It was not by any intention on the part of Godfrey that they met
several times after this; but they always had a little
conversation before they parted; nor did Sepia find any
difficulty in getting him sufficiently within their range to make
him feel the power of her eyes. She was too prudent, however, to
bring to bear upon any man all at once the full play of her
mesmeric battery; and things had got no further when she went to
London--a week or two before the return of the Redmains,
ostensibly to get things in some special readiness for Hesper;
but that this may have been a pretense appears possible from the
fact that Mary came from Cornwall on the same mission a few days
later.
I have just mentioned an acquaintance of Sepia's, who attracted
the notice and roused the peculiar interest of Mr. Redmain,
because of a look he saw pass betwixt them. This man spoke both
English and French with a foreign accent, and gave himself out as
a Georgian--Count Galofta, he called himself: I believe he was a
prince in Paris. At this time he was in London, and, during the
ten days that Sepia was alone, came to see her several times--
called early in the forenoon first, the next day in the evening,
when they went together to the opera, and once came and staid
late. Whether from her dark complexion making her look older than
she was, or from the subduing air which her experience had given
her, or merely from the fact that she belonged to nobody much,
Miss Yolland seemed to have _carte blanche_ to do as she
pleased, and come and go when and where she liked, as one knowing
well enough how to take care of herself.
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