"She is charming," thought Eugene, more and more in love. He looked round him at the room; there was an ostentatious character about the luxury, a meretricious taste in the splendor.英文原著 · 《Father Goriot》
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value-- the description applied to both.英文原著 · 《The Four Million》
It was this man who was to be accounted guilty, even of crime! There came a sudden revulsion of feeling. The whole mechanical outlook upon life, as she had known it, seemed, even in those few seconds, to become a false and meretricious thing. Whatever he had done or countenanced was right. She had betrayed his hospitality. She had committed an infamous breach of trust. An overwhelming desire came over her to tell him everything. She took a quick step forward and found herself face to face with Somerfield.英文原著 · 《The Illustrious Prince》