“You will do as you choose, of course,” I answered; “as regards Mr. Deville, I can do no more for you than I have done.”
She commenced twisting her fingers nervously together, and her eyes never left my face.
“I think that you could do more than you have done,” she said, meaningly. “You could do more if you would. That is why I am here. I have something to say to you about it.”
“What is it?” I asked. “Better be plain with me. We have been talking riddles long enough.”
“Oh, I will be plain enough,” she declared, with a touch of blunt fierceness in her tone. “I believe that he cares for you, I believe that is why he will not think for a moment even of me. When I tell you that you know of course that I hate you.”
“Oh, yes, I have known that for some time.”
“I hate you!” she repeated, sullenly. “If you were to die I should be glad. If I had the means and the strength, I believe, I am sure that I would kill you myself.”
I rose to my feet with a little shudder. She was terribly in earnest.
“I don’t think, unless you have anything more to say, that it is a particularly pleasant interview for either of us,” I remarked, with my hand upon the bell. But she stopped me.
“I have something else to propose,” she declared. “You have said that you do not love him. Very well. Perhaps his not seeing you has irritated him and made him impatient. See him. Let him ask you—he will not need much encouragement—and refuse him. Answer him so that he cannot possibly make any mistake. Be rude to him if you can. Perhaps then, if he knows that you are not to be moved, he will come to me. Do you understand?”