Maggie was to feel, after this passage, how they had both been helped through it by the influence of that accident of her having been caught, a few nights before, in the familiar embrace of her father’s wife. His return to the saloon had chanced to coincide exactly with this demonstration1, missed moreover neither by her husband nor by the Assinghams, who, their card-party suspended, had quitted the billiard-room with him. She had been conscious enough at the time of what such an impression, received by the others, might, in that extended state, do for her case; and none the less that, as no one had appeared to wish to be the first to make a remark about it, it had taken on perceptibly the special shade of consecration2 conferred by unanimities of silence. The effect, she might have considered, had been almost awkward — the promptitude of her separation from Charlotte, as if they had been discovered in some absurdity3, on her becoming aware of spectators. The spectators, on the other hand — that was the appearance — mightn’t have supposed them, in the existing relation, addicted4 to mutual5 endearments6; and yet, hesitating with a fine scruple7 between sympathy and hilarity8, must have felt that almost any spoken or laughed comment could be kept from sounding vulgar only by sounding, beyond any permitted measure, intelligent. They had evidently looked, the two young wives, like a pair of women “making up” effusively9, as women were supposed to do, especially when approved fools, after a broil10; but taking note of the reconciliation11 would imply, on her father’s part, on Amerigo’s, and on Fanny Assingham’s, some proportionate vision of the grounds of their difference. There had been something, there had been but too much, in the incident, for each observer; yet there was nothing any one could have said without seeming essentially12 to say: “See, see, the dear things — their quarrel’s blissfully over!” “Our quarrel? What quarrel?” the dear things themselves would necessarily, in that case, have demanded; and the wits of the others would thus have been called upon for some agility14 of exercise. No one had been equal to the flight of producing, off-hand, a fictive reason for any estrangement15 — to take, that is, the place of the true, which had so long, for the finer sensibility, pervaded16 the air; and every one, accordingly, not to be inconveniently17 challenged, was pretending, immediately after, to have remarked nothing that any one else hadn’t.
Maggie’s own measure had remained, all the same, full of the reflection caught from the total inference; which had acted, virtually, by enabling every one present — and oh Charlotte not least!— to draw a long breath. The message of the little scene had been different for each, but it had been this, markedly, all round, that it reinforced — reinforced even immensely — the general effort, carried on from week to week and of late distinctly more successful, to look and talk and move as if nothing in life were the matter. Supremely18, however, while this glass was held up to her, had Maggie’s sense turned to the quality of the success constituted, on the spot, for Charlotte. Most of all, if she was guessing how her father must have secretly started, how her husband must have secretly wondered, how Fanny Assingham must have secretly, in a flash, seen daylight for herself — most of all had she tasted, by communication, of the high profit involved for her companion. She FELT, in all her pulses, Charlotte feel it, and how publicity19 had been required, absolutely, to crown her own abasement20. It was the added touch, and now nothing was wanting — which, to do her stepmother justice, Mrs. Verver had appeared but to desire, from that evening, to show, with the last vividness, that she recognised. Maggie lived over again the minutes in question — had found herself repeatedly doing so; to the degree that the whole evening hung together, to her aftersense, as a thing appointed by some occult power that had dealt with her, that had for instance — animated21 the four with just the right restlessness too, had decreed and directed and exactly timed it in them, making their game of bridge — however abysmal23 a face it had worn for her — give way, precisely24, to their common unavowed impulse to find out, to emulate25 Charlotte’s impatience26; a preoccupation, this latter, attached detectedly to the member of the party who was roaming in her queerness and was, for all their simulated blindness, not roaming unnoted.
If Mrs. Verver meanwhile, then, had struck her as determined28 in a certain direction by the last felicity into which that night had flowered, our young woman was yet not to fail of appreciating the truth that she had not been put at ease, after all, with absolute permanence. Maggie had seen her, unmistakably, desire to rise to the occasion and be magnificent — seen her decide that the right way for this would be to prove that the reassurance29 she had extorted30 there, under the high, cool lustre31 of the saloon, a twinkle of crystal and silver, had not only poured oil upon the troubled waters of their question, but had fairly drenched32 their whole intercourse33 with that lubricant. She had exceeded the limit of discretion34 in this insistence35 on her capacity to repay in proportion a service she acknowledged as handsome. “Why handsome?” Maggie would have been free to ask; since if she had been veracious37 the service assuredly would not have been huge. It would in that case have come up vividly38, and for each of them alike, that the truth, on the Princess’s lips, presented no difficulty. If the latter’s mood, in fact, could have turned itself at all to private gaiety it might have failed to resist the diversion of seeing so clever a creature so beguiled39. Charlotte’s theory of a generous manner was manifestly to express that her stepdaughter’s word, wiping out, as she might have said, everything, had restored them to the serenity40 of a relation without a cloud. It had been, in short, in this light, ideally conclusive41, so that no ghost of anything it referred to could ever walk again. What was the ecstasy42 of that, however, but in itself a trifle compromising?— as truly, within the week, Maggie had occasion to suspect her friend of beginning, and rather abruptly43, to remember. Convinced as she was of the example already given her by her husband, and in relation to which her profession of trust in his mistress had been an act of conformity44 exquisitely45 calculated, her imagination yet sought in the hidden play of his influence the explanation of any change of surface, any difference of expression or intention. There had been, through life, as we know, few quarters in which the Princess’s fancy could let itself loose; but it shook off restraint when it plunged46 into the figured void of the detail of that relation. This was a realm it could people with images — again and again with fresh ones; they swarmed47 there like the strange combinations that lurked48 in the woods at twilight49; they loomed50 into the definite and faded into the vague, their main present sign for her being, however, that they were always, that they were duskily, agitated51. Her earlier vision of a state of bliss13 made insecure by the very intensity52 of the bliss — this had dropped from her; she had ceased to see, as she lost herself, the pair of operatic, of high Wagnerian lovers (she found, deep within her, these comparisons) interlocked in their wood of enchantment53, a green glade54 as romantic as one’s dream of an old German forest. The picture was veiled, on the contrary, with the dimness of trouble; behind which she felt, indistinguishable, the procession of forms that had lost, all so pitifully, their precious confidence. Therefore, though there was in these days, for her, with Amerigo, little enough even of the imitation, from day to day, of unembarrassed references — as she had foreseen, for that matter, from the first, that there would be-her active conception of his accessibility to their companion’s own private and unextinguished right to break ground was not much less active than before. So it was that her inner sense, in spite of everything, represented him as still pulling wires and controlling currents, or rather indeed as muffling55 the whole possibility, keeping it down and down, leading his accomplice56 continually on to some new turn of the road. As regards herself Maggie had become more conscious from week to week of his ingenuities57 of intention to make up to her for their forfeiture58, in so dire22 a degree, of any reality of frankness — a privation that had left on his lips perhaps a little of the same thirst with which she fairly felt her own distorted, the torment59 of the lost pilgrim who listens in desert sands for the possible, the impossible, plash of water. It was just this hampered60 state in him, none the less, that she kept before her when she wished most to find grounds of dignity for the hard little passion which nothing he had done could smother61. There were hours enough, lonely hours, in which she let dignity go; then there were others when, clinging with her winged concentration to some deep cell of her heart, she stored away her hived tenderness as if she had gathered it all from flowers. He was walking ostensibly beside her, but in fact given over, without a break, to the grey medium in which he helplessly groped; a perception on her part which was a perpetual pang62 and which might last what it would — for ever if need be-but which, if relieved at all, must be relieved by his act alone. She herself could do nothing more for it; she had done the utmost possible. It was meantime not the easier to bear for this aspect under which Charlotte was presented as depending on him for guidance, taking it from him even in doses of bitterness, and yet lost with him in devious63 depths. Nothing was thus more sharply to be inferred than that he had promptly64 enough warned her, on hearing from her of the precious assurance received from his wife, that she must take care her satisfaction didn’t betray something of her danger. Maggie had a day of still waiting, after allowing him time to learn how unreservedly she had lied for him — of waiting as for the light of she scarce knew what slow-shining reflection of this knowledge in his personal attitude. What retarded65 evolution, she asked herself in these hours, mightn’t poor Charlotte all unwittingly have precipitated66? She was thus poor Charlotte again for Maggie even while Maggie’s own head was bowed, and the reason for this kept coming back to our young woman in the conception of what would secretly have passed. She saw her, face to face with the Prince, take from him the chill of his stiffest admonition, with the possibilities of deeper difficulty that it represented for each. She heard her ask, irritated and sombre, what tone, in God’s name — since her bravery didn’t suit him — she was then to adopt; and, by way of a fantastic flight of divination67, she heard Amerigo reply, in a voice of which every fine note, familiar and admirable, came home to her, that one must really manage such prudences a little for one’s self. It was positive in the Princess that, for this, she breathed Charlotte’s cold air — turned away from him in it with her, turned with her, in growing compassion68, this way and that, hovered69 behind her while she felt her ask herself where then she should rest. Marvellous the manner in which, under such imaginations, Maggie thus circled and lingered — quite as if she were, materially, following her unseen, counting every step she helplessly wasted, noting every hindrance71 that brought her to a pause.
A few days of this, accordingly, had wrought72 a change in that apprehension73 of the instant beatitude of triumph — of triumph magnanimous and serene74 — with which the upshot of the night-scene on the terrace had condemned75 our young woman to make terms. She had had, as we know, her vision of the gilt76 bars bent77, of the door of the cage forced open from within and the creature imprisoned78 roaming at large — a movement, on the creature’s part, that was to have even, for the short interval79, its impressive beauty, but of which the limit, and in yet another direction, had loomed straight into view during her last talk under the great trees with her father. It was when she saw his wife’s face ruefully attached to the quarter to which, in the course of their session, he had so significantly addressed his own — it was then that Maggie could watch for its turning pale, it was then she seemed to know what she had meant by thinking of her, in she shadow of his most ominous80 reference, as “doomed.” If, as I say, her attention now, day after day, so circled and hovered, it found itself arrested for certain passages during which she absolutely looked with Charlotte’s grave eyes. What she unfailingly made out through them was the figure of a little quiet gentleman who mostly wore, as he moved, alone, across the field of vision, a straw hat, a white waistcoat and a blue necktie, keeping a cigar in his teeth and his hands in his pockets, and who, oftener than not, presented a somewhat meditative82 back while he slowly measured the perspectives of the park and broodingly counted (it might have appeared) his steps. There were hours of intensity, for a week or two, when it was for all the world as if she had guardedly tracked her stepmother, in the great house, from room to room and from window to window, only to see her, here and there and everywhere, TRY her uneasy outlook, question her issue and her fate. Something, unmistakably, had come up for her that had never come up before; it represented a new complication and had begotten83 a new anxiety — things, these, that she carried about with her done up in the napkin of her lover’s accepted rebuke84, while she vainly hunted for some corner where she might put them safely down. The disguised solemnity, the prolonged futility85 of her search might have been grotesque86 to a more ironic87 eye; but Maggie’s provision of irony88, which we have taken for naturally small, had never been so scant89 as now, and there were moments while she watched with her, thus unseen, when the mere90 effect of being near her was to feel her own heart in her throat, was to be almost moved to saying to her: “Hold on tight, my poor dear — without TOO MUCH terror — and it will all come out somehow.”
Even to that indeed, she could reflect, Charlotte might have replied that it was easy to say; even to that no great meaning could attach so long as the little meditative man in the straw hat kept coming into view with his indescribable air of weaving his spell, weaving it off there by himself. In whatever quarter of the horizon the appearances were scanned he was to be noticed as absorbed in this occupation; and Maggie was to become aware of two or three extraordinary occasions of receiving from him the hint that he measured the impression he produced. It was not really till after their recent long talk in the park that she knew how deeply, how quite exhaustively, they had then communicated — so that they were to remain together, for the time, in consequence, quite in the form of a couple of sociable91 drinkers who sit back from the table over which they have been resting their elbows, over which they have emptied to the last drop their respective charged cups. The cups were still there on the table, but turned upside down; and nothing was left for the companions but to confirm by placid92 silences the fact that the wine had been good. They had parted, positively93, as if, on either side, primed with it — primed for whatever was to be; and everything between them, as the month waned94, added its touch of truth to this similitude. Nothing, truly, WAS at present between them save that they were looking at each other in infinite trust; it fairly wanted no more words, and when they met, during the deep summer days, met even without witnesses, when they kissed at morning and evening, or on any of the other occasions of contact that they had always so freely celebrated95, a pair of birds of the upper air could scarce have appeared less to invite each other to sit down and worry afresh. So it was that in the house itself, where more of his waiting treasures than ever were provisionally ranged, she sometimes only looked at him — from end to end of the great gallery, the pride of the house, for instance — as if, in one of the halls of a museum, she had been an earnest young woman with a Baedeker and he a vague gentleman to whom even Baedekers were unknown. He had ever, of course, had his way of walking about to review his possessions and verify their condition; but this was a pastime to which he now struck her as almost extravagantly96 addicted, and when she passed near him and he turned to give her a smile she caught — or so she fancied — the greater depth of his small, perpetual hum of contemplation. It was as if he were singing to himself, sotto voce, as he went — and it was also, on occasion, quite ineffably97, as if Charlotte, hovering98, watching, listening, on her side too, kept sufficiently99 within earshot to make it out as song, and yet, for some reason connected with the very manner of it, stood off and didn’t dare.
One of the attentions she had from immediately after her marriage most freely paid him was that of her interest in his rarities, her appreciation100 of his taste, her native passion for beautiful objects and her grateful desire not to miss anything he could teach her about them. Maggie had in due course seen her begin to “work” this fortunately natural source of sympathy for all it was worth. She took possession of the mound101 throughout its extent; she abounded102, to odd excess, one might have remarked, in the assumption of its being for her, with her husband, ALL the ground, the finest, clearest air and most breathable medium common to them. It had been given to Maggie to wonder if she didn’t, in these intensities103 of approbation104, too much shut him up to his province; but this was a complaint he had never made his daughter, and Charlotte must at least have had for her that, thanks to her admirable instinct, her range of perception marching with his own and never falling behind, she had probably not so much as once treated him to a rasping mistake or a revealing stupidity. Maggie, wonderfully, in the summer days, felt it forced upon her that that was one way, after all, of being a genial105 wife; and it was never so much forced upon her as at these odd moments of her encountering the sposi, as Amerigo called them, under the coved106 ceilings of Fawns107 while, so together, yet at the same time so separate, they were making their daily round. Charlotte hung behind, with emphasised attention; she stopped when her husband stopped, but at the distance of a case or two, or of whatever other succession of objects; and the likeness108 of their connection would not have been wrongly figured if he had been thought of as holding in one of his pocketed hands the end of a long silken halter looped round her beautiful neck. He didn’t twitch109 it, yet it was there; he didn’t drag her, but she came; and those indications that I have described the Princess as finding extraordinary in him were two or three mute facial intimations which his wife’s presence didn’t prevent his addressing his daughter — nor prevent his daughter, as she passed, it was doubtless to be added, from flushing a little at the receipt of. They amounted perhaps only to a wordless, wordless smile, but the smile was the soft shake of the twisted silken rope, and Maggie’s translation of it, held in her breast till she got well away, came out only, as if it might have been overheard, when some door was closed behind her. “Yes, you see — I lead her now by the neck, I lead her to her doom81, and she doesn’t so much as know what it is, though she has a fear in her heart which, if you had the chances to apply your ear there that I, as a husband, have, you would hear thump110 and thump and thump. She thinks it MAY be, her doom, the awful place over there — awful for HER; but she’s afraid to ask, don’t you see? just as she’s afraid of not asking; just as she’s afraid of so many other things that she sees multiplied round her now as portents111 and betrayals. She’ll know, however — when she does know.”
Charlotte’s one opportunity, meanwhile, for the air of confidence she had formerly112 worn so well and that agreed so with her firm and charming type, was the presence of visitors, never, as the season advanced, wholly intermitted — rather, in fact, so constant, with all the people who turned up for luncheon113 and for tea and to see the house, now replete114, now famous, that Maggie grew to think again of this large element of “company” as of a kind of renewed water-supply for the tank in which, like a party of panting gold-fish, they kept afloat. It helped them, unmistakably, with each other, weakening the emphasis of so many of the silences of which their intimate intercourse would otherwise have consisted. Beautiful and wonderful for her, even, at times, was the effect of these interventions115 — their effect above all in bringing home to each the possible heroism116 of perfunctory things. They learned fairly to live in the perfunctory; they remained in it as many hours of the day as might be; it took on finally the likeness of some spacious117 central chamber118 in a haunted house, a great overarched and overglazed rotunda119, where gaiety might reign120, but the doors of which opened into sinister121 circular passages. Here they turned up for each other, as they said, with the blank faces that denied any uneasiness felt in the approach; here they closed numerous doors carefully behind them — all save the door that connected the place, as by a straight tented corridor, with the outer world, and, encouraging thus the irruption of society, imitated the aperture122 through which the bedizened performers of the circus are poured into the ring. The great part Mrs. Verver had socially played came luckily, Maggie could make out, to her assistance; she had “personal friends”— Charlotte’s personal friends had ever been, in London, at the two houses, one of the most convenient pleasantries — who actually tempered, at this crisis, her aspect of isolation123; and it wouldn’t have been hard to guess that her best moments were those in which she suffered no fear of becoming a bore to restrain her appeal to their curiosity. Their curiosity might be vague, but their clever hostess was distinct, and she marched them about, sparing them nothing, as if she counted, each day, on a harvest of half crowns. Maggie met her again, in the gallery, at the oddest hours, with the party she was entertaining; heard her draw out the lesson, insist upon the interest, snub, even, the particular presumption124 and smile for the general bewilderment — inevitable125 features, these latter, of almost any occasion — in a manner that made our young woman, herself incurably126 dazzled, marvel70 afresh at the mystery by which a creature who could be in some connexions so earnestly right could be in others so perversely127 wrong. When her father, vaguely128 circulating, was attended by his wife, it was always Charlotte who seemed to bring up the rear; but he hung in the background when she did cicerone, and it was then perhaps that, moving mildly and modestly to and fro on the skirts of the exhibition, his appearance of weaving his spell was, for the initiated129 conscience, least to be resisted. Brilliant women turned to him in vague emotion, but his response scarce committed him more than if he had been the person employed to see that, after the invading wave was spent, the cabinets were all locked and the symmetries all restored.
There was a morning when, during the hour before luncheon and shortly after the arrival of a neighbourly contingent130 — neighbourly from ten miles off — whom Mrs. Verver had taken in charge, Maggie paused on the threshold of the gallery through which she had been about to pass, faltered131 there for the very impression of his face as it met her from an opposite door. Charlotte, half-way down the vista132, held together, as if by something almost austere133 in the grace of her authority, the semi-scared (now that they were there!) knot of her visitors, who, since they had announced themselves by telegram as yearning134 to inquire and admire, saw themselves restricted to this consistency135. Her voice, high and clear and a little hard, reached her husband and her step-daughter while she thus placed beyond doubt her cheerful submission136 to duty. Her words, addressed to the largest publicity, rang for some minutes through the place, every one as quiet to listen as if it had been a church ablaze137 with tapers138 and she were taking her part in some hymn139 of praise. Fanny Assingham looked rapt in devotion — Fanny Assingham who forsook140 this other friend as little as she forsook either her host or the Princess or the Prince or the Principino; she supported her, in slow revolutions, in murmurous141 attestations of presence, at all such times, and Maggie, advancing after a first hesitation142, was not to fail of noting her solemn, inscrutable attitude, her eyes attentively143 lifted, so that she might escape being provoked to betray an impression. She betrayed one, however, as Maggie approached, dropping her gaze to the latter’s level long enough to seem to adventure, marvellously, on a mute appeal. “You understand, don’t you, that if she didn’t do this there would be no knowing what she might do?” This light Mrs. Assingham richly launched while her younger friend, unresistingly moved, became uncertain again, and then, not too much to show it — or, rather, positively to conceal144 it, and to conceal something more as well — turned short round to one of the windows and awkwardly, pointlessly waited. “The largest of the three pieces has the rare peculiarity145 that the garlands, looped round it, which, as you see, are the finest possible vieux Saxe, are not of the same origin or period, or even, wonderful as they are, of a taste quite so perfect. They have been put on at a later time, by a process of which there are very few examples, and none so important as this, which is really quite unique — so that, though the whole thing is a little baroque, its value as a specimen146 is, I believe, almost inestimable.”
So the high voice quavered, aiming truly at effects far over the heads of gaping147 neighbours; so the speaker, piling it up, sticking at nothing, as less interested judges might have said, seemed to justify148 the faith with which she was honoured. Maggie meanwhile, at the window, knew the strangest thing to be happening: she had turned suddenly to crying, or was at least on the point of it — the lighted square before her all blurred149 and dim. The high voice went on; its quaver was doubtless for conscious ears only, but there were verily thirty seconds during which it sounded, for our young woman, like the shriek150 of a soul in pain. Kept up a minute longer it would break and collapse151 — so that Maggie felt herself, the next thing, turn with a start to her father. “Can’t she be stopped? Hasn’t she done it ENOUGH?”— some such question as that she let herself ask him to suppose in her. Then it was that, across half the gallery — for he had not moved from where she had first seen him — he struck her as confessing, with strange tears in his own eyes, to sharp identity of emotion. “Poor thing, poor thing”— it reached straight — “ISN’T she, for one’s credit, on the swagger?” After which, as, held thus together they had still another strained minute, the shame, the pity, the better knowledge, the smothered152 protest, the divined anguish153 even, so overcame him that, blushing to his eyes, he turned short away. The affair but of a few muffled154 moments, this snatched communion yet lifted Maggie as on air — so much, for deep guesses on her own side too, it gave her to think of. There was, honestly, an awful mixture in things, and it was not closed to her aftersense of such passages — we have already indeed, in other cases, seen it open — that the deepest depth of all, in a perceived penalty, was that you couldn’t be sure some of your compunctions and contortions155 wouldn’t show for ridiculous. Amerigo, that morning, for instance, had been as absent as he at this juncture156 appeared to desire he should mainly be noted27 as being; he had gone to London for the day and the night — a necessity that now frequently rose for him and that he had more than once suffered to operate during the presence of guests, successions of pretty women, the theory of his fond interest in whom had been publicly cultivated. It had never occurred to his wife to pronounce him ingenuous157, but there came at last a high dim August dawn when she couldn’t sleep and when, creeping restlessly about and breathing at her window the coolness of wooded acres, she found the faint flush of the east march with the perception of that other almost equal prodigy158. It rosily159 coloured her vision that — even such as he was, yes — her husband could on occasion sin by excess of candour. He wouldn’t otherwise have given as his reason for going up to Portland Place in the August days that he was arranging books there. He had bought a great many of late, and he had had others, a large number, sent from Rome — wonders of old print in which her father had been interested. But when her imagination tracked him to the dusty town, to the house where drawn160 blinds and pale shrouds161, where a caretaker and a kitchenmaid were alone in possession, it wasn’t to see him, in his shirtsleeves, unpacking162 battered163 boxes.
She saw him, in truth, less easily beguiled — saw him wander, in the closed dusky rooms, from place to place, or else, for long periods, recline on deep sofas and stare before him through the smoke of ceaseless cigarettes. She made him out as liking164 better than anything in the world just now to be alone with his thoughts. Being herself connected with his thoughts, she continued to believe, more than she had ever been, it was thereby165 a good deal as if he were alone with HER. She made him out as resting so from that constant strain of the perfunctory to which he was exposed at Fawns; and she was accessible to the impression of the almost beggared aspect of this alternative. It was like his doing penance166 in sordid167 ways — being sent to prison or being kept without money; it wouldn’t have taken much to make her think of him as really kept without food. He might have broken away, might easily have started to travel; he had a right — thought wonderful Maggie now — to so many more freedoms than he took! His secret was of course that at Fawns he all the while winced168, was all the while in presences in respect to which he had thrown himself back, with a hard pressure, on whatever mysteries of pride, whatever inward springs familiar to the man of the world, he could keep from snapping. Maggie, for some reason, had that morning, while she watched the sunrise, taken an extraordinary measure of the ground on which he would have HAD to snatch at pretexts169 for absence. It all came to her there — he got off to escape from a sound. The sound was in her own ears still — that of Charlotte’s high coerced170 quaver before the cabinets in the hushed gallery; the voice by which she herself had been pierced the day before as by that of a creature in anguish and by which, while she sought refuge at the blurred window, the tears had been forced into her eyes. Her comprehension soared so high that the wonder for her became really his not feeling the need of wider intervals171 and thicker walls. Before THAT admiration172 she also meditated173; consider as she might now, she kept reading not less into what he omitted than into what he performed a beauty of intention that touched her fairly the more by being obscure. It was like hanging over a garden in the dark; nothing was to be made of the confusion of growing things, but one felt they were folded flowers, and their vague sweetness made the whole air their medium. He had to turn away, but he wasn’t at least a coward; he would wait on the spot for the issue of what he had done on the spot. She sank to her knees with her arm on the ledge36 of her window-seat, where she blinded her eyes from the full glare of seeing that his idea could only be to wait, whatever might come, at her side. It was to her buried face that she thus, for a long time, felt him draw nearest; though after a while, when the strange wail174 of the gallery began to repeat its inevitable echo, she was conscious of how that brought out his pale hard grimace175.
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demonstration
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consecration
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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addicted
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mutual
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endearments
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| n.表示爱慕的话语，亲热的表示( endearment的名词复数 ) | |
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scruple
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hilarity
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effusively
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broil
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| v.烤，烧，争吵，怒骂；n.烤，烧，争吵，怒骂 | |
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reconciliation
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essentially
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bliss
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14
agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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15
estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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16
pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
inconveniently
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| ad.不方便地 | |
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18
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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19
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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20
abasement
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| n.滥用 | |
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21
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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22
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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23
abysmal
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| adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的 | |
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24
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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25
emulate
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| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
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26
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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27
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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28
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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29
reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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30
extorted
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| v.敲诈( extort的过去式和过去分词 )；曲解 | |
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31
lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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32
drenched
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|
| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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33
intercourse
|
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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34
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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35
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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36
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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37
veracious
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| adj.诚实可靠的 | |
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38
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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39
beguiled
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|
| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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40
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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41
conclusive
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|
| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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42
ecstasy
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|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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43
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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44
conformity
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| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
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45
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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46
plunged
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|
| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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47
swarmed
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|
| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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48
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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49
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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50
loomed
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|
| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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51
agitated
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|
| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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52
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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53
enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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54
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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55
muffling
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| v.压抑，捂住( muffle的现在分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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56
accomplice
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| n.从犯，帮凶，同谋 | |
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57
ingenuities
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| 足智多谋，心灵手巧( ingenuity的名词复数 ) | |
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58
forfeiture
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| n.（名誉等）丧失 | |
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59
torment
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|
| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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60
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61
smother
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| vt./vi.使窒息；抑制；闷死；n.浓烟；窒息 | |
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62
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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63
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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64
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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65
retarded
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| a.智力迟钝的，智力发育迟缓的 | |
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66
precipitated
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|
| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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67
divination
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| n.占卜，预测 | |
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68
compassion
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|
| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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69
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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70
marvel
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|
| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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71
hindrance
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| n.妨碍，障碍 | |
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72
wrought
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|
| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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73
apprehension
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|
| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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74
serene
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|
| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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75
condemned
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|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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76
gilt
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|
| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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77
bent
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|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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78
imprisoned
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|
| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
interval
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|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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80
ominous
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|
| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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81
doom
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|
| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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82
meditative
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|
| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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83
begotten
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|
| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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84
rebuke
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|
| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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85
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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86
grotesque
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|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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87
ironic
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|
| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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88
irony
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|
| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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89
scant
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|
| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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90
mere
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|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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91
sociable
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|
| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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92
placid
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|
| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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93
positively
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|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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94
waned
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|
| v.衰落( wane的过去式和过去分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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95
celebrated
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|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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96
extravagantly
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|
| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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97
ineffably
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|
| adv.难以言喻地，因神圣而不容称呼地 | |
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98
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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99
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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100
appreciation
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|
| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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101
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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102
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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103
intensities
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|
| n.强烈( intensity的名词复数 )；（感情的）强烈程度；强度；烈度 | |
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104
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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105
genial
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|
| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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106
coved
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| v.小海湾( cove的过去分词 )；家伙 | |
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107
fawns
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|
| 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 | |
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108
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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109
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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110
thump
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|
| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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111
portents
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| n.预兆( portent的名词复数 )；征兆；怪事；奇物 | |
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112
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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113
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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114
replete
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| adj.饱满的，塞满的；n.贮蜜蚁 | |
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115
interventions
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| n.介入，干涉，干预( intervention的名词复数 ) | |
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116
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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117
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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118
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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119
rotunda
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| n.圆形建筑物；圆厅 | |
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120
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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121
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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122
aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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123
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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124
presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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125
inevitable
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|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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126
incurably
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| ad.治不好地 | |
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127
perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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128
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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129
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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130
contingent
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|
| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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131
faltered
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|
| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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132
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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133
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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134
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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135
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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136
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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137
ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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138
tapers
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| （长形物体的）逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 )； 微弱的光； 极细的蜡烛 | |
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139
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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140
forsook
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| forsake的过去式 | |
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141
murmurous
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| adj.低声的 | |
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142
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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143
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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144
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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145
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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146
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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147
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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148
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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149
blurred
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| 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 | |
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150
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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151
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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152
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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153
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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154
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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155
contortions
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| n.扭歪，弯曲；扭曲，弄歪，歪曲( contortion的名词复数 ) | |
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156
juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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157
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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158
prodigy
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| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
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159
rosily
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| adv.带玫瑰色地，乐观地 | |
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160
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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161
shrouds
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| n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 )；寿衣；遮蔽物；覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 )；保密 | |
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162
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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163
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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164
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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165
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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166
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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167
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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168
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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169
pretexts
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| n.借口，托辞( pretext的名词复数 ) | |
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170
coerced
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| v.迫使做( coerce的过去式和过去分词 )；强迫；（以武力、惩罚、威胁等手段）控制；支配 | |
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171
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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172
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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173
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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174
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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175
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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