The night was, at all events, hot and stale, and it was late enough by the time the four ladies had been gathered in, for their small session, at the hotel, where the windows were still open to the high balconies and the flames of the candles, behind the pink shades—disposed as for the vigil of watchers—were motionless in the air in which the season lay dead. What was presently settled among them was that Milly, who betrayed on this occasion a preference more marked than usual, should not hold herself obliged to climb that evening the social stair, however it might stretch to meet her, and that, Mrs. Lowder and Mrs. Stringham facing the ordeal7 together, Kate Croy should remain with her and await their return. It was a pleasure to Milly, ever, to send Susan Shepherd forth8; she saw her go with complacency, liked, as it were, to put people off with her, and noted9 with satisfaction, when she so moved to the carriage, the further denudation—a markedly ebbing10 tide—of her little benevolent11 back. If it wasn't quite Aunt Maud's ideal, moreover, to take out the new American girl's funny friend instead of the new American girl herself, nothing could better indicate the range of that lady's merit than the spirit in which—as at the present hour for instance—she made the best of the minor12 advantage. And she did this with a broad, cheerful absence of illusion; she did it—confessing even as much to poor Susie—because, frankly13, she was good-natured. When Mrs. Stringham observed that her own light was too abjectly14 borrowed and that it was as a link alone, fortunately not missing, that she was valued, Aunt Maud concurred15 to the extent of the remark: "Well, my dear, you're better than nothing." To-night, furthermore, it came up for Milly that Aunt Maud had something particular in mind. Mrs. Stringham, before adjourning16 with her, had gone off for some shawl or other accessory, and Kate, as if a little impatient for their withdrawal17, had wandered out to the balcony, where she hovered18, for the time, unseen, though with scarce more to look at than the dim London stars and the cruder glow, up the street, on a corner, of a small public-house, in front of which a fagged cab-horse was thrown into relief. Mrs. Lowder made use of the moment: Milly felt as soon as she had spoken that what she was doing was somehow for use.
"Dear Susan tells me that you saw, in America, Mr. Densher—whom I've never till now, as you may have noticed, asked you about. But do you mind at last, in connection with him, doing something for me?" She had lowered her fine voice to a depth, though speaking with all her rich glibness20; and Milly, after a small sharpness of surprise, was already guessing the sense of her appeal. "Will you name him, in any way you like, to her"—and Aunt Maud gave a nod at the window; "so that you may perhaps find out whether he's back?"
Ever so many things, for Milly, fell into line at this; it was a wonder, she afterwards thought, that she could be conscious of so many at once. She smiled hard, however, for them all. "But I don't know that it's important to me to 'find out.'" The array of things was further swollen21, however, even as she said this, by its striking her as too much to say. She therefore tried as quickly to say less. "Except you mean, of course, that it's important to you." She fancied Aunt Maud was looking at her almost as hard as she was herself smiling, and that gave her another impulse. "You know I never have yet named him to her; so that if I should break out now——"
"Well?"—Mrs. Lowder waited.
"Why, she may wonder what I've been making a mystery of. She hasn't mentioned him, you know," Milly went on, "herself."
"No"—her friend a little heavily weighed it—"she wouldn't. So it's she, you see then, who has made the mystery."
Yes, Milly but wanted to see; only there was so much. "There has been of course no particular reason." Yet that indeed was neither here nor there. "Do you think," she asked, "he is back?"
"It will be about his time, I gather, and rather a comfort to me definitely to know."
"Then can't you ask her yourself?"
"Ah, we never speak of him!"
It helped Milly for the moment to the convenience of a puzzled pause. "Do you mean he's an acquaintance of whom you disapprove22 for her?"
Aunt Maud, as well, just hung fire. "I disapprove of her for the poor young man. She doesn't care for him."
"And he cares so much——?"
"Too much, too much. And my fear is," said Mrs. Lowder, "that he privately23 besets24 her. She keeps it to herself, but I don't want her worried. Neither, in truth," she both generously and confidentially25 concluded, "do I want him."
Milly showed all her own effort to meet the case. "But what can I do?"
"You can find out where they are. If I myself try," Mrs. Lowder explained, "I shall appear to treat them as if I supposed them deceiving me."
"Well," said Aunt Maud, whose fine onyx eyes failed to blink, even though Milly's questions might have been taken as drawing her rather further than she had originally meant to go—"well, Kate is thoroughly27 aware of my views for her, and that I take her being with me, at present, in the way she is with me, if you know what I mean, as a loyal assent28 to them. Therefore as my views don't happen to provide a place, at all, for Mr. Densher, much, in a manner, as I like him"—therefore, therefore in short she had been prompted to this step, though she completed her sense, but sketchily29, with the rattle30 of her large fan.
It assisted them perhaps, however, for the moment, that Milly was able to pick out of her sense what might serve as the clearest part of it. "You do like him then?"
"Oh dear, yes. Don't you?"
Milly hesitated, for the question was somehow as the sudden point of something sharp on a nerve that winced31. She just caught her breath, but she had ground for joy afterwards, she felt, in not really having failed to choose with quickness sufficient, out of fifteen possible answers, the one that would best serve her. She was then almost proud, as well, that she had cheerfully smiled. "I did—three times—in New York." So came and went for her, in these simple words, the speech that was to figure for her, later on, that night, as the one she had ever uttered that cost her most. She was to lie awake, at all events, half the night, for the gladness of not having taken any line so really inferior as the denial of a happy impression.
For Mrs. Lowder also, moreover, her simple words were the right ones; they were at any rate, that lady's laugh showed, in the natural note of the racy. "You dear American thing! But people may be very good, and yet not good for what one wants."
"Oh, my child, it would take too long just now to tell you all I want! I want everything at once and together—and ever so much for you too, you know. But you've seen us," Aunt Maud continued; "you'll have made out."
"Ah," said Milly, "I don't make out"; for again—it came that way in rushes—she felt an obscurity in things. "Why, if our friend here doesn't like him——"
"Should I conceive her interested in keeping things from me?" Mrs. Lowder did justice to the question. "My dear, how can you ask? Put yourself in her place. She meets me, but on her terms. Proud young women are proud young women. And proud old ones are—well, what I am. Fond of you as we both are, you can help us."
Milly tried to be inspired. "Does it come back then to my asking her straight?"
At this, however, finally, Aunt Maud threw her up. "Oh, if you've so many reasons not——!"
"I've not so many," Milly smiled "but I've one. If I break out so suddenly as knowing him, what will she make of my not having spoken before?"
Mrs. Lowder looked blank at it. "Why should you care what she makes? You may have only been decently discreet34."
"Ah, I have been," the girl made haste to say.
"Besides," her friend went on, "I suggested to you, through Susan, your line."
"Yes, that reason's a reason for me."
"And for me," Mrs. Lowder insisted. "She's not therefore so stupid as not to do justice to grounds so marked. You can tell her perfectly35 that I had asked you to say nothing."
"And may I tell her that you've asked me now to speak?"
Mrs. Lowder might well have thought, yet, oddly, this pulled her up. "You can't do it without——?"
Milly was almost ashamed to be raising so many difficulties. "I'll do what I can if you'll kindly36 tell me one thing more." She faltered37 a little—it was so prying38; but she brought it out. "Will he have been writing to her?"
"It's exactly, my dear, what I should like to know." Mrs. Lowder was at last impatient. "Push in for yourself, and I dare say she'll tell you."
Even now, all the same, Milly had not quite fallen back. "It will be pushing in," she continued to smile, "for you" She allowed her companion, however, no time to take this up. "The point will be that if he has been writing she may have answered."
"But what point, you subtle thing, is that?"
"It isn't subtle, it seems to me, but quite simple," Milly said, "that if she has answered she has very possibly spoken of me."
"Very certainly indeed. But what difference will it make?"
The girl had a moment, at this, of thinking it natural that her interlocutress herself should so fail of subtlety39. "It will make the difference that he will have written to her in answer that he knows me. And that, in turn," our young woman explained, "will give an oddity to my own silence."
"How so, if she's perfectly aware of having given you no opening? The only oddity," Aunt Maud lucidly40 professed41, "is for yourself. It's in her not having spoken."
"Ah, there we are!" said Milly.
And she had uttered it, evidently, in a tone that struck her friend. "Then it has troubled you?"
But ah, the inquiry42 had only to be made to bring the rare colour with fine inconsequence, to her face. "Not, really, the least little bit!" And, quickly feeling the need to abound43 in this sense, she was on the point, to cut short, of declaring that she cared, after all, no scrap44 how much she obliged. Only she felt at this instant too the intervention45 of still other things. Mrs. Lowder was, in the first place, already beforehand, already affected46 as by the sudden vision of her having herself pushed too far. Milly could never judge from her face of her uppermost motive—it was so little, in its hard, smooth sheen, that kind of human countenance47. She looked hard when she spoke19 fair; the only thing was that when she spoke hard she likewise didn't look soft. Something, none the less, had arisen in her now—a full appreciable48 tide, entering by the rupture49 of some bar. She announced that if what she had asked was to prove in the least a bore her young friend was not to dream of it; making her young friend at the same time, by the change in her tone, dream on the spot more profusely50. She spoke with a belated light, Milly could apprehend—she could always apprehend—from pity; and the result of that perception, for the girl, was singular: it proved to her as quickly that Kate, keeping her secret, had been straight with her. From Kate distinctly then, as to why she was to be pitied, Aunt Maud knew nothing, and was thereby51 simply putting in evidence the fine side of her own character. This fine side was that she could almost at any hour, by a kindled52 preference or a diverted energy, glow for another interest than her own. She exclaimed as well, at this moment, that Milly must have been thinking, round the case, much more than she had supposed; and this remark could, at once, affect the girl as sharply as any other form of the charge of weakness. It was what everyone, if she didn't look out, would soon be saying—"There's something the matter with you!" What one was therefore one's self concerned immediately to establish was that there was nothing at all. "I shall like to help you; I shall like, so far as that goes, to help Kate herself," she made such haste as she could to declare; her eyes wandering meanwhile across the width of the room to that dusk of the balcony in which their companion perhaps a little unaccountably lingered. She suggested hereby her impatience53 to begin; she almost overtly54 wondered at the length of the opportunity this friend was giving them—referring it, however, so far as words went, to the other friend, breaking off with an amused: "How tremendously Susie must be beautifying!"
It only marked Aunt Maud, none the less, as too preoccupied55 for her allusion56. The onyx eyes were fixed57 upon her with a polished pressure that must signify some enriched benevolence58. "Let it go, my dear. We shall, after all, soon enough see."
"If he has come back we shall certainly see," Milly after a moment replied; "for he'll probably feel that he can't quite civilly not come to see me. Then there," she remarked, "we shall be. It wouldn't then, you see, come through Kate at all—it would come through him. Except," she wound up with a smile, "that he won't find me."
She had the most extraordinary sense of interesting her interlocutress, in spite of herself, more than she wanted; it was as if her doom59 so floated her on that she couldn't stop—by very much the same trick it had played her with her doctor. "Shall you run away from him?"
She neglected the question, wanting only now to get off. "Then," she went on, "you'll deal with Kate directly."
"Shall you run away from her?" Mrs. Lowder profoundly inquired, while they became aware of Susie's return through the room, opening out behind them, in which they had dined.
This affected Milly as giving her but an instant; and suddenly, with it, everything she felt in the connection rose to her lips in a question that, even as she put it, she knew she was failing to keep colourless. "Is it your own belief that he is with her?"
Aunt Maud took it in—took in, that is, everything of the tone that she just wanted her not to; and the result for some seconds, was but to make their eyes meet in silence. Mrs. Stringham had rejoined them and was asking if Kate had gone—an inquiry at once answered by this young lady's reappearance. They saw her again in the open window, where, looking at them, she had paused—producing thus, on Aunt Maud's part, almost too impressive a "Hush60!" Mrs. Lowder indeed, without loss of time, smothered61 any danger in a sweeping62 retreat with Susie; but Milly's words to her, just uttered, about dealing63 with her niece directly, struck our young woman as already recoiling64 on herself. Directness, however evaded65, would be, fully32, for her; nothing in fact would ever have been for her so direct as the evasion66. Kate had remained in the window, very handsome and upright, the outer dark framing in a highly favourable67 way her summery simplicities68 and lightnesses of dress. Milly had, given the relation of space, no real fear she had heard their talk; only she hovered there as with conscious eyes and some added advantage. Then indeed, with small delay, her friend sufficiently69 saw. The conscious eyes, the added advantage were but those she had now always at command—those proper to the person Milly knew as known to Merton Densher. It was for several seconds again as if the total of her identity had been that of the person known to him—a determination having for result another sharpness of its own. Kate had positively but to be there just as she was to tell her he had come back. It seemed to pass between them, in fine, without a word, that he was in London, that he was perhaps only round the corner; and surely therefore no dealing of Milly's with her would yet have been so direct.
点击收听单词发音
1 proceeding | |
n.行动,进行,(pl.)会议录,学报 | |
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2 organise | |
vt.组织,安排,筹办 | |
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3 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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4 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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5 positively | |
adv.明确地,断然,坚决地;实在,确实 | |
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6 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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7 ordeal | |
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验 | |
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8 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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9 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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10 ebbing | |
(指潮水)退( ebb的现在分词 ); 落; 减少; 衰落 | |
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11 benevolent | |
adj.仁慈的,乐善好施的 | |
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12 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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13 frankly | |
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说 | |
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14 abjectly | |
凄惨地; 绝望地; 糟透地; 悲惨地 | |
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15 concurred | |
同意(concur的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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16 adjourning | |
(使)休会, (使)休庭( adjourn的现在分词 ) | |
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17 withdrawal | |
n.取回,提款;撤退,撤军;收回,撤销 | |
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18 hovered | |
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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19 spoke | |
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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20 glibness | |
n.花言巧语;口若悬河 | |
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21 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
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22 disapprove | |
v.不赞成,不同意,不批准 | |
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23 privately | |
adv.以私人的身份,悄悄地,私下地 | |
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24 besets | |
v.困扰( beset的第三人称单数 );不断围攻;镶;嵌 | |
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25 confidentially | |
ad.秘密地,悄悄地 | |
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26 mused | |
v.沉思,冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 );沉思自语说(某事) | |
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27 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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28 assent | |
v.批准,认可;n.批准,认可 | |
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29 sketchily | |
adv.写生风格地,大略地 | |
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30 rattle | |
v.飞奔,碰响;激怒;n.碰撞声;拨浪鼓 | |
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31 winced | |
赶紧避开,畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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33 assented | |
同意,赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34 discreet | |
adj.(言行)谨慎的;慎重的;有判断力的 | |
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35 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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36 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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37 faltered | |
(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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38 prying | |
adj.爱打听的v.打听,刺探(他人的私事)( pry的现在分词 );撬开 | |
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39 subtlety | |
n.微妙,敏锐,精巧;微妙之处,细微的区别 | |
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40 lucidly | |
adv.清透地,透明地 | |
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41 professed | |
公开声称的,伪称的,已立誓信教的 | |
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42 inquiry | |
n.打听,询问,调查,查问 | |
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43 abound | |
vi.大量存在;(in,with)充满,富于 | |
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44 scrap | |
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废 | |
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45 intervention | |
n.介入,干涉,干预 | |
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46 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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47 countenance | |
n.脸色,面容;面部表情;vt.支持,赞同 | |
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48 appreciable | |
adj.明显的,可见的,可估量的,可觉察的 | |
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49 rupture | |
n.破裂;(关系的)决裂;v.(使)破裂 | |
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50 profusely | |
ad.abundantly | |
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51 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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52 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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53 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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54 overtly | |
ad.公开地 | |
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55 preoccupied | |
adj.全神贯注的,入神的;被抢先占有的;心事重重的v.占据(某人)思想,使对…全神贯注,使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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56 allusion | |
n.暗示,间接提示 | |
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57 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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58 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
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59 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
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60 hush | |
int.嘘,别出声;n.沉默,静寂;v.使安静 | |
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61 smothered | |
(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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62 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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63 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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64 recoiling | |
v.畏缩( recoil的现在分词 );退缩;报应;返回 | |
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65 evaded | |
逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 ); 避开; 回避; 想不出 | |
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66 evasion | |
n.逃避,偷漏(税) | |
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67 favourable | |
adj.赞成的,称赞的,有利的,良好的,顺利的 | |
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68 simplicities | |
n.简单,朴素,率直( simplicity的名词复数 ) | |
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69 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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