly assailed72 the Princess, and to which something of attitude and aspect, of the air of arrested pursuit and purpose, in Charlotte, together with the suggestion of her next vague movements, quickly added its meaning. This meaning was that she had decided73, that she had been infinitely74 conscious of Maggie’s presence before, that she knew that she would at last find her alone, and that she wanted her, for some reason, enough to have presumably called on Bob Assingham for aid. He had taken her chair and let her go, and the arrangement was for Maggie a signal proof of her earnestness; of the energy, in fact, that, though superficially commonplace in a situation in which people weren’t supposed to be watching each other, was what affected75 our young woman, on the spot, as a breaking of bars. The splendid shining supple76 creature was out of the cage, was at large; and the question now almost grotesquely77 rose of whether she mightn’t by some art, just where she was and before she could go further, be hemmed78 in and secured. It would have been for a moment, in this case, a matter of quickly closing the windows and giving the alarm — with poor Maggie’s sense that, though she couldn’t know what she wanted of her, it was enough for trepidation79 that, at these firm hands, anything should be to say nothing of the sequel of a flight taken again along the terrace, even under the shame of the confessed feebleness of such evasions80 on the part of an outraged wife. It was to this feebleness, none the less, that the outraged wife had presently resorted; the most that could be said for her being, as she felt while she finally stopped short, at a distance, that she could at any rate resist her abjection81 sufficiently82 not to sneak83 into the house by another way and safely reach her room. She had literally84 caught herself in the act of dodging85 and ducking, and it told her there, vividly, in a single word, what she had all along been most afraid of.
She had been afraid of the particular passage with Charlotte that would determine her father’s wife to take him into her confidence as she couldn’t possibly as yet have done, to prepare for him a statement of her wrong, to lay before him the infamy86 of what she was apparently suspected of. This, should she have made up her mind to do it, would rest on a calculation the thought of which evoked87, strangely, other possibilities and visions. It would show her as sufficiently believing in her grasp of her husband to be able to assure herself that, with his daughter thrown on the defensive88, with Maggie’s cause and Maggie’s word, in fine, against her own, it wasn’t Maggie’s that would most certainly carry the day. Such a glimpse of her conceivable idea, which would be founded on reasons all her own, reasons of experience and assurance, impenetrable to others, but intimately familiar to herself — such a glimpse opened out wide as soon as it had come into view; for if so much as this was still firm ground between the elder pair, if the beauty of appearances had been so consistently preserved, it was only the golden bowl as Maggie herself knew it that had been broken. The breakage stood not for any wrought89 discomposure among the triumphant90 three — it stood merely for the dire91 deformity of her attitude toward them. She was unable at the minute, of course, fully49 to measure the difference thus involved for her, and it remained inevitably92 an agitating93 image, the way it might be held over her that if she didn’t, of her own prudence94, satisfy Charlotte as to the reference, in her mocking spirit, of so much of the unuttered and unutterable, of the constantly and unmistakably implied, her father would be invited without further ceremony to recommend her to do so. But ANY confidence, ANY latent operating insolence95, that Mrs. Verver should, thanks to her large native resources, continue to be possessed96 of and to hold in reserve, glimmered97 suddenly as a possible working light and seemed to offer, for meeting her, a new basis and something like a new system. Maggie felt, truly, a rare contraction98 of the heart on making out, the next instant, what the new system would probably have to be-and she had practically done that before perceiving that the thing she feared had already taken place. Charlotte, extending her search, appeared now to define herself vaguely99 in the distance; of this, after an instant, the Princess was sure, though the darkness was thick, for the projected clearness of the smoking-room windows had presently contributed its help. Her friend came slowly into that circle — having also, for herself, by this time, not indistinguishably discovered that Maggie was on the terrace. Maggie, from the end, saw her stop before one of the windows to look at the group within, and then saw her come nearer and pause again, still with a considerable length of the place between them.
Yes, Charlotte had seen she was watching her from afar, and had stopped now to put her further attention to the test. Her face was fixed100 on her, through the night; she was the creature who had escaped by force from her cage, yet there was in her whole motion assuredly, even as so dimly discerned, a kind of portentous101 intelligent stillness. She had escaped with an intention, but with an intention the more definite that it could so accord with quiet measures. The two women, at all events, only hovered there, for these first minutes, face to face over their interval102 and exchanging no sign; the intensity of their mutual103 look might have pierced the night, and Maggie was at last to start with the scared sense of having thus yielded to doubt, to dread104, to hesitation105, for a time that, with no other proof needed, would have completely given her away. How long had she stood staring?— a single minute or five? Long enough, in any case, to have felt herself absolutely take from her visitor something that the latter threw upon her, irresistibly, by this effect of silence, by this effect of waiting and watching, by this effect, unmistakably, of timing106 her indecision and her fear. If then, scared and hanging back, she had, as was so evident, sacrificed all past pretences107, it would have been with the instant knowledge of an immense advantage gained that Charlotte finally saw her come on. Maggie came on with her heart in her hands; she came on with the definite prevision, throbbing109 like the tick of a watch, of a doom impossibly sharp and hard, but to which, after looking at it with her eyes wide open, she had none the less bowed her head. By the time she was at her companion’s side, for that matter, by the time Charlotte had, without a motion, without a word, simply let her approach and stand there, her head was already on the block, so that the consciousness that everything had now gone blurred110 all perception of whether or no the axe111 had fallen. Oh, the “advantage,” it was perfectly112 enough, in truth, with Mrs. Verver; for what was Maggie’s own sense but that of having been thrown over on her back, with her neck, from the first, half broken and her helpless face staring up? That position only could account for the positive grimace113 of weakness and pain produced there by Charlotte’s dignity.
“I’ve come to join you — I thought you would be here.”
“Oh yes, I’m here,” Maggie heard herself return a little flatly. “It’s too close indoors.”
“Very — but close even here.” Charlotte was still and grave — she had even uttered her remark about the temperature with an expressive114 weight that verged115 upon solemnity; so that Maggie, reduced to looking vaguely about at the sky, could only feel her not fail of her purpose. “The air’s heavy as if with thunder — I think there’ll be a storm.” She made the suggestion to carry off an awkwardness — which was a part, always, of her companion’s gain; but the awkwardness didn’t diminish in the silence that followed. Charlotte had said nothing in reply; her brow was dark as with a fixed expression, and her high elegance116, her handsome head and long, straight neck testified, through the dusk, to their inveterate117 completeness and noble erectness118. It was as if what she had come out to do had already begun, and when, as a consequence, Maggie had said helplessly, “Don’t you want something? won’t you have my shawl?” everything might have crumbled119 away in the comparative poverty of the tribute. Mrs. Verver’s rejection120 of it had the brevity of a sign that they hadn’t closed in for idle words, just as her dim, serious face, uninterruptedly presented until they moved again, might have represented the success with which she watched all her message penetrate121. They presently went back the way she had come, but she stopped Maggie again within range of the smoking-room window and made her stand where the party at cards would be before her. Side by side, for three minutes, they fixed this picture of quiet harmonies, the positive charm of it and, as might have been said, the full significance — which, as was now brought home to Maggie, could be no more, after all, than a matter of interpretation122, differing always for a different interpreter. As she herself had hovered in sight of it a quarter-of-an-hour before, it would have been a thing for her to show Charlotte — to show in righteous irony123, in reproach too stern for anything but silence. But now it was she who was being shown it, and shown it by Charlotte, and she saw quickly enough that, as Charlotte showed it, so she must at present submissively seem to take it.
The others were absorbed and unconscious, either silent over their game or dropping remarks unheard on the terrace; and it was to her father’s quiet face, discernibly expressive of nothing that was in his daughter’s mind, that our young woman’s attention was most directly given. His wife and his daughter were both closely watching him, and to which of them, could he have been notified of this, would his raised eyes first, all impulsively124, have responded; in which of them would he have felt it most important to destroy — for HIS clutch at the equilibrium125 — any germ of uneasiness? Not yet, since his marriage, had Maggie so sharply and so formidably known her old possession of him as a thing divided and contested. She was looking at him by Charlotte’s leave and under Charlotte’s direction; quite in fact as if the particular way she should look at him were prescribed to her; quite, even, as if she had been defied to look at him in any other. It came home to her too that the challenge wasn’t, as might be said, in his interest and for his protection, but, pressingly, insistently126, in Charlotte’s, for that of HER security at any price. She might verily, by this dumb demonstration38, have been naming to Maggie the price, naming it as a question for Maggie herself, a sum of money that she, properly, was to find. She must remain safe and Maggie must pay — what she was to pay with being her own affair.
Straighter than ever, thus, the Princess again felt it all put upon her, and there was a minute, just a supreme50 instant, during which there burned in her a wild wish that her father would only look up. It throbbed127 for these seconds as a yearning128 appeal to him — she would chance it, that is, if he would but just raise his eyes and catch them, across the larger space, standing129 in the outer dark together. Then he might be affected by the sight, taking them as they were; he might make some sign — she scarce knew what — that would save her; save her from being the one, this way, to pay all. He might somehow show a preference — distinguishing between them; might, out of pity for her, signal to her that this extremity130 of her effort for him was more than he asked. That represented Maggie’s one little lapse131 from consistency — the sole small deflection in the whole course of her scheme. It had come to nothing the next minute, for the dear man’s eyes had never moved, and Charlotte’s hand, promptly passed into her arm, had already, had very firmly drawn132 her on — quite, for that matter, as from some sudden, some equal perception on her part too of the more ways than one in which their impression could appeal. They retraced133 their steps along the rest of the terrace, turning the corner of the house, and presently came abreast134 of the other windows, those of the pompous135 drawing-room, still lighted and still empty. Here Charlotte again paused, and it was again as if she were pointing out what Maggie had observed for herself, the very look the place had of being vivid in its stillness, of having, with all its great objects as ordered and balanced as for a formal reception, been appointed for some high transaction, some real affair of state. In presence of this opportunity she faced her companion once more; she traced in her the effect of everything she had already communicated; she signified, with the same success, that the terrace and the sullen136 night would bear too meagre witness to the completion of her idea. Soon enough then, within the room, under the old lustres of Venice and the eyes of the several great portraits, more or less contemporary with these, that awaited on the walls of Fawns137 their final far migration138 — soon enough Maggie found herself staring, and at first all too gaspingly, at the grand total to which each separate demand Mrs. Verver had hitherto made upon her, however she had made it, now amounted.
“I’ve been wanting — and longer than you’d perhaps believe — to put a question to you for which no opportunity has seemed to me yet quite so good as this. It would have been easier perhaps if you had struck me as in the least disposed ever to give me one. I have to take it now, you see, as I find it.” They stood in the centre of the immense room, and Maggie could feel that the scene of life her imagination had made of it twenty minutes before was by this time sufficiently peopled. These few straight words filled it to its uttermost reaches, and nothing was now absent from her consciousness, either, of the part she was called upon to play in it. Charlotte had marched straight in, dragging her rich train; she rose there beautiful and free, with her whole aspect and action attuned139 to the firmness of her speech. Maggie had kept the shawl she had taken out with her, and, clutching it tight in her nervousness, drew it round her as if huddling140 in it for shelter, covering herself with it for humility141. She looked out as from under an improvised142 hood143 — the sole headgear of some poor woman at somebody’s proud door; she waited even like the poor woman; she met her friend’s eyes with recognitions she couldn’t suppress. She might sound it as she could —“What question then?”— everything in her, from head to foot, crowded it upon Charlotte that she knew. She knew too well — that she was showing; so that successful vagueness, to save some scrap144 of her dignity from the imminence145 of her defeat, was already a lost cause, and the one thing left was if possible, at any cost, even that of stupid inconsequence, to try to look as if she weren’t afraid. If she could but appear at all not afraid she might appear a little not ashamed — that is not ashamed to be afraid, which was the kind of shame that could be fastened on her, it being fear all the while that moved her. Her challenge, at any rate, her wonder, her terror — the blank, blurred surface, whatever it was that she presented became a mixture that ceased to signify; for to the accumulated advantage by which Charlotte was at present sustained her next words themselves had little to add.
“Have you any ground of complaint of me? Is there any wrong you consider I’ve done you? I feel at last that I’ve a right to ask you.”
Their eyes had to meet on it, and to meet long; Maggie’s avoided at least the disgrace of looking away. “What makes you want to ask it?”
“My natural desire to know. You’ve done that, for so long, little justice.”
Maggie waited a moment. “For so long? You mean you’ve thought —?”
“I mean, my dear, that I’ve seen. I’ve seen, week after week, that YOU seemed to be thinking — of something that perplexed146 or worried you. Is it anything for which I’m in any degree responsible?”
Maggie summoned all her powers. “What in the world SHOULD it be?”
“Ah, that’s not for me to imagine, and I should be very sorry to have to try to say! I’m aware of no point whatever at which I may have failed you,” said Charlotte; “nor of any at which I may have failed any one in whom I can suppose you sufficiently interested to care. If I’ve been guilty of some fault I’ve committed it all unconsciously, and am only anxious to hear from you honestly about it. But if I’ve been mistaken as to what I speak of — the difference, more and more marked, as I’ve thought, in all your manner to me — why, obviously, so much the better. No form of correction received from you could give me greater satisfaction.”
She spoke147, it struck her companion, with rising, with extraordinary ease; as if hearing herself say it all, besides seeing the way it was listened to, helped her from point to point. She saw she was right — that this WAS the tone for her to take and the thing for her to do, the thing as to which she was probably feeling that she had in advance, in her delays and uncertainties148, much exaggerated the difficulty. The difficulty was small, and it grew smaller as her adversary149 continued to shrink; she was not only doing as she wanted, but had by this time effectively done it and hung it up. All of which but deepened Maggie’s sense of the sharp and simple need, now, of seeing her through to the end. “‘If’ you’ve been mistaken, you say?”— and the Princess but barely faltered150. “You HAVE been mistaken.”
Charlotte looked at her splendidly hard. “You’re perfectly sure it’s ALL my mistake?”
“All I can say is that you’ve received a false impression.”
“Ah then — so much the better! From the moment I HAD received it I knew I must sooner or later speak of it — for that, you see, is, systematically151, my way. And now,” Charlotte added, “you make me glad I’ve spoken. I thank you very much.”
It was strange how for Maggie too, with this, the difficulty seemed to sink. Her companion’s acceptance of her denial was like a general pledge not to keep things any worse for her than they essentially152 had to be; it positively helped her to build up her falsehood — to which, accordingly, she contributed another block. “I’ve affected you evidently — quite accidentally — in some way of which I’ve been all unaware153. I’ve NOT felt at any time that you’ve wronged me.”
“How could I come within a mile,” Charlotte inquired, “of such a possibility?”
Maggie, with her eyes on her more easily now, made no attempt to say; she said, after a little, something more to the present point. “I accuse you — I accuse you of nothing.”
“Ah, that’s lucky!”
Charlotte had brought this out with the richness, almost, of gaiety; and Maggie, to go on, had to think, with her own intensity, of Amerigo — to think how he, on his side, had had to go through with his lie to her, how it was for his wife he had done so, and how his doing so had given her the clue and set her the example. He must have had his own difficulty about it, and she was not, after all, falling below him. It was in fact as if, thanks to her hovering154 image of him confronted with this admirable creature even as she was confronted, there glowed upon her from afar, yet straight and strong, a deep explanatory light which covered the last inch of the ground. He had given her something to conform to, and she hadn’t unintelligently turned on him, “gone back on” him, as he would have said, by not conforming. They were together thus, he and she, close, close together — whereas Charlotte, though rising there radiantly before her, was really off in some darkness of space that would steep her in solitude155 and harass156 her with care. The heart of the Princess swelled157, accordingly, even in her abasement158; she had kept in tune5 with the right, and something, certainly, something that might be like a rare flower snatched from an impossible ledge108, would, and possibly soon, come of it for her. The right, the right — yes, it took this extraordinary form of her humbugging, as she had called it, to the end. It was only a question of not, by a hair’s breadth, deflecting159 into the truth. So, supremely, was she braced160. “You must take it from me that your anxiety rests quite on a misconception. You must take it from me that I’ve never at any moment fancied I could suffer by you.” And, marvellously, she kept it up — not only kept it up, but improved on it. “You must take it from me that I’ve never thought of you but as beautiful, wonderful and good. Which is all, I think, that you can possibly ask.”
Charlotte held her a moment longer: she needed — not then to have appeared only tactless — the last word. “It’s much more, my dear, than I dreamed of asking. I only wanted your denial.”
“Well then, you have it.”
“Upon your honour?”
“Upon my honour:”
And she made a point even, our young woman, of not turning away. Her grip of her shawl had loosened — she had let it fall behind her; but she stood there for anything more and till the weight should be lifted. With which she saw soon enough what more was to come. She saw it in Charlotte’s face, and felt it make between them, in the air, a chill that completed the coldness of their conscious perjury161. “Will you kiss me on it then?”
She couldn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no; what availed her still, however, was to measure, in her passivity, how much too far Charlotte had come to retreat. But there was something different also, something for which, while her cheek received the prodigious kiss, she had her opportunity — the sight of the others, who, having risen from their cards to join the absent members of their party, had reached the open door at the end of the room and stopped short, evidently, in presence of the demonstration that awaited them. Her husband and her father were in front, and Charlotte’s embrace of her — which wasn’t to be distinguished, for them, either, she felt, from her embrace of Charlotte — took on with their arrival a high publicity162.
收听单词发音 |
1
emulation
|
|
| n.竞争；仿效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
interdict
|
|
| v.限制；禁止；n.正式禁止；禁令 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
license
|
|
| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
winks
|
|
| v.使眼色( wink的第三人称单数 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
subsided
|
|
| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
refreshment
|
|
| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
sip
|
|
| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
refinements
|
|
| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
bristled
|
|
| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
intensity
|
|
| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
complexity
|
|
| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
importunate
|
|
| adj.强求的；纠缠不休的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
erect
|
|
| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
speciously
|
|
| adv.似是而非地；外观好看地，像是真实地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
17
imputation
|
|
| n.归罪，责难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
nought
|
|
| n.／adj.无，零 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
propriety
|
|
| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
adept
|
|
| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
beguile
|
|
| vt.欺骗，消遣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
consistency
|
|
| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
provocative
|
|
| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
prodigious
|
|
| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
reigned
|
|
| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
vertiginous
|
|
| adj.回旋的；引起头晕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
fascination
|
|
| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
monstrous
|
|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
vividly
|
|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
doom
|
|
| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
lurid
|
|
| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
discreet
|
|
| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
demonstrations
|
|
| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
demonstration
|
|
| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
negation
|
|
| n.否定；否认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
contrived
|
|
| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
peril
|
|
| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
scapegoat
|
|
| n.替罪的羔羊，替人顶罪者；v.使…成为替罪羊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
steadily
|
|
| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
hovered
|
|
| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
shafts
|
|
| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
provocation
|
|
| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
supremely
|
|
| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
spacious
|
|
| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
yearned
|
|
| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
vindictive
|
|
| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
caravan
|
|
| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
looming
|
|
| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
mingle
|
|
| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
plunging
|
|
| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
defiles
|
|
| v.玷污( defile的第三人称单数 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
hideously
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
irresistibly
|
|
| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
assuaging
|
|
| v.减轻( assuage的现在分词 )；缓和；平息；使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
innocence
|
|
| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
outraged
|
|
| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
generosity
|
|
| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
invoke
|
|
| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
assailed
|
|
| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
affected
|
|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
supple
|
|
| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
grotesquely
|
|
| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
hemmed
|
|
| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
trepidation
|
|
| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
evasions
|
|
| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
abjection
|
|
| n. 卑鄙, 落魄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
sneak
|
|
| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
dodging
|
|
| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
infamy
|
|
| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
evoked
|
|
| [医]诱发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
defensive
|
|
| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
wrought
|
|
| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
triumphant
|
|
| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
dire
|
|
| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
inevitably
|
|
| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
agitating
|
|
| 搅动( agitate的现在分词 )； 激怒； 使焦虑不安； （尤指为法律、社会状况的改变而）激烈争论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
prudence
|
|
| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
insolence
|
|
| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
glimmered
|
|
| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
contraction
|
|
| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
portentous
|
|
| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
interval
|
|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
mutual
|
|
| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
hesitation
|
|
| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
timing
|
|
| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
pretences
|
|
| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
ledge
|
|
| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
throbbing
|
|
| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
blurred
|
|
| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
axe
|
|
| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
grimace
|
|
| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
expressive
|
|
| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
verged
|
|
| 接近，逼近（verge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
elegance
|
|
| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
inveterate
|
|
| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
erectness
|
|
| n.直立 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
119
crumbled
|
|
| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
rejection
|
|
| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
penetrate
|
|
| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
interpretation
|
|
| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
irony
|
|
| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
impulsively
|
|
| adv.冲动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
equilibrium
|
|
| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
insistently
|
|
| ad.坚持地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
throbbed
|
|
| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
yearning
|
|
| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
extremity
|
|
| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
lapse
|
|
| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
retraced
|
|
| v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
abreast
|
|
| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
pompous
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
fawns
|
|
| n.（未满一岁的）幼鹿( fawn的名词复数 )；浅黄褐色；乞怜者；奉承者v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的第三人称单数 )；巴结；讨好 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
migration
|
|
| n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
attuned
|
|
| v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
huddling
|
|
| n. 杂乱一团, 混乱, 拥挤 v. 推挤, 乱堆, 草率了事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
humility
|
|
| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
improvised
|
|
| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
hood
|
|
| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
scrap
|
|
| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
imminence
|
|
| n.急迫，危急 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
perplexed
|
|
| adj.不知所措的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
uncertainties
|
|
| 无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 )； 不确定； 变化不定； 无把握、不确定的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
adversary
|
|
| adj.敌手，对手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
faltered
|
|
| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
systematically
|
|
| adv.有系统地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
unaware
|
|
| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
hovering
|
|
| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
harass
|
|
| vt.使烦恼，折磨，骚扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
swelled
|
|
| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
abasement
|
|
| n.滥用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
deflecting
|
|
| （使）偏斜， （使）偏离， （使）转向( deflect的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
braced
|
|
| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
perjury
|
|
| n.伪证；伪证罪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
publicity
|
|
| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |