"I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding."

"As the only lady on the heath I think you might," said Venn with subtle
indirectness. "This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would marry
Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there were not
another woman in the case. This other woman is some person he has picked
up with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He will never
marry her, and yet through her he may never marry the woman who loves
him dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us menfolk,
were to insist that he should treat your young neighbour Tamsin with
honourable kindness and give up the other woman, he would perhaps do it,
and save her a good deal of misery."

"Ah, my life!" said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so
that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar
scarlet fire. "You think too much of my influence over menfolk indeed,
reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go straight and
use it for the good of anybody who has been kind to me--which Thomasin
Yeobright has not particularly, to my knowledge."

"Can it be that you really don't know of it--how much she had always
thought of you?"

"I have never heard a word of it. Although we live 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.