might even please Mr.
Redmain a little, if she were supposed to have used influence on his
side. That, however, must not seem to Hesper. Sepia did not yet know in
fact upon what ground she had to build.

For some time she had been trying to get nearer to Hesper, but--much
like Hesper's experience with her--had found herself strangely baffled,
she could not tell how--the barrier being simply the half innocence,
half ignorance, of Hesper. When minds are not the same, words do not
convey between them.

She gave a ringing laugh, throwing back her head, and showing all her
fine teeth.

"You want to know what I would do with a man I hated, as you _say_ you
hate Mr. Redmain?--I would send for him at once--not wait for him to
come to me--and entreat him, _as he loved me_, to deliver me from the
dire necessity of obeying my father. If he were a gentleman, as I hope
he may be, he would manage to get me out of it somehow, and wouldn't
compromise me a hair's breadth. But, that is, _if I were you_. If I
were _myself_ in your circumstances, and hated him as you do, that
would not serve my turn. I would ask him all the same to set me free,
but I would behave myself so that he could not do it. While I begged
him, I mean, I should make him feel that he could not--should make him
absolutely determined to marry me, at any price to him, and at whatever
cost to me. He should say to himself that I did not mean what I
said--as, indeed, for the sake of my revenge, I should not. For that I
would give anything--supposing always, don't you know? that I hated him
as you do Mr. Redmain. He should declare to me it was impossible; that
he would die rather than give up the most precious desire of his
life--and all that rot, you know. I would tell him I hated him--only so
that he should not believe me. I would say to him, 'Release me, Mr.
Redmain, or I will make you repent it. I have given you fair warning. I
have told you I hated you.' He should persist, should marry me, and
then I _would_."

"Would what?"

"Do as I said."

"But what?"

"Make him repent it."

With the words, Miss Yolland broke into a second fit of laughter, and,
turning from Hesper, went, with a kind of loitering, strolling pace
toward the door, glancing round more than once, each time with a fresh
bubble rather than ripple in her laughter. Whether it was all
nonsensical merriment, or whether the author of laughter without fun,
Beelzebub himself, was at the moment stirrin