Insidious means evil or bad, essentially. The sentence is saying gambling is a bad habit.
A framed narrative happens when the author uses a story and its characters to tell you another story (a story within a story... a storynception). Here, we can observe a character doing a grand opening, and he starts to introduce a character when he says "<span><em>I want to tell you of a marquis, whose actions, even though things turned out well for him in the end, were remarkable not so much for their munificence as for their senseless brutality."
</em>Therefore, you best answer is option B.<em>
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C) -ness
For example, restless, forgetfulness, etc describe people, so -ness is the correct answer.
:)
Answer: D
It should be contradict. The sentence "As much as he tried to contradict the evidence, it was clear he was the thief" gives more clarity and emphasis to the previous sentence of "he tried to deny that the backpack filled with stolen jewelry found beside his car was his."
