ive only two miles apart
I have never been inside her aunt's house in my life."

The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus
far he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to
unmask his second argument.

"Well, leaving that out of the question, 'tis in your power, I assure
you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman."

She shook her head.

"Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who see
'ee. They say, 'This well-favoured lady coming--what's her name? How
handsome!' Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright," the reddleman persisted,
saying to himself, "God forgive a rascal for lying!" And she was
handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a
certain obscurity in Eustacia's beauty, and Venn's eye was not trained.
In her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when
observed in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral colour,
but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour.

Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered
her dignity thereby. "Many women are lovelier than Thomasin," she said,
"so not much attaches to that."

The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: "He is a man who notices
the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind,
if you only had the mind."

"Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
living up here away from him."

The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. "Miss Vye!" he said.

"Why do you say that--as if you doubted me?" She spoke faintly, and her
breathing was quick. "The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!"
she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. "What could have been in your
mind to lead you to speak like that?"

"Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don't know this man?--I
know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed."

"You are mistaken. What do you mean?"

The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. "I was at the
meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word," he said. "The
woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself."

It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
Candaules' wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip would
tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept
down.

"I am unwell," she said hurriedly. "No--it is not th