Mrs. Oliver woke up dissatisfied. She saw stretching before her a day with nothing to do. Havingpacked off her completed manuscript with a highly virtuous1 feeling, work was over. She had nowonly, as many times before, to relax, to enjoy herself; to lie fallow until the creative urge becameactive once more. She walked about her flat in a rather aimless fashion, touching2 things, pickingthem up, putting them down, looking in the drawers of her desk, realising that there were plenty ofletters there to be dealt with but feeling also that in her present state of virtuous accomplishment,she was certainly not going to deal with anything so tiresome3 as that now. She wanted somethinginteresting to do. She wanted—what did she want?
She thought about the conversation she had had with Hercule Poirot, the warning he had givenher. Ridiculous! After all, why shouldn’t she participate in this problem which she was sharingwith Poirot? Poirot might choose to sit in a chair, put the tips of his fingers together, and set hisgrey cells whirring to work while his body reclined comfortably within four walls. That was notthe procedure that appealed to Ariadne Oliver. She had said, very forcibly, that she at least wasgoing to do something. She was going to find out more about this mysterious girl. Where wasNorma Restarick? What was she doing? What more could she, Ariadne Oliver, find out about her?
Mrs. Oliver prowled about, more and more disconsolate4. What could one do? It wasn’t veryeasy to decide. Go somewhere and ask questions? Should she go down to Long Basing? But Poirothad already been there—and found out presumably what there was to be found out. And whatexcuse could she offer for barging into Sir Roderick Horsefield’s house?
She considered another visit to Borodene Mansions5. Something still to be found out there,perhaps? She would have to think of another excuse for going there. She wasn’t quite sure whatexcuse she would use but anyway, that seemed the only possible place where more informationcould be obtained. What was the time? Ten a.m. There were certain possibilities….
On the way there she concocted6 an excuse. Not a very original excuse. In fact, Mrs. Oliverwould have liked to have found something more intriguing7, but perhaps, she reflected prudently8, itwas just as well to keep to something completely everyday and plausible9. She arrived at the statelyif grim elevation10 of Borodene Mansions and walked slowly round the courtyard considering it.
A porter was conversing11 with a furniture van—A milkman, pushing his milk float, came to joinMrs. Oliver near the service lift.
He rattled12 bottles, cheerfully whistling, whilst Mrs. Oliver continued to stare abstractedly at thefurniture van.
“Number 76 moving out,” explained the milkman to Mrs. Oliver, mistaking her interest. Hetransferred a clutch of bottles from his float to the lift.
“Not that she hasn’t moved already in a manner of speaking,” he added, emerging again. Heseemed a cheery kind of milkman.
He pointed13 a thumb upwards14.
“Pitched herself out of a window—seventh floor—only a week ago, it was. Five o’clock in themorning. Funny time to choose.”
Mrs. Oliver didn’t think it so funny.
“Why?”
“Why did she do it? Nobody knows. Balance of mind disturbed, they said.”
“Was she—young?”
“Nah! Just an old trout15. Fifty if she was a day.”
Two men struggled in the van with a chest of drawers. It resisted them and two mahoganydrawers crashed to the ground—a loose piece of paper floated toward Mrs. Oliver who caught it.
“Don’t smash everything, Charlie,” said the cheerful milkman reprovingly, and went up in thelift with his cargo16 of bottles.
An altercation17 broke out between the furniture movers. Mrs. Oliver offered them the piece ofpaper, but they waved it away.
Making up her mind, Mrs. Oliver entered the building and went up to No. 67. A clank camefrom inside and presently the door was opened by a middle-aged18 woman with a mop who wasclearly engaged in household labours.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Oliver, using her favourite monosyllable. “Good morning. Is—I wonder—isanyone in?”
“No, I’m afraid not, Madam. They’re all out. They’ve gone to work.”
“Yes, of course… As a matter of fact when I was here last I left a little diary behind. Soannoying. It must be in the sitting room somewhere.”
“Well, I haven’t picked up anything of the kind, Madam, as far as I know. Of course I mightn’thave known it was yours. Would you like to come in?” She opened the door hospitably19, set asidethe mop with which she had been treating the kitchen floor, and accompanied Mrs. Oliver into thesitting room.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver, determined20 to establish friendly relations, “yes, I see here—that’s thebook I left for Miss Restarick, Miss Norma. Is she back from the country yet?”
“I don’t think she’s living here at the moment. Her bed wasn’t slept in. Perhaps she’s still downwith her people in the country. I know she was going there last weekend.”
“Yes, I expect that’s it,” said Mrs. Oliver. “This was a book I brought her. One of my books.”
One of Mrs. Oliver’s books did not seem to strike any chord of interest in the cleaning woman.
“I was sitting here,” went on Mrs. Oliver, patting an armchair, “at least I think so. And then Imoved to the window and perhaps to the sofa.”
She dug down vehemently21 behind the cushions of the chair. The cleaning woman obliged bydoing the same thing to the sofa cushions.
“You’ve no idea how maddening it is when one loses something like that,” went on Mrs. Oliver,chattily. “One has all one’s engagements written down there. I’m quite sure I’m lunching withsomeone very important today, and I can’t remember who it was or where the luncheon22 was to be.
Only, of course, it may be tomorrow. If so, I’m lunching with someone else quite different. Ohdear.”
“Very trying for you, ma’am, I’m sure,” said the cleaning woman with sympathy.
“They’re such nice flats, these,” said Mrs. Oliver, looking round.
“A long way up.”
“Well, that gives you a very good view, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but if they face east you get a lot of cold wind in winter. Comes right through these metalwindow frames. Some people have had double windows put in. Oh yes, I wouldn’t care for a flatfacing this way in winter. No, give me a nice ground floor flat every time. Much more convenienttoo if you’ve got children. For prams23 and all that, you know. Oh yes, I’m all for the ground floor, Iam. Think if there was to be a fire.”
“Yes, of course, that would be terrible,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I suppose there are fire escapes?”
“You can’t always get to a fire door. Terrified of fire, I am. Always have been. And they’re everso expensive, these flats. You wouldn’t believe the rents they ask! That’s why Miss Holland, shegets two other girls to go in with her.”
“Oh yes, I think I met them both. Miss Cary’s an artist, isn’t she?”
“Works for an art gallery, she does. Don’t work at it very hard, though. She paints a bit—cowsand trees that you’d never recognise as being what they’re meant to be. An untidy young lady. Thestate her room is in—you wouldn’t believe it! Now Miss Holland, everything is always as neat asa new pin. She was a secretary in the Coal Board at one time but she’s a private secretary in theCity now. She likes it better, she says. She’s secretary to a very rich gentleman just come backfrom South America or somewhere like that. He’s Miss Norma’s father, and it was he who askedMiss Holland to take her as a boarder when the last young lady went off to get married—and shementioned as she was looking for another girl. Well, she couldn’t very well refuse, could she? Notsince he was her employer.”
“Did she want to refuse?”
The woman sniffed24.
“I think she would have—if she’d known.”
“Known what?” The question was too direct.
“It’s not for me to say anything, I’m sure. It’s not my business—”
Mrs. Oliver continued to look mildly inquiring. Mrs. Mop fell.
“It’s not that she isn’t a nice young lady. Scatty but then they’re nearly all scatty. But I think asa doctor ought to see her. There are times when she doesn’t seem to know rightly what she’sdoing, or where she is. It gives you quite a turn, sometimes—Looks just how my husband’snephew does after he’s had a fit. (Terrible fits he has—you wouldn’t believe!) Only I’ve neverknown her have fits. Maybe she takes things—a lot do.”
“I believe there is a young man her family doesn’t approve of.”
“Yes, so I’ve heard. He’s come here to call for her once or twice—though I’ve never seen him.
One of these Mods by all accounts. Miss Holland doesn’t like it—but what can you do nowadays?
Girls go their own way.”
“Sometimes one feels very upset about girls nowadays,” said Mrs. Oliver, and tried to lookserious and responsible.
“Not brought up right, that’s what I says.”
“I’m afraid not. No, I’m afraid not. One feels really a girl like Norma Restarick would be betterat home than coming all alone to London and earning her living as an interior decorator.”
“She don’t like it at home.”
“Really?”
“Got a stepmother. Girls don’t like stepmothers. From what I’ve heard the stepmother’s doneher best, tried to pull her up, tried to keep flashy young men out of the house, that sort of thing.
She knows girls pick up with the wrong young man and a lot of harm may come of it. Sometimes—” the cleaning woman spoke25 impressively, “—I’m thankful I’ve never had any daughters.”
“Have you got sons?”
“Two boys, we’ve got. One’s doing very well at school, and the other one, he’s in a printer’s,doing well there too. Yes, very nice boys they are. Mind you, boys can cause you trouble, too. Butgirls is more worrying, I think. You feel you ought to be able to do something about them.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver, thoughtfully, “one does feel that.”
She saw signs of the cleaning woman wishing to return to her cleaning.
“It’s too bad about my diary,” she said. “Well, thank you very much and I hope I haven’twasted your time.”
“Well, I hope you’ll find it, I’m sure,” said the other woman obligingly.
Mrs. Oliver went out of the flat and considered what she should do next. She couldn’t think ofanything she could do further that day, but a plan for tomorrow began to form in her mind.
When she got home, Mrs. Oliver, in an important way, got out a notebook and jotted26 down in itvarious things under the heading “Facts I have learned.” On the whole the facts did not amount tovery much but Mrs. Oliver, true to her calling, managed to make the most of them that could bemade. Possibly the fact that Claudia Reece-Holland was employed by Norma’s father was themost salient fact of any. She had not known that before, she rather doubted if Hercule Poirot hadknown it either. She thought of ringing him up on the telephone and acquainting him with it butdecided to keep it to herself for the moment because of her plan for the morrow. In fact, Mrs.
Oliver felt at this moment less like a detective novelist than like an ardent28 bloodhound. She was onthe trail, nose down on the scent29, and tomorrow morning—well, tomorrow morning we would see.
True to her plan, Mrs. Oliver rose early, partook of two cups of tea and a boiled egg and startedout on her quest. Once more she arrived in the vicinity of Borodene Mansions. She wonderedwhether she might be getting a bit well known there, so this time she did not enter the courtyard,but skulked30 around either one entrance to it or the other, scanning the various people who wereturning out into the morning drizzle31 to trot32 off on their way to work. They were mostly girls, andlooked deceptively alike. How extraordinary human beings were when you considered them likethis, emerging purposefully from these large tall buildings—just like anthills, thought Mrs. Oliver.
One had never considered an anthill properly, she decided27. It always looked so aimless, as onedisturbed it with the toe of a shoe. All those little things rushing about with bits of grass in theirmouths, streaming along industriously33, worried, anxious, looking as though they were running toand fro and going nowhere, but presumably they were just as well organised as these humanbeings here. That man, for instance, who had just passed her. Scurrying34 along, muttering tohimself. “I wonder what’s upsetting you,” thought Mrs. Oliver. She walked up and down a littlemore, then she drew back suddenly.
Claudia Reece-Holland came out of the entranceway walking at a brisk businesslike pace. Asbefore, she looked very well turned out. Mrs. Oliver turned away so that she should not berecognised. Once she had allowed Claudia to get a sufficient distance ahead of her, she wheeledround again and followed in her tracks. Claudia Reece-Holland came to the end of the street andturned right into a main thoroughfare. She came to a bus stop and joined the queue. Mrs. Oliver,still following her, felt a momentary35 uneasiness. Supposing Claudia should turn round, look at her,recognise her? All Mrs. Oliver could think of was to do several protracted36 but noiseless blows ofthe nose. But Claudia Reece-Holland seemed totally absorbed in her own thoughts. She looked atnone of her fellow waiters for buses. Mrs. Oliver was about third in the queue behind her. Finallythe right bus came and there was a surge forward. Claudia got on the bus and went straight up tothe top. Mrs. Oliver got inside and was able to get a seat close to the door as the uncomfortablethird person. When the conductor came round for fares Mrs. Oliver pressed a reckless one andsixpence into his hand. After all, she had no idea by what route the bus went or indeed how far thedistance was to what the cleaning woman had described vaguely37 as “one of those new buildingsby St. Paul’s.” She was on the alert and ready when the venerable dome38 was at last sighted.
Anytime now, she thought to herself, and fixed39 a steady eye on those who descended40 from theplatform above. Ah yes, there came Claudia, neat and chic41 in her smart suit. She got off the bus.
Mrs. Oliver followed her in due course and kept at a nicely calculated distance.
“Very interesting,” thought Mrs. Oliver. “Here I am actually trailing someone! Just like in mybooks. And, what’s more, I must be doing it very well because she hasn’t the least idea.”
Claudia Reece-Holland, indeed, looked very much absorbed in her own thoughts. “That’s a verycapable looking girl,” thought Mrs. Oliver, as indeed she had thought before. “If I was thinking ofhaving a go at guessing a murderer, a good capable murderer, I’d choose someone very like her.”
Unfortunately, nobody had been murdered yet, that is to say, unless the girl Norma had beenentirely right in her assumption that she herself had committed a murder.
This part of London seemed to have suffered or profited from a large amount of building in therecent years. Enormous skyscrapers42, most of which Mrs. Oliver thought very hideous43, mounted tothe sky with a square matchbox-like air.
Claudia turned into a building. “Now I shall find out exactly,” thought Mrs. Oliver and turnedinto it after her. Four lifts appeared to be all going up and down with frantic44 haste. This, Mrs.
Oliver thought, was going to be more difficult. However, they were of a very large size and bygetting into Claudia’s one at the last minute Mrs. Oliver was able to interpose large masses of tallmen between herself and the figure she was following. Claudia’s destination turned out to be thefourth floor. She went along a corridor and Mrs. Oliver, lingering behind two of her tall men,noted the door where she went in. Three doors from the end of the corridor. Mrs. Oliver arrived atthe same door in due course and was able to read the legend on it. “Joshua Restarick Ltd.” was thelegend it bore.
Having got as far as that Mrs. Oliver felt as though she did not quite know what to do next. Shehad found Norma’s father’s place of business and the place where Claudia worked, but now,slightly disabused45, she felt that this was not as much of a discovery as it might have been. Frankly,did it help? Probably it didn’t.
She waited around a few moments, walking from one end to the other of the corridor looking tosee if anybody else interesting went in at the door of Restarick Enterprises. Two or three girls didbut they did not look particularly interesting. Mrs. Oliver went down again in the lift and walkedrather disconsolately46 out of the building. She couldn’t quite think what to do next. She took a walkround the adjacent streets, she meditated47 a visit to St. Paul’s.
“I might go up in the Whispering Gallery and whisper,” thought Mrs. Oliver. “I wonder nowhow the Whispering Gallery would do for the scene of a murder?
“No,” she decided, “too profane48, I’m afraid. No, I don’t think that would be quite nice.” Shewalked thoughtfully towards the Mermaid49 Theatre. That, she thought, had far more possibilities.
She walked back in the direction of the various new buildings. Then, feeling the lack of a moresubstantial breakfast than she had had, she turned into a local café. It was moderately well filledwith people having extra late breakfast or else early “elevenses.” Mrs. Oliver, looking roundvaguely for a suitable table, gave a gasp50. At a table near the wall the girl Norma was sitting, andopposite her was sitting a young man with lavish51 chestnut52 hair curled on his shoulders, wearing ared velvet53 waistcoat and a very fancy jacket.
“David,” said Mrs. Oliver under her breath. “It must be David.” He and the girl Norma weretalking excitedly together.
Mrs. Oliver considered a plan of campaign, made up her mind, and nodding her head insatisfaction, crossed the floor of the café to a discreet54 door marked “Ladies.”
Mrs. Oliver was not quite sure whether Norma was likely to recognise her or not. It was notalways the vaguest looking people who proved the vaguest in fact. At the moment Norma did notlook as though she was likely to look at anybody but David, but who knows?
“I expect I can do something to myself anyway,” thought Mrs. Oliver. She looked at herself in asmall flyblown mirror provided by the café’s management, studying particularly what sheconsidered to be the focal point of a woman’s appearance, her hair. No one knew this better thanMrs. Oliver, owing to the innumerable times that she had changed her mode of hairdressing, andhad failed to be recognised by her friends in consequence. Giving her head an appraising55 eye shestarted work. Out came the pins, she took off several coils of hair, wrapped them up in herhandkerchief and stuffed them into her handbag, parted her hair in the middle, combed it sternlyback from her face and rolled it up into a modest bun at the back of her neck. She also took out apair of spectacles and put them on her nose. There was a really earnest look about her now!
“Almost intellectual,” Mrs. Oliver thought approvingly. She altered the shape of her mouth by anapplication of lipstick56, and emerged once more into the café; moving carefully since the spectacleswere only for reading and in consequence the landscape was blurred57. She crossed the café, andmade her way to an empty table next to that occupied by Norma and David. She sat down so thatshe was facing David. Norma, on the near side, sat with her back to her. Norma, therefore, wouldnot see her unless she turned her head right round. The waitress drifted up. Mrs. Oliver ordered acup of coffee and a Bath bun and settled down to be inconspicuous.
Norma and David did not even notice her. They were deeply in the middle of a passionatediscussion. It took Mrs. Oliver just a minute or two to tune58 into them.
“…But you only fancy these things,” David was saying. “You imagine them. They’re all utter,utter nonsense, my dear girl.”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell.” Norma’s voice had a queer lack of resonance59 in it.
Mrs. Oliver could not hear her as well as she heard David, since Norma’s back was turned toher, but the dullness of the girl’s tone struck her disagreeably. There was something wrong here,she thought. Very wrong. She remembered the story as Poirot had first told it to her. “She thinksshe may have committed a murder.” What was the matter with the girl? Hallucinations? Was hermind really slightly affected60, or was it no more and no less than truth, and in consequence the girlhad suffered a bad shock?
“If you ask me, it’s all fuss on Mary’s part! She’s a thoroughly61 stupid woman anyway, and sheimagines she has illnesses and all that sort of thing.”
“She was ill.”
“All right then, she was ill. Any sensible woman would get the doctor to give her someantibiotic or other, and not get het up.”
“She thought I did it to her. My father thinks so too.”
“I tell you, Norma, you imagine all these things.”
“You just say that to me, David. You say it to me to cheer me up. Supposing I did give her thestuff?”
“What do you mean, suppose? You must know whether you did or you didn’t. You can’t be soidiotic, Norma.”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that. You keep coming back to that, and saying it again and again. ‘I don’tknow.’ ‘I don’t know.’”
“You don’t understand. You don’t understand in the least what hate is. I hated her from the firstmoment I saw her.”
“I know. You told me that.”
“That’s the queer part of it. I told you that, and yet I don’t even remember telling you that.
D’you see? Every now and then I—I tell people things. I tell people things that I want to do, orthat I have done, or that I’m going to do. But I don’t even remember telling them the things. It’s asthough I was thinking all these things in my mind, and sometimes they come out in the open and Isay them to people. I did say them to you, didn’t I?”
“Well—I mean—look here, don’t let’s harp62 back to that.”
“But I did say it to you? Didn’t I?”
“All right, all right! One says things like that. ‘I hate her and I’d like to kill her. I think I’llpoison her!’ But that’s only kid stuff, if you know what I mean, as though you weren’t quitegrown-up. It’s a very natural thing. Children say it a lot. ‘I hate so and so. I’ll cut off his head!’
Kids say it at school. About some master they particularly dislike.”
“You think it was just that? But—that sounds as though I wasn’t grown-up.”
“Well, you’re not in some ways. If you’d just pull yourself together, realise how silly it all is.
What can it matter if you do hate her? You’ve got away from home and don’t have to live withher.”
“Why shouldn’t I live in my own home—with my own father?” said Norma. “It’s not fair. It’snot fair. First he went away and left my mother, and now, just when he’s coming back to me, hegoes and marries Mary. Of course I hate her and she hates me too. I used to think about killing63 her,used to think of ways of doing it. I used to enjoy thinking like that. But then—when she really gotill….”
David said uneasily:
“You don’t think you’re a witch or anything, do you? You don’t make figures in wax and stickpins into them or do that sort of thing?”
“Oh no. That would be silly. What I did was real. Quite real.”
“Look here, Norma, what do you mean when you say it was real?”
“The bottle was there, in my drawer. Yes, I opened the drawer and found it.”
“What bottle?”
“The Dragon Exterminator64. Selective weed killer65. That’s what it was labelled. Stuff in a darkgreen bottle and you were supposed to spray it on things. And it had labels with Caution andPoison, too.”
“Did you buy it? Or did you just find it?”
“I don’t know where I got it, but it was there, in my drawer, and it was half empty.”
“And then you—you—remembered—”
“Yes,” said Norma. “Yes…” Her voice was vague, almost dreamy. “Yes…I think it was then itall came back to me. You think so too, don’t you, David?”
“I don’t know what to make of you, Norma. I really don’t. I think in a way, you’re making it allup, you’re telling it to yourself.”
“But she went to hospital, for observation. They said they were puzzled. Then they said theycouldn’t find anything wrong so she came home—and then she got ill again, and I began to befrightened. My father began looking at me in a queer sort of way, and then the doctor came andthey talked together, shut up in Father’s study. I went round outside, and crept up to the windowand I tried to listen. I wanted to hear what they were saying. They were planning together—tosend me away to a place where I’d be shut up! A place where I’d have a ‘course of treatment’—orsomething. They thought, you see, that I was crazy, and I was frightened…Because—because Iwasn’t sure what I’d done or what I hadn’t done.”
“Is that when you ran away?”
“No—that was later—”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“You’ll have to let them know sooner or later where you are—”
“I won’t! I hate them. I hate my father as much as I hate Mary. I wish they were dead. I wishthey were both dead. Then—then I think I’d be happy again.”
“Don’t get all het up! Look here, Norma—” He paused in an embarrassed manner—“I’m notvery set on marriage and all that rubbish…I mean I didn’t think I’d ever do anything of thatkind…oh well, not for years. One doesn’t want to tie oneself up—but I think it’s the best thing wecould do, you know. Get married. At a registry office or something. You’ll have to say you’re overtwenty-one. Roll up your hair, put on some spectacles or something. Make you look a bit older.
Once we’re married, your father can’t do a thing! He can’t send you away to what you call a‘place.’ He’ll be powerless.”
“I hate him.”
“You seem to hate everybody.”
“Only my father and Mary.”
“Well, after all, it’s quite natural for a man to marry again.”
“Look what he did to my mother.”
“All that must have been a long time ago.”
“Yes. I was only a child, but I remember. He went away and left us. He sent me presents atChristmas—but he never came himself. I wouldn’t even have known him if I’d met him in thestreet by the time he did come back. He didn’t mean anything to me by then. I think he got mymother shut up, too. She used to go away when she was ill. I don’t know where. I don’t knowwhat was the matter with her. Sometimes I wonder…I wonder, David. I think, you know, there’ssomething wrong in my head, and someday it will make me do something really bad. Like theknife.”
“What knife?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just a knife.”
“Well, can’t you tell me what you’re talking about?”
“I think it had bloodstains on it—it was hidden there…under my stockings.”
“Do you remember hiding a knife there?”
“I think so. But I can’t remember what I’d done with it before that. I can’t remember where I’dbeen…There is a whole hour gone out of that evening. A whole hour I didn’t know where I’dbeen. I’d been somewhere and done something.”
“Hush!” He hissed66 it quickly as the waitress approached their table. “You’ll be all right. I’lllook after you. Let’s have something more,” he said to the waitress in a loud voice, picking up themenu—“Two baked beans on toast.”
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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disconsolate
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| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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concocted
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| v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 )；调制；编造；捏造 | |
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intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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prudently
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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altercation
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| n.争吵，争论 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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hospitably
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| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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prams
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| n.（手推的）婴儿车( pram的名词复数 ) | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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jotted
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| v.匆忙记下( jot的过去式和过去分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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skulked
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| v.潜伏，偷偷摸摸地走动，鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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drizzle
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| v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨 | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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industriously
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scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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chic
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| n./adj.别致(的)，时髦(的)，讲究的 | |
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skyscrapers
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| n.摩天大楼 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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disabused
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| v.去除…的错误想法( disabuse的过去式和过去分词 )；使醒悟 | |
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disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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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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profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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mermaid
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| n.美人鱼 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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appraising
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| v.估价( appraise的现在分词 )；估计；估量；评价 | |
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lipstick
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| n.口红，唇膏 | |
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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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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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exterminator
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| n.扑灭的人，害虫驱除剂 | |
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killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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