“Drive down to the club for Teddy’s cricket-bag,” said he; “we’ll make him get straight into flannels2 to save time. Order breakfast for three in half-an-hour precisely3, and I’ll tell him everything before you’re back.”
His eyes were shining with the prospect4 as I drove away, not sorry to escape the scene of that young man’s awakening5 to better fortune than he deserved. For in my heart I could not quite forgive the act in which Raffles and I had caught him overnight. Raffles might make as light of it as he pleased; it was impossible for another to take his affectionately lenient6 view, not of the moral question involved, but of the breach7 of faith between friend and friend. My own feeling in the matter, however, if a little jaundiced, was not so strong as to prevent me from gloating over the victory in which I had just assisted. I thought of the notorious extortioner who had fallen to our unscrupulous but not indictable wiles8; and my heart tinkled9 with the hansom bell. I thought of the good that we had done for once, of the undoubted wrong we had contrived10 to right by a species of justifiable11 chicanery12. And I forgot all about the youth whose battle we had fought and won, until I found myself ordering his breakfast, and having his cricket-bag taken out to my cab.
Raffles was waiting for me in the Albany courtyard. I thought he was frowning at the sky, which was not what it had been earlier in the morning, until I remembered how little time there was to lose.
“Haven’t you seen anything of him?” he cried as I jumped out.
“Of whom, Raffles?”
“Teddy, of course!”
“Teddy Garland? Has he gone out?”
“Before I got in,” said Raffles, grimly. “I wonder where the devil he is!”
He had paid the cabman and taken down the bag himself. I followed him up to his rooms.
“But what’s the meaning of it, Raffles?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
“Could he have gone out for a paper?”
“They were all here before I went. I left them on his bed.”
“Or for a shave?”
“That’s more likely; but he’s been out nearly an hour.”
“But you can’t have been gone much longer yourself, Raffles, and I understood you left him fast asleep?”
“That’s the worst of it, Bunny. He must have been shamming13. Barraclough saw him go out ten minutes after me.”
“Could you have disturbed him when you went?”
Raffles shook his head.
“I never shut a door more carefully in my life. I made row enough when I came back, Bunny, on purpose to wake him up, and I can tell you it gave me a turn when there wasn’t a sound from in there! He’d shut all the doors after him; it was a second or two before I had the pluck to open them. I thought something horrible had happened!”
“You don’t think so still?”
“I don’t know what to think,” said Raffles, gloomily; “nothing has panned out as I thought it would. You must remember that we have given ourselves away to Dan Levy14, whatever else we have done, and without doubt set up the enemy of our lives in the very next street. It’s close quarters, Bunny; we shall have an expert eye upon us for some time to come. But I should rather enjoy that than otherwise, if only Teddy hadn’t bolted in this rotten way.”
Never had I known Raffles in so pessimistic a mood. I did not share his sombre view of either matter, though I confined my remarks to the one that seemed to weigh most heavily on his mind.
“A guinea to a gooseberry,” I wagered15, “that you find your man safe and sound at Lord’s.”
“I rang them up ten minutes ago,” said Raffles. “They hadn’t heard of him then; besides, here’s his cricket-bag.”
“He may have been at the club when I fetched it away — I never asked.”
“I did, Bunny. I rang them up as well, just after you had left.”
“Then what about his father’s house?”
“That’s our one chance,” said Raffles. “They’re not on the telephone, but now that you’re here I’ve a good mind to drive out and see if Teddy’s there. You know what a state he was in last night, and you know how a thing can seem worse when you wake and remember it than it did at the time it happened. I begin to hope he’s gone straight to old Garland with the whole story; in that case he’s bound to come back for his kit16; and by Jove, Bunny, there’s a step upon the stairs!”
We had left the doors open behind us, and a step it was, ascending17 hastily enough to our floor. But it was not the step of a very young man, and Raffles was the first to recognise the fact; his face fell as we looked at each other for a single moment of suspense18; in another he was out of the room, and I heard him greeting Mr. Garland on the landing.
“Then you haven’t brought Teddy with you?” I heard Raffles add.
“Do you mean to say he isn’t here?” replied so pleasant a voice — in accents of such acute dismay — that Mr. Garland had my sympathy before we met.
“He has been,” said Raffles, “and I’m expecting him back every minute. Won’t you come in and wait, Mr. Garland?”
The pleasant voice made an exclamation19 of premature20 relief; the pair entered, and I was introduced to the last person I should have suspected of being a retired21 brewer22 at all, much less of squandering23 his money in retirement24 as suggested by his son. I was prepared for a conventional embodiment of reckless prosperity, for a pseudo-military type in louder purple and finer linen25 than the real thing. I shook hands instead with a gentle, elderly man, whose kindly26 eyes beamed bravely amid careworn27 furrows28, and whose slightly diffident yet wholly cordial address won my heart outright29.
“So you’ve lost no time in welcoming the wanderer!” said he. “You’re nearly as bad as my boy, who was quite bent30 on seeing Raffles last night or first thing this morning. He told me he should stay the night in town if necessary, and he evidently has.”
There was still a trace of anxiety in the father’s manner, but there was also a twinkle in his eyes, which kindled31 with genial32 fires as Raffles gave a perfectly33 truthful34 account of the young man’s movements (as distinct from his words and deeds) overnight.
“And what do you think of his great news?” asked Mr. Garland. “Was it a surprise to you, Raffles?”
Raffles shook his head with a rather weary smile, and I sat up in my chair. What great news was this?
“This son of mine has just got engaged,” explained Mr. Garland for my benefit. “And as a matter of fact it’s his engagement that brings me here; you gentlemen mustn’t think I want to keep an eagle eye upon him; but Miss Belsize has just wired to say she is coming up early to go with us to the match, instead of meeting at Lord’s, and I thought she would be so disappointed not to find Teddy, especially as they are bound to see very little of each other all day.”
I for my part was wondering why I had not heard of Miss Belsize or this engagement from Raffles. He must himself have heard of it last thing at night in the next room, while I was star-gazing here at the open window. Yet in all the small hours he had never told me of a circumstance which extenuated35 young Garland’s conduct if it did nothing else. Even now it was not from Raffles that I received either word or look of explanation. But his face had suddenly lit up.
“May I ask,” he exclaimed, “if the telegram was to Teddy or to you, Mr. Garland?”
“It was addressed to Teddy, but of course I opened it in his absence.”
“Could it have been an answer to an invitation or suggestion of his?”
“Very easily. They had lunch together yesterday, and Camilla might have had to consult Lady Laura.”
“Then that’s the whole thing!” cried Raffles. “Teddy was on his way home while you were on yours into town! How did you come?”
“In the brougham.”
“Through the Park?”
“Yes.”
“While he was in a hansom in Knightsbridge or Kensington Gore36! That’s how you missed him,” said Raffles confidently. “If you drive straight back you’ll be in time to take him on to Lord’s.”
Mr. Garland begged us both to drive back with him; and we thought we might; we decided37 that we would, and were all three under way in about a minute. Yet it was considerably38 after eleven when we bowled through Kensington to a house that I had never seen before, a house since swept away by the flowing tide of flats, but I can still see every stone and slate39 of it as clearly as on that summer morning more than ten years ago. It stood just off the thoroughfare, in grounds of its own out of all keeping with their metropolitan40 environment; they ran from one side-street to another, and further back than we could see. Vivid lawn and towering tree, brilliant beds and crystal vineries, struck one more forcibly (and favourably) than the mullioned and turreted41 mansion42 of a house. And yet a double stream of omnibuses rattled44 incessantly45 within a few yards of the steps on which the three of us soon stood nonplussed46.
Mr. Edward had not been seen or heard of at the house. Neither had Miss Belsize arrived; that was the one consolatory47 feature.
“Come into the library,” said Mr. Garland; and when we were among his books, which were somewhat beautifully bound and cased in glass, he turned to Raffles and added hoarsely48: “There’s something in all this I haven’t been told, and I insist on knowing what it is.”
“But you know as much as I do,” protested Raffles. “I went out leaving Teddy asleep and came back to find him flown.”
“What time was that?”
“Between nine and half-past when I went out. I was away nearly an hour.”
“Why leave him asleep at that time of morning?”
“I wanted him to have every minute he could get. We had been sitting up rather late.”
“But why, Raffles? What could you have to talk about all night when you were tired and it was Teddy’s business to keep fresh for today? Why, after all, should he want to see you the moment you got back? He’s not the first young fellow who’s got rather suddenly engaged to a charming girl; is he in any trouble about it, Raffles?”
“About his engagement — not that I’m aware.”
“Then he is in some trouble?”
“He was, Mr. Garland,” answered Raffles. “I give you my word that he isn’t now.”
Mr. Garland grasped the back of a chair.
“Was it some money trouble, Raffles? Of course, if my boy has given you his confidence, I have no right simply as his father —”
“It is hardly that, sir,” said Raffles, gently; “it is I who have no right to give him away. But if you don’t mind leaving it at that, Mr. Garland, there is perhaps no harm in my saying that it was about some little temporary embarrassment49 that Teddy was so anxious to see me.”
“And you helped him?” cried the poor man, plainly torn between gratitude50 and humiliation51.
“Not out of my pocket,” replied Raffles, smiling. “The matter was not so serious as Teddy thought; it only required adjustment.”
“God bless you, Raffles!” murmured Mr. Garland, with a catch in his voice. “I won’t ask for a single detail. My poor boy went to the right man; he knew better than to come to me. Like father, like son!” he muttered to himself, and dropped into the chair he had been handling, and bent his head over his folded arms.
He seemed to have forgotten the untoward52 effect of Teddy’s disappearance53 in the peculiar54 humiliation of its first cause. Raffles took out his watch, and held up the dial for me to see. It was after the half-hour now; but at this moment a servant entered with a missive, and the master recovered his self-control.
“This’ll be from Teddy!” he cried, fumbling55 with his glasses. “No; it’s for him, and by special messenger. I’d better open it. I don’t suppose it’s Miss Belsize again.”
“Miss Belsize is in the drawing-room, sir,” said the man. “She said you were not to be disturbed.”
“Oh, tell her we shan’t be long,” said Mr. Garland, with a new strain of trouble in his tone. “Listen to this — listen to this,” he went on before the door was shut: “‘What has happened? Lost toss. Whipham plays if you don’t turn up in time. — J. S.’”
“Jack Studley,” said Raffles, “the Cambridge skipper.”
“I know! I know! And Whipham’s reserve man, isn’t he?”
“And another wicket-keeper, worse luck!” exclaimed Raffles. “If he turns out and takes a single ball, and Teddy is only one over late, it will still be too late for him to play.”
“Then it’s too late already,” said Mr. Garland, sinking back into his chair with a groan56.
“But that note from Studley may have been half-an-hour on the way.”
“No, Raffles, it’s not an ordinary note; it’s a message telephoned straight from Lord’s — probably within the last few minutes — to a messenger office not a hundred yards from this door!”
Mr. Garland sat staring miserably57 at the carpet; he was beginning to look ill with perplexity and suspense. Raffles himself, who had turned his back upon us with a shrug58 of acquiescence59 in the inevitable60, was a monument of discomfiture61 as he stood gazing through a glass door into the adjoining conservatory62. There was no actual window in the library, but this door was a single sheet of plate-glass into which a man might well have walked, and I can still see Raffles in full-length silhouette63 upon a panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss64, a fairy fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in the body of the room.
“It’s raining!” he cried, waving a hand above his head. “Have you a barometer65, Mr. Garland?”
“That’s an aneroid under the lamp-bracket.”
“How often do you set the indicator66?”
“Last thing every night. I remember it was between Fair and Change when I went to bed. It made me anxious.”
“It may make you thankful now. It’s between Change and Rain this morning. And the rain’s begun, and while there’s rain there’s hope!”
In a twinkling Raffles had regained67 all his own irresistible68 buoyancy and assurance. But the older man was not capable of so prompt a recovery.
“Something has happened to my boy!”
“But not necessarily anything terrible.”
“If I knew what, Raffles — if only I knew what!”
Raffles eyed the pale and twitching69 face with sidelong solicitude70. He himself had the confident expression which always gave me confidence; the rattle43 on the conservatory roof was growing louder every minute.
“I intend to find out,” said he; “and if the rain goes on long enough, we may still see Teddy playing when it stops. But I shall want your help, sir.”
“I am ready to go with you anywhere, Raffles.”
“You can only help me, Mr. Garland, by staying where you are.”
“Where I am?”
“In the house all day,” said Raffles firmly. “It is absolutely essential to my idea.”
“And that is, Raffles?”
“To save Teddy’s face, in the first instance. I shall drive straight up to Lord’s, in your brougham if I may. I know Studley rather well; he shall keep Teddy’s place open till the last possible moment.”
“But how shall you account for his absence?” I asked.
“I shall account for it all right,” said Raffles darkly. “I can save his face for the time being, at all events at Lord’s.”
“But that’s the only place that matters,” said I.
“On the contrary, Bunny, this very house matters even more as long as Miss Belsize is here. You forget that they’re engaged, and that she’s in the next room now.”
“Good God!” whispered Mr. Garland. “I had forgotten that myself.”
“She is the last who must know of this affair,” said Raffles, with, I thought, undue71 authority. “And you are the only one who can keep it from her, sir.”
“I?”
“Miss Belsize mustn’t go up to Lord’s this morning. She would only spoil her things, and you may tell her from me that there would be no play for an hour after this, even if it stopped this minute, which it won’t. Meanwhile let her think that Teddy’s weatherbound with the rest of them in the pavilion; but she mustn’t come until you hear from me again; and the best way to keep her here is to stay with her yourself.”
“And when may I expect to hear?” asked Mr. Garland as Raffles held out his hand.
“Let me see. I shall be at Lord’s in less than twenty minutes; another five or ten should polish off Studley; and then I shall barricade72 myself in the telephone-box and ring up every hospital in town! You see, it may be an accident after all, though I don’t think so. You won’t hear from me on the point unless it is; the fewer messengers flying about the better, if you agree with me as to the wisdom of keeping the matter dark at this end.”
“Oh, yes, I agree with you, Raffles; but it will be a terribly hard task for me!”
“It will, indeed, Mr. Garland. Yet no news is always good news, and I promise to come straight to you the moment I have news of any kind.”
With that they shook hands, our host with an obvious reluctance73 that turned to a less understandable dismay as I also prepared to take my leave of him.
“What!” cried he, “am I to be left quite alone to hoodwink that poor girl and hide my own anxiety?”
“There’s no reason why you should come, Bunny,” said Raffles to me. “If either of them is a one-man job, it’s mine.”
Our host said no more, but he looked at me so wistfully that I could not but offer to stay with him if he wished it; and when at length the drawing-room door had closed upon him and his son’s fiancee, I took an umbrella from the stand and saw Raffles through the providential downpour into the brougham.
“I’m sorry, Bunny,” he muttered between the butler in the porch and the coachman on the box. “This sort of thing is neither in my line nor yours, but it serves us right for straying from the path of candid74 crime. We should have opened a safe for that seven hundred.”
“But what do you really think is at the bottom of this extraordinary disappearance?”
“Some madness or other, I’m afraid; but if that boy is still in the land of the living, I shall have him before the sun goes down on his insanity75.”
“And what about this engagement of his?” I pursued. “Do you disapprove76 of it?”
“Why on earth should I?” asked Raffles, rather sharply, as he plunged77 from under my umbrella into the brougham.
“Because you never told me when he told you,” I replied. “Is the girl beneath him?”
Raffles looked at me inscrutably with his clear blue eyes.
“You’d better find out for yourself,” said he. “Tell the coachman to hurry up to Lord’s — and pray that this rain may last!”
点击收听单词发音
1 raffles | |
n.抽彩售物( raffle的名词复数 )v.以抽彩方式售(物)( raffle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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2 flannels | |
法兰绒男裤; 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 ) | |
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3 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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4 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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5 awakening | |
n.觉醒,醒悟 adj.觉醒中的;唤醒的 | |
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6 lenient | |
adj.宽大的,仁慈的 | |
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7 breach | |
n.违反,不履行;破裂;vt.冲破,攻破 | |
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8 wiles | |
n.(旨在欺骗或吸引人的)诡计,花招;欺骗,欺诈( wile的名词复数 ) | |
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9 tinkled | |
(使)发出丁当声,(使)发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 ); 叮当响着发出,铃铃响着报出 | |
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10 contrived | |
adj.不自然的,做作的;虚构的 | |
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11 justifiable | |
adj.有理由的,无可非议的 | |
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12 chicanery | |
n.欺诈,欺骗 | |
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13 shamming | |
假装,冒充( sham的现在分词 ) | |
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14 levy | |
n.征收税或其他款项,征收额 | |
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15 wagered | |
v.在(某物)上赌钱,打赌( wager的过去式和过去分词 );保证,担保 | |
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16 kit | |
n.用具包,成套工具;随身携带物 | |
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17 ascending | |
adj.上升的,向上的 | |
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18 suspense | |
n.(对可能发生的事)紧张感,担心,挂虑 | |
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19 exclamation | |
n.感叹号,惊呼,惊叹词 | |
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20 premature | |
adj.比预期时间早的;不成熟的,仓促的 | |
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21 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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22 brewer | |
n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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23 squandering | |
v.(指钱,财产等)浪费,乱花( squander的现在分词 ) | |
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24 retirement | |
n.退休,退职 | |
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25 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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26 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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27 careworn | |
adj.疲倦的,饱经忧患的 | |
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28 furrows | |
n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 );(脸上的)皱纹v.犁田,开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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29 outright | |
adv.坦率地;彻底地;立即;adj.无疑的;彻底的 | |
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30 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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31 kindled | |
(使某物)燃烧,着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 ); 激起(感情等); 发亮,放光 | |
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32 genial | |
adj.亲切的,和蔼的,愉快的,脾气好的 | |
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33 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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34 truthful | |
adj.真实的,说实话的,诚实的 | |
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35 extenuated | |
v.(用偏袒的辩解或借口)减轻( extenuate的过去式和过去分词 );低估,藐视 | |
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36 gore | |
n.凝血,血污;v.(动物)用角撞伤,用牙刺破;缝以补裆;顶 | |
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37 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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38 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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39 slate | |
n.板岩,石板,石片,石板色,候选人名单;adj.暗蓝灰色的,含板岩的;vt.用石板覆盖,痛打,提名,预订 | |
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40 metropolitan | |
adj.大城市的,大都会的 | |
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41 turreted | |
a.(像炮塔般)旋转式的 | |
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42 mansion | |
n.大厦,大楼;宅第 | |
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43 rattle | |
v.飞奔,碰响;激怒;n.碰撞声;拨浪鼓 | |
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44 rattled | |
慌乱的,恼火的 | |
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45 incessantly | |
ad.不停地 | |
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46 nonplussed | |
adj.不知所措的,陷于窘境的v.使迷惑( nonplus的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47 consolatory | |
adj.慰问的,可藉慰的 | |
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48 hoarsely | |
adv.嘶哑地 | |
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49 embarrassment | |
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
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50 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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51 humiliation | |
n.羞辱 | |
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52 untoward | |
adj.不利的,不幸的,困难重重的 | |
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53 disappearance | |
n.消失,消散,失踪 | |
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54 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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55 fumbling | |
n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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56 groan | |
vi./n.呻吟,抱怨;(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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57 miserably | |
adv.痛苦地;悲惨地;糟糕地;极度地 | |
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58 shrug | |
v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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59 acquiescence | |
n.默许;顺从 | |
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60 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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61 discomfiture | |
n.崩溃;大败;挫败;困惑 | |
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62 conservatory | |
n.温室,音乐学院;adj.保存性的,有保存力的 | |
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63 silhouette | |
n.黑色半身侧面影,影子,轮廓;v.描绘成侧面影,照出影子来,仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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64 hiss | |
v.发出嘶嘶声;发嘘声表示不满 | |
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65 barometer | |
n.气压表,睛雨表,反应指标 | |
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66 indicator | |
n.指标;指示物,指示者;指示器 | |
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67 regained | |
复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 ); 赢回; 重回; 复至某地 | |
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68 irresistible | |
adj.非常诱人的,无法拒绝的,无法抗拒的 | |
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69 twitching | |
n.颤搐 | |
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70 solicitude | |
n.焦虑 | |
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71 undue | |
adj.过分的;不适当的;未到期的 | |
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72 barricade | |
n.路障,栅栏,障碍;vt.设路障挡住 | |
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73 reluctance | |
n.厌恶,讨厌,勉强,不情愿 | |
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74 candid | |
adj.公正的,正直的;坦率的 | |
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75 insanity | |
n.疯狂,精神错乱;极端的愚蠢,荒唐 | |
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76 disapprove | |
v.不赞成,不同意,不批准 | |
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77 plunged | |
v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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