People who have plenty
of money, and neither hope nor aspiration, must become stupid,
except indeed they hate, and then for a time the devil in them
will make them a sort of clever.
Miss Yolland came undulating. No kiss, no greeting whatever
passed between the ladies. Sepia began at once to rearrange a few
hot-house flowers on the mantel-piece, looking herself much like
some dark flower painted in an old missal.
"This day twelve months!" said Hesper.
"I know," returned Sepia.
"If one could die without pain, and there was nothing to come
after!" said Hesper. "What a tiresome dream it is!"
"Dream, or nightmare, or what you will, you had better get all
you can out of it before you break it," said Sepia.
"You seem to think it worth keeping!" yawned Hesper.
Sepia smiled, with her face to the glass, in which she saw the
face of her cousin with her eyes on the fire; but she made no
answer. Hesper went on.
"Ah!" she said, "your story is not mine. You are free; I am a
slave. You are alive; I am in my coffin."
"That's marriage," said Sepia, dryly.
"It would not matter much," continued Hesper, "if you could have
your coffin to yourself; but when you have to share it--ugh!"
"If I were you, then," said Sepia, "I would not lie still; I
would get up and bite--I mean, be a vampire."
Hesper did not answer. Sepia turned from the mirror, looked at
her, and burst into a laugh--at least, the sound she made had all
the elements of a laugh--except the merriment.
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